The Boston Red Sox's Garrett Crochet trade undoubtedly made their rotation better. The young lefty flamethrower balances the staff with a lefty arm and electric velocity, but he's just 25-years-old.
One of the only things the Red Sox rotation lacked was a veteran with big league experience to share. They signed one on Dec. 23 — Walker Buehler has agreed to a one-year, $21.05 million deal with Boston, reported by Russell Dorsey of Yahoo! Sports. The deal contains $2.5 million in performance bonuses.
Buehler had been with the Dodgers organization for all seven seasons of his big league career. Boston and Los Angeles have a recent history of coveting the same free agents, with the Dodgers having a much higher signing success rate. They sought to bring Buehler back for 2025, but the Sox signed him first in one of their biggest free agent signings in a few years.
Buehler posted a 5.38 ERA with 64 strikeouts and 28 walks over 75.1 innings with the Dodgers last season. Those stats don't jump off the page, but the 30-year-old has flashed signs of excellent stuff before, including in the 2024 World Series. Buehler pitched 10 scoreless innings in LA's postseason run against the Mets and Yankees, and he even slammed the door on Boston's rival in World Series Game 5 with a strikeout of Alex Verdugo to end the season with a parade in Los Angeles.
Red Sox, RHP Walker Buehler are reportedly in agreement on a one-year contract. pic.twitter.com/6isRYr1yaV
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) December 23, 2024
Buehler is a 3.27 ERA pitcher over 713.2 innings across seven big-league seasons. He's earned two All-Star nods, one in 2019 and the other in 2021, and in both years, he also received Cy Young Award votes. The righty underwent Tommy John surgery in 2022, which caused him to miss all of the 2023 campaign and some of 2024. Before the procedure, he was one of the best starters in the game, with a 3.02 ERA from 2017-22.
Los Angeles made Buehler a qualifying offer (QO) after his World Series heroics, which he declined to become a free agent. The Red Sox will lose a draft pick for signing a QO recipient, but they also received one when five-year Sox Nick Pivetta declined his QO.
The price for which Buehler signed with Boston is the exact same as the 2024 QO figure of $21.05 million. Los Angeles never made him a QO, but there was plenty of debate about whether it should've. The Dodgers were skeptical about Buehler's value and weren't sure the QO would've been worth it, but Boston beat them to the punch — for once.