Red Sox
The Red Sox prolonged a $21.05 million qualifying offer to veteran pitcher Nick Pivetta on Monday while waiving a suggestion for outfielder Tyler O'Neill. Pivetta has until November nineteenth to determine whether to just accept or reject the one-year contract.
O'Neill finished the season with 31 home runs and a .241/.336/.511 slash line, while Pivetta had a 4.14 ERA in 26 starts.
Boston Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow discussed the choice on the GM meeting in San Antonio on Monday.
“We’ve talked pretty openly about our need for pitching and obviously we know Nick very well,” Breslow said told reporters. “This is where we ended up. We’ll see how things develop from here.”
This got here after Breslow commented on an episode of “The Greg Hill Show” in September that the team could never have enough quality pitching.
“I think we definitely saw that he was just dominant at times, and obviously we can analyze the performance in more detail,” Breslow said Monday. “But he’s a guy who has done well in this market – he has all the underlying metrics. He gets a lot of swing-and-miss; He's not going for a walk, boys. He can make people pitch in the strike zone.
“When you think about what a major league starting pitcher needs to be able to do to be successful, he has a lot of those ingredients.”
In addition to Pivetta, 12 other MLB players received qualifying offers on Monday, including Yankees outfielder Juan Soto.
The Red Sox will receive draft pick compensation if Pivetta declines the offer and signs with one other team.
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