WHO WILL BE THE RED SOX’S FIFTH STARTER?

The calendar just struck February 12th and that marks the first day of pitchers and catcher workouts in Fort Myers, FL. After yesterday’s decision to finally announce that Ron Roenicke will be the new manager, Red Sox fans don’t have to be as worried about this upcoming season. While at JetBlue stadium in the beating hot sun, there’s still a lot of questions surrounding the team and the biggest question Red Sox fans are wondering is: Who will be the 5th starter for the Red Sox? 

After the team made a blockbuster trade with the Los Angles Dodgers this past week when they sent Mookie Betts and David Price to LA. Even though in my opinion, the trade was a perfect move for the thin pocket payroll situation the Red Sox were in before the trade and the glaring possibility that Mookie Betts could walk away from Beantown during next offseason. Now the Dodgers have to take on Mookie’s $27 million and half of Price’s $31 per year but $96 million for the next three years, which helps the Sox get under the luxury tax threshold and give them $48 million less off the book this season.

Now that Chaim Bloom, the President of Baseball Operations and the rest of the front office finally has little breathing room to fill a few needs on the roster, I believe the head honchos need to make something happen soon. Since the rotation was one of the biggest reasons that the team didn’t live up to high expectations last year, it’s a glaring concern on the roster with Opening Day coming very quickly. The rotation owned an ERA of 4.80, with Rick Porcello topping the embarrassing pitching statistics with a 5.52 ERA. Thank goodness the Red Sox had some common sense and didn’t resign inconsistent Porcello but the position still isn’t a strength for the team. Especially with past history in the MLB playoffs, pitching wins championships, so with a staff that tops off with injury prone Chris Sale, followed by double Tommy John Nathan Eovaldi, rising star Eduardo Rodriguez and medicare Martin Perez.

With the past injuries from the top two guys in the rotation, the thin amount of quality talent in the rotation makes me nervous because the team doesn’t have any quality rotation fill ins, let alone a viable 5th starter. There are still some quality low risk and low valued players on the free agent market that would be able to make a huge impact in the back end of the Red Sox’s rotation. Guys like Danny Salazar, Aaron Sanchez and Collin McHugh would be minor league “prove it” signings that could make big impacts. The Sox already missed out on 27 year old Taijuan Walker who just signed a one year $2 million deal with the Mariners and that’s a former top prospect and someone that is destined for a strong comeback campaign in 2020.

Even though guys like Sanchez and Salazar aren’t players that make jump out of your seat in excitement, they’re still guys will be better than any internal option that the Red Sox have. The newly named intertim manager Ron Roenicke has a very open minded opinion to the situation when he stated today in a press conference: “I think the opener is a possibility when you don’t have your five guys that you really like,” Roenicke said. “Obviously, Chaim (Bloom) is very familiar with it. In talking to him about it, it wasn’t like, ‘Well, this is what we want to do.’ It was, ‘What’s the personnel we have and what’s the best way to get these guys to perform at a level where we hope they can be.’ It ends up happening to be a couple days where we have openers. He’s okay if we go there, but if we can fill it with a fifth guy, he’s okay if we don’t go there. So I think we just see where we end up here at the end of camp. If we have one day of an opener, we have one day. It’s okay.” Since his boss Chaim Bloom was the orchestrator of the opener idea over in Tampa Bay, he could look to see how a similar process is done in that fifth spot for a few months to start the season.

A few internal options for the position are guys Kyle Hart, Mike Shawaryn, Hector Velazquez and Ryan Weber. Tanner Houck or Brian Johnson could join the mix with impressive spring and newcomers Matt Hall, Chris Mazza and Jeffrey Springs could all factor in as well. This fifth starter situation could be very interesting to keep an eye on before Opening Day because the team could go multiple avenues in my opinion. I still believe it’s best to go on the open market and sign a low risk free agent but we’ll see what the pitching genius Chaim Bloom thinks.