A strong 2025 season in Boston wasn’t enough to overcome age, injury history, and a league afraid of long-term risk.
Earlier this week, my friend Rob Bradford had free agent starting pitcher Lucas Giolito on his “Baseball Isn’t Boring Podcast,” where the 31-year-old was asked whether or not he’d like to return to Boston in 2026.
"I loved it there and I would have loved to go back," said Giolito. "I still would, but if you look at the writing on the wall I don’t think they need another starting pitcher. That’s business, baby! That’s how it goes."
Self-awareness is one of the most important things to have in life, and it appears Giolito has it in spades.
After the Red Sox did not extend a qualifying offer to Giolito back in November, the got to work on adding to an already crowded pitching staff.
As of publishing, this is the group of pitchers in the mix for a spot in Boston’s five-man rotation:
- Garrett Crochet, LHP (duh)
- Sonny Gray, RHP
- Brayan Bello, RHP
- Johan Oviedo, RHP
- Payton Tolle, LHP
- Tanner Houck, RHP
- Kyle Harrison, LHP
- Connelly Early, LHP
- Patrick Sandoval, LHP
- Kutter Crawford, RHP
Would Giolito being in that mix make this a stronger group? Absolutely.
But for what Giolito is looking to make on the open market after the 2025 he had in Boston, it doesn’t look like a reunion is in the cards.
MORE RED SOX STORIES:
Craig Breslow Trades Because He Has To
What Does Brayan Bello’s World Baseball Classic Permission Slip Say About His Future in Boston?
Is Scott Boras Doing Alex Bregman a Disservice?
After missing the entirety of his first season in Boston while recovering from UCL surgery in his right elbow, how much Boston was going to get out of Giolito in 2025 was a massive question mark. But despite the occasional bumps along the way, the former no-hitter-hurler rounded into Boston’s most reliable pitcher not named Crochet, going 10-4 in 26 starts with a 3.41 ERA, striking out 121 hitters across 145.0 innings of work.
Even with that strong recent body of work to use as a selling point during his free agency, Giolito joins a semi-lengthy list of veteran starting pitchers who are currently without work as of December 29. That list includes name brand pitchers like Framber Valdez, Ranger Suarez, Zac Gallen and Chris Bassitt.
One thing all these guys have in common?
All on the “wrong” side of 30.
As a fellow member of the 30-plus club, I find this ageism offensive, and I won’t stand for it any more. 30-to-40-year-olds are humans, too!
In all seriousness, teams are clearly becoming less and less inclined to hand out these big money, five-to-seven year deals to players who are seemingly past their prime.
In a baseball world of yesteryear, guys like this would be receiving big money deals with lots of term, as paying for past performance and short term gain was seen as the price of doing business. Valdez would have signed a five-year deal for over $120 million, and no one would have blinked an eye.
But as teams have seen so many contracts like this blow up in teams’ faces over the years, they’re becoming less and less inclined to put themselves in a bad situation financially (unless, of course, you’re the Dodgers, who somehow have figured out how to stretch everyone’s contract into eternity to avoid paying billions of dollars on their roster every year…but I digress)
Good on Giolito for having the self-awareness necessary to not be upset at the Red Sox for almost certainly not bringing him back for next season - but it’s not because of the reason he told Bradfo.
Giolito has aged into this no-man’s-land of his professional career - overqualified to be signing for cents on the dollar, but past his prime enough with a history of injuries to scare teams away from paying him for the production he likely still can provide.
Does this have anything to do with the impending lockout that could be on tap for December of 2026?
My gut says yes.
How things play out for all these pitchers of a certain age will be something interesting to monitor the remainder of the offseason.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
Remember to join our RED SOX on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Red Sox fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!
Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.