The Red Sox may not yet be completely done with their offseason, as Sean McAdam of MassLive reports that the club remains interested in improving their left-handed bullpen depth before the season begins. McAdam adds that Boston intends to have scouts monitoring players in other organizations during camp as they conduct their search.
That the Red Sox might want addition left-handed bullpen help isn’t exactly a shock. The team is incredibly deep in right-handed bullpen options, with Garrett Whitlock, Justin Slaten, Greg Weissert, and Zack Kelly all more or less already assured of roles and a plethora of non-roster invitees including Vinny Nittoli, Kyle Keller, Osvaldo Bido, and Hobie Harris. From the left side, however, Boston has just three credible options: Aroldis Chapman, Jovani Moran, and Tyler Samaniego. Chapman, of course, is locked into the closer role. That leaves only Moran and Samaniego as an option to serve as a matchup lefty prior to the ninth inning. Moran has just four innings of work at the big league level over the past two years, and Samaniego has yet to make his big league debut.
Sensible as it would be for the team to look to add more lefty bullpen help, the Red Sox seem committed to doing so only on their terms. McAdam notes that the club has made clear neither of the team’s top left-handed pitching prospects, Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, will be considered for moves into the big league bullpen. Both Tolle and Early are currently squeezed out of Boston’s deep rotation on paper, but it’s not hard to see why the team might prefer to have them stay stretched out at Triple-A, where they won’t need to adapt to a new role and won’t garner big league service time.
Likewise, McAdam indicates that the team doesn’t have much interest in adding free agent on a major league contract at this point. Experienced, big league caliber southpaws including veteran Danny Coulombe and Jalen Beeks remain available in free agency, but McAdam suggests that those free agency are currently holding out for big league deals. Perhaps that stance could change in the coming weeks as Spring Training drags on, but for now that seems to leave the Red Sox scouting for waiver claims and trade additions.
Few clubs are going to willingly surrender relief depth at this point in the calendar given the possibility of injuries in their own bullpen before Opening Day. With that being said, there are some options who could plausibly be available. Ryan Borucki (White Sox), Cionel Perez (Nationals), Tayler Saucedo (Angels), Cam Booser (Rays), and Genesis Cabrera (Phillies) are among the notable non-roster invitees in other camps this spring who might be unable to secure a spot with their current club. Meanwhile, Tyler Gilbert (White Sox) and Ryan Rolison (Cubs) are among the 40-man lefties who are either out of options or could otherwise be squeezed out of their team’s roster at some point this spring.
One other possibility worth giving a particular mention to is Cardinals lefty JoJo Romero. Romero has been a known trade candidate all throughout the offseason, and while at this point he appears to be the favorite to serve as St. Louis’s closer in 2026, the rebuilding Cardinals have traded every other pending free agent from their 2025 roster this winter except for the southpaw. It certainly stands to reason that president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom would part ways with Romero in the right deal, and successful trades of both Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras from St. Louis to Boston earlier this winter show that Bloom and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow are certainly comfortable working with each other.
