Red Sox should consider signing Rick Porcello a priority

The Boston Red Sox will have quite a collection of free agents after the 2019 season.  One that seems to have generated concern is Rick Porcello.

The consensus focal point for pending Red Sox free agents circulates around Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts. Sale – especially with a quality 190 inning season – will watch the suitors line up to bestow baseball riches to secure his dynamic left arm. And Bogaerts who is entering his prime baseball years may be on the precipice of at least a seven-year and possible ten-year contract.

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The great mixing bowl of Red Sox free agents offers an entertaining list of talents such as Steve Pearce, Mitch Moreland, Brock Holt, Eduardo Nunez, and the possible opt-out of J.D. Martinez. One notable that I would concentrate efforts upon is Rick Porcello who appears to have drifted into an area of little mention or little concern.

Porcello is applying the finishing touches on a four-year and $82.5M contract that he inked in 2015 and promptly responded by delivering a dismal 9-15 season and raising the specter of another contract that potentially will be flushed. Porcello then turned it around with a 22 win season and a Cy Young Award and promptly turned it around once again with an American League-leading 17 losses in 2017.

In 2018 Porcello once again stabilized his mysterious season to season shifting and won 17 games, took his usual 30+ starts, and tossed almost 200 innings. Porcello is remarkably inconsistent year-to-year, but not in starts or innings which is where Porcello displays a remarkable consistency. The pitching pedigree of being an “inning eater” certainly applies to Porcello with the only disclosure being the quality of some of those innings.

Porcello will not be Sale or David Price, but he will not represent a possible budget buster in the salary structure of baseball today. If you go by either fWAR or bWAR then Porcello earned his money last season. If Porcello replicates that in 2019 then he is most worthy to be approached for another contract.

Porcello is and has been a stabilizing part of the Boston and previously the Tigers rotations. The final statistics may not be pitching sexy, but do certainly show a hurler who could be classified as a mid-rotation plus or even a number two in the rotational pecking order based on the performances of others.

Just what will Porcello get with his next contract? I would first look inward and that would be Nathan Eovaldi who signed a very comfortable four-year and $68M Red Sox contract. Porcello is worth more. That becomes – at least for me – a baseline. I would certainly see Porcello enjoying a contract that reflects his previous one and possibly exceeds it, but that is all down the base paths at this point. Need is not.

The Red Sox have a history – a rather bleak history – of developing pitching talent within their farm system. There is nothing on the immediate horizon to suddenly have a eureka moment where the rotation becomes flush with arms – quality arms- from the minors. Maybe that will change in 2021 or 2022, but in the meantime, you need some quality filler and that is Rick Porcello. Even more, needed if you consider the possibility of Sale taking his immense talent elsewhere.

The whole complex situation is dependent on factors and that is Porcello’s performance, Sale not morphing into Drew Pomeranz, market conditions, and Porcello’s contractual demand. I doubt you will see Porcello pricing himself out of the market like Craig Kimbrel. So the subtext to all the free agent ballyhoo in 2019 is to keep an eye on the one item that may be both signable and able to minimize health risks.