Red Sox News: Boston tenders contracts to six eligible players for 2021

Red Sox tender contracts to six eligible players ahead of 2021

Today was a big day for the Red Sox as they approached this evening’s 8 pm EST non-tender deadline for the upcoming season. Going into today Boston had six players eligible for arbitration and they were able to come to terms with five of them. The lone man that didn’t agree to a deal was Rafael Devers, the clock now begins as both sides will head towards the inevitable that is arbitration.

The Red Sox recently agreed to a one-year contract with Eduardo Rodriguez ahead of the deadline, locking the lefty in for $8.3M. As the deadline approached the team also agreed to terms with Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, Austin Brice, and Kevin Plawecki.

Everyone saw a pay bump and will be looking to make big waves in the full 2021 season to further increase their stock. Again, Devers has been tendered a contract which locks him to the Red Sox, but the two sides must now negotiate on a new salary for this season.

According to Bob Nightengale, the contract for Matt Barnes was $4.4M. Personally, I think that the Barnes experiment should be over. No more trying him as a closer or giving him the bridge before the closer. It has been done and it did not work out in years past. 2019 was between both Barnes and Brandon Workman to try and close out games and it worked better with the latter.

In 2020, Barnes started really slow but started to show a little more dominance towards the last month of the season. The one thing Barnes will be known for is throwing at Manny Machado after his dirty slide that proved to be the beginning of the end for longtime second baseman Dustin Pedroia.

Also per Nightengale, the Red Sox and Brice came to terms on a one-year/$870K salary for 2021. The reliever came to Boston in his fifth year and posted a 5.95 ERA through 19.2IP where he also owned an 11.4 K/9 and 1.525 WHIP. He had some outings that showed promise but also fell into the same trap as much of the pitching staff, he’s nothing special.

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Kevin Plawecki showed up in 2020 and went on an absolute tear. He batted .341 in 24 games with 17 RBIs. As a back-up catcher, he showed some chemistry with the team. Plawecki signed a $900,000 1-year deal back in January. He proved himself to be worth the money. Hopefully next season, we will get to see him hit in more than 24 games. This was one of the three players I was happy to see tendred a contract. According to Jon Heyman, both sides agreed on $1.6M.

Ryan Brasier has also been tendered a contract. According to Ian Browne, both sides agreed on a $1.25M deal. One of the most iconic memories for me with Brasier was when he was facing Gary Sanchez of the Yankees and he told him to get in the box, but with more colorful wording.

As was mentioned above, Mark Feinsand announced that the Red Sox will tender a contract to Rafael Devers. This is great news for the team as they can surely use the bat in the lineup. The next deadline for Raffy will be January 15th, as he and Boston will need to come to terms by then to avoid arbitration.

Now that the non-tender deadline has come to an end, all we as fans have to do is wait to see what kind of deals Bloom will make with the free-agent pool. We know the team’s needs and now it’s just a matter of time to see if they can fill them. I would like to see him make a call to Archie Bradley who was just non-tendered by the Cinncinatti Reds. I’ll just have to wait and see.