Why Did The Red Sox Extend The Qualifying Offer To Nick Pivetta?

There’s a lot of confusion about the fact that, last night, the Red Sox offered Nick Pivetta the one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer for 2025. That confusion is understandable given that, frankly, it doesn’t seem that the Red Sox actually want Nick Pivetta on the team all that much.

In his four full seasons with the Sox, Pivetta has produced a 102 ERA+ in 129 total games (105 as a starter), which means he has been two percent better than a league average pitcher. And while he tantalizes with big strikeout numbers, flashy underlying metrics, the occasional seven-inning shutout, and extended stretches in which he appears to be one of the very best pitchers in baseball, we know enough now to say definitively that this is who he is. He’s a guy who is going to take the ball every five days and be fine. Not great, not terrible — just fine.

Up to this point, the Sox have responded to Pivetta’s overwhelming just-fineness without much enthusiasm. He has been moved in and out of the rotation frequently and asked to fight for his roster spot in spring training. And while Brayan Bello was signed to a contract extension before the 2024 season began and Craig Breslow engaged in extension talks with Tanner Houck, the club appeared to be more than happy to let Pivetta reach the end of his contract and walk away. Reportedly, no extension talks between Pivetta and the Sox have ever taken place.

So why, Sox fans are asking, would the team commit $21.5 million and a roster spot to someone they don’t seem to value all that much?

It’s a reasonable question, but one that has an easy answer: the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers currently maintain a payroll over $300 million (including luxury tax costs). This payroll includes salaries for SEVEN different pitchers who have either been named All-Stars, or received votes for the Cy Young or Rookie of the Year (Shohei Ohtani, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Jack Flaherty, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, and Tyler Glasnow). This doesn’t even account for the number of tantalizing younger talents who will likely receive such plaudits in the future, players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and River Ryan.

And yet, despite all of their pitching talent, the Dodgers were forced to throw a planned bullpen game in the World Series last week.

This is simply the state of pitching in 2024. A smart front office goes into every season assuming that two or three pitchers will go down with serious injuries. And while the Dodgers have the smartest front office in baseball and are better situated to deal with these injuries than anyone, they STILL didn’t have enough pitching at the end of the season! The Dodgers would have LOVED to have been able to give the ball to Nick Pivetta against the Yankees in Game Four.

So while Nick Pivetta is and always will be just fine, a just fine starting pitcher is an incredibly valuable thing. By extending Pivetta the qualifying offer, the Red Sox will either have another just fine pitcher to work into their 2025 plans, or an early round draft pick. There’s not much of a downside here.

Now here’s the tricky part. If the Red Sox have truly internalized the lesson of the Dodgers, then they will go get more pitching — a lot more pitching. Even if he accepts the qualifying offer, the Red Sox cannot go into 2025 with a gift-wrapped rotation spot for Nick Pivetta. They need two more top-of-the-rotation starters, either pushing Pivetta and the other back-of-the-rotation options like Kutter Crawford to bullpen/depth rolls, or using them as trade pieces.

You can never have too much pitching. But too much mediocre pitching doesn’t get you anywhere. Extending the qualifying offer to Nick Pivetta was an easy choice. Now comes the hard part.