An interesting few days for the Boston Red Sox

There was a time, and Orioles fans don’t have to go far back to remember it, when the Boston Red Sox response to 78 wins and a last-place finish, would have been to spend money. And then spend more.

Throw dollars at their problems. And sometimes that worked.

But recent moves by that team make this look like very different times in Beantown. Rather than sign a top free-agent pitcher like Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery (and they still could of course), the Sox recently agreed to a two-year deal with right-hander Lucas Giolito for $38.5 million. A nearly $20 million dollar salary for a pitcher who had a terrible ending to his 2023 season and allowed 41 homers over the season.

That was followed a day or two later by a trade of lefty Chris Sale for young infielder Vaughn Grissom. A deal where Boston sends $17 million to Atlanta to complete the trade.

Now Sale is no longer anywhere near the pitcher he once was. He’s dealt with numerous injuries for a while now. But while Giolito ended the ’23 season pitching terribly, Sale posted an ERA of 3.92 his last nine starts of the season with 54 strikeouts over 43 2/3. In addition, he gave up just a .203 batting average against and .667 OPS against in that time. It had to give Atlanta hope he still has something left in the tank for next season.

But Boston will still save some money by not paying Sale his entire 2024 salary. Instead, they added dollars to take on Giolito, who pitched well earlier in the 2023 season for the White Sox, but who, in his last 11 starts of the year, had an ERA of 7.14, a .919 OPS against and gave up 19 homers over 58 innings.

Giolito’s deal even includes an opt-out clause after the 2024 season. He got a pretty good contract, if you ask me, after pitching to an ERA of 4.89 and allowing 1.7 homers per nine the last two seasons. His ERA+ was 86, or 14 percent below league average. Still, he will earn nearly $20 million next year. If he pitches great, he can opt-out. If he pitches poorly, another big salary awaits in 2025.

Boston is taking a gamble that he can get to back to the 2019-2021 version that had an ERA of 3.47 and got Cy Young votes.

But for a Red Sox team that was 11^th in the AL in team ERA last season and was 12^th in rotation ERA at 4.68, adding a pitcher who ended the year pitching so poorly and subtracting one that pitched much better is an interesting series of moves.

Some analysts seemed quite positive on the Giolito pickup for Boston, perhaps just overlooking his 2023 finish and/or expecting him to reclaim his previous form.

It’s also possible that a team that won 78 games is throwing at least some money at a problem (okay a much smaller amount of money compared to some contracts) that may not actually move the needle very much. But Giolito must have had some suitors for Boston to have given up those dollars plus an opt-out after one season.

For Boston, deals or moves could be coming that significantly improve their roster, but these recent moves didn’t seem to do that.

FWIW: In his year-end awards Jon Heyman of the New York Post named the O's Mike Elias his top executive for the 2023 year with the World Series execs finishing second (Mike Hazen, Diamondbacks) and third (Chris Young, Rangers).

The O''s Brandon Hyde was second for best manager and Felix Bautista second for best reliever.