The Boston Red Sox are still looking for additional bullpen help and, like several other clubs, had their sights set on lefty Tanner Scott, who pitched last season for the San Diego Padres. But on Sunday, Scott chose to move up the California coastline to Los Angeles, signing a four-year, $72 million deal to pitch with the increasingly loaded reigning World Series champion Dodgers.
Scott is just the latest high-profile acquisition for the Dodgers, who have added Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández, Roki Sasaki and now Scott over just the last three offseasons.
The Red Sox were undoubtedly in pursuit of Scott, but a report by longtime baseball insider journalist Bob Nightengale that the 30-year-old 2024 All-Star was offered more money and more years by Boston but chose Los Angeles anyway was described as "very inaccurate" by "someone with knowledge of the process," according to a report Sunday by Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
So where does that leave Boston's search for at least one more solid bullpen arm? The team wants to be sure to secure the back end of games for what looks like the team's most promising starting rotation since the World Series-winning year of 2018.
Cotillo and another Boston media fixture, John Tomase formerly of NBC Sports Boston, both predict the Red Sox will look closely at several remaining candidates. And high on the list is a hurler once hated in Boston simply for being one of the most effective bullpen pitchers on the New York Yankees staff.
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Robertson, now 39 years old, was paid $10 million to pitch for the Texas Rangers last season, but after an unexpectedly good performance, chose to decline his $7 million option to spend another year in Texas and look for a new home via free agent market.
"The Red Sox need arms and they need leaders, and Robertson fills the bill," Tomase wrote earlier in the offseason. "The last active member of the 2009 World Series champion Yankees, Robertson just improbably posted one of the highest strikeout rates of his career (33.5 percent) with the Rangers."
Tomase predicted a one-year, $14 million contract for Robertson, and Cotillo also said that a "short-term, high-AAV deal" would "make sense" for the righty cutter specialist who will be pitching in his 17th major league season.
Though Robertson will turn 40 on April 9, the date of the 13th game in the Red Sox schedule, a Baseball Reference projection sees him posting a healthy 3.44 ERA and striking out 76 in 68 innings in the upcoming season.
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