Red Sox Free Agency: Rick Porcello reportedly signs with New York Mets

The Boston Red Sox pitching staff took another hit as free-agent starter Rick Porcello agreed to terms and will be heading to the Big Apple.

It’s been a quiet offseason so far for the Red Sox and their free-agents. Not only those in which they may have their sights on but for those that are departing the team. That changed today though as veteran righty Rick Porcello has reportedly signed with the Mets pending a physical.

Per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Porcello will be heading to the Big Apple for a cool one-year, $10 million deal. It’s a decrease in pay for the starter but with how his 2019 went it’s not much of a shock. Having gone just 14-12 this past season, the market wasn’t the hottest for the starter.

Over the weekend, the noise surrounding the Mets deal began to get louder but we also heard that the Red Sox may be looking at re-signing their longtime rotation man as well. With the mandates sent down from the ownership group to new boss Chaim Bloom, it seemed highly unlikely that Boston would spend the money needed to re-sign Pretty Ricky.

Red Sox Nation seemingly had a love-hate relationship with Porcello is it never felt like he could hit the consistency they wanted. I for one can admit that I wasn’t always the right-handers biggest supporter. During my annual trip to Fenway Park this year I actually sold my tickets to a game Rick was scheduled to start in favor of seeing Eduardo Rodriguez the next night.

Lucky for me, both pitchers would throw absolute gems that weekend, but I was kicking myself for not supporting Porcello in what would be one of his final Fenway starts in a Red Sox uniform. A change of scenery may be good for Porcello as his time in Boston felt like it was more than over. The final nail in the coffin coming before this past season when he expressed his desire for an extension for less money with no response from the front office.

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His time in Boston was massively successful, earning him a Cy Young Award in 2016 and a World Series championship in 2018. Rick will also go down as the winningest pitcher of the 2010s for the Red Sox with a final tally of 73-55. He may not be as flashy as Chris Sale or have the heat of Nathan Eovaldi, but his efforts were always pure and he never left anything on the field.

If you look at the career of Rick Porcello you’ll see that he’s the definition of a roller-coaster pitcher. No two consecutive seasons look the same and he’ll find the highest highs as well as the lowest lows. His Cy Young season saw him record a 22-4 record, but it was sandwiched between a 9-15 in 2015 and 11-17 in 2017. It seemed like he could never find that magic something that would allow him to be consistent year to year.

The Sox find themselves in a very interesting predicament as they need to bolster their pitching staff but are handcuffed in the spending department. Not to mention, Boston doesn’t have the best track record for developing homegrown pitching talent. Bloom will have his hands full with not only trying to course-correct the farm system while fielding a contender in 2020. He’ll need to find a way to strengthen this pitching staff while also keeping to a tight budget.

Boston will need to find someone to not only fill the vacancy in the starting lineup but the massive gap left by the departure of the righty. I’d like to thank Rick for everything he did on and off the field while with the Red Sox as he was a model player and teammate. I wish him nothing but the best in his future with the Mets and hope he shines with the lights on the brightest.