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The Red Sox are going to sign left-hander Ranger Suárez, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. It’s a five-year deal worth $130MM, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. There are no deferrals and no opt-outs, per Nightengale. The Sox have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move in order to accommodate the Boras Corporation client.
The Sox came into the offseason with a rotation headlined by Garrett Crochet, followed by a notable gap to their other starters. They had a lot of options for back-end types and depth but were looking to bolster the front end.
“Because of the depth that we’ve built up over the last couple of years, we feel pretty good about just overall starting pitching, maybe No. 3-ish through No. 10-ish,” was how chief baseball officer Craig Breslow framed the situation in November. “And that’s not to take away from guys who are certainly capable of doing more, and more just to say I don’t think we’re going to spend a ton of time trying to add a No. 4, No. 5 starter.”
Since then, Breslow has made a couple of moves to alter that rotation group. He acquired Sonny Gray from the Cardinals and Johan Oviedo from the Pirates. They subtracted a bit from the depth by including Richard Fitts in the Gray deal and Hunter Dobbins in the Willson Contreras swap.
Gray is arguably the kind of #2 starter the club was looking for. His 4.28 earned run average in 2025 has some Boston fans disputing that assessment but he has a 3.63 ERA, 27% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate and 44.6% ground ball rate in 531 innings dating back to the start of 2023. FanGraphs ranks him fifth in wins above replacement among pitchers in that time, behind only Tarik Skubal, Zack Wheeler, Logan Webb and Cristopher Sánchez.
Since the Gray deal, Boston has seemingly been more focused on upgrading its lineup and position player mix, targeting infielders like Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, Ketel Marte, Brendan Donovan and Isaac Paredes.
The club has hit a bit of a wall there. Bregman has signed with the Cubs. The Diamondbacks have reportedly taken Marte off the market. The Astros don’t seem to have much interest in moving Paredes. Bichette is still unsigned but it’s unclear if the Sox would be willing to go to the lengths necessary to sign him. Donovan should still be available but the Sox haven’t met their asking price, at least not yet.
In the wake of Bregman’s agreement with Chicago, Rob Bradford of WEEI as well as Sean McAdam and Chris Cotillo of MassLive suggested Boston could switch their focus to starting pitching. Earlier today, Bradford suggested the club was getting more aggressive on the trade market but they have gone to free agency instead.
The contract is notable on a few fronts. For one, Breslow has generally avoided long-term free agent deals since becoming Boston’s chief baseball officer. Coming into today, his longest deal for a free agent was to give Bregman three years, which turned into a one-year relationship when Bregman opted out. The Sox came into today as the only one of the 30 major league clubs to not have signed a free agent this winter. This deal will be a new benchmark for Breslow in terms of years and guarantee given to a free agent.
More to come.