In market for pitching, Craig Breslow may have to part with top prospects

NASHVILLE — There’s plenty of pitching to be had this winter, which is a good thing for the Red Sox and more than half the teams in both leagues, all in search of it.

But there are strings attached.

If you want one of the elite free agents like Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Blake Snell, it’s going to cost well north of $200 million.

If you want to trade for the handful of starters being made available on the trade market, many of those are short-term rentals, with most eligible for free agency a year from now. That doesn’t address Boston’s rotation problems for the long-term.

Of course, there’s a third path: trade for younger starting pitchers with more seasons of control. But to acquire that, a team will have to give up one of its top three or so prospects, plus additional young talent — a steep cost.

What to do?

“That’s the conundrum, right?” acknowledged Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow on the first full day of the Winter Meetings. “Controllable starting pitching is coming at a premium this season. But the value of controllable pitching is you don’t have to dip into free agency every single year.

“So as we talk about this level of consistency and quality that we’re trying to build here, control is a really important part of that.”

Usually, when a team talks control, it’s talking about the ability to throw strikes and avoid walks. But not here: the control Breslow seeks is contractual control and the security that comes from knowing that a front-line pitcher is under team control for multiple seasons before reaching free agency.

If the Red Sox were closer to being a playoff contender, there might be a case to be made to trade for, say, Corbin Burnes or Shane Bieber or Tyler Glasnow. They could rationalize giving up a good prospect and a young player off the major league roster for the chance to win it all in 2024.

But because the Sox have finished last two years in a row and three times in the last four years and they are in need of several upgrades. And because the organization’s best starting pitching prospects — Wikelman Gonzalez and Luis Perales — are, at minimum, a year and a half away, the Red Sox would run the risk of needing more quality starting pitching a year from now if they didn’t successfully extend the short-term rental for which they traded.

Meanwhile, the top starter at Triple A Worcester last year was lefty Shane Drohan, whom the team was willing to leave unprotected for Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft.

“As we think about who the premium prospects in the organization are,” said Breslow, “it’s not a secret that most of them are on the position player side.”

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Indeed, when it comes to position player capital, the Red Sox are in much better shape. Shortstop Marcelo Mayer, outfielder Roman Anthony and catcher Kyle Teel are all Top 50 prospects through the industry. Each one is elite and could be ready to step in as everyday contributors as soon as the 2025 season. Would the Red Sox consider trading one of the three for a young quality starter they could control for three or more seasons?

“Untouchable is a tough word, right?” said Breslow. “Because in reality, our goal is to win as many major league games as we possibly can. I think there are prospects who are going to contribute toward that, but if we have the opportunity to win more games by making them available in a trade, we need to consider that.”

Breslow may be new to the job, but he’s already paying the price for the organization’s poor track record of developing homegrown starting pitching over the last 15 years. Brayan Bello has shown the potential to end that drought, but he qualifies as the only starter since Clay Buchholz to emerge as a No. 1 or No. 2 starter.

On the free agent front, Snell comes with draft pick compensation attached thanks to a qualifying offer, which would seem to be eliminate him from consideration. Beyond the lefty and Yamamoto, the rest of the free agent market doesn’t qualify as elite, though Jordan Montgomery might come close.

After that, there’s the trade market. And the Red Sox have apparently decided, if they have to deal for pitching, they might as well trade for someone who they’re going to control for three or more seasons. Seattle’s Logan Gilbert is one such option.

Breslow again pointed out that the team has a number of back-end candidates in Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock and Kutter Crawford, all of whom he said have “starter upside.”

But none of those three is likely to have the kind of front-of-the-rotation impact. To get that the Red Sox will have to pay a heavy price, and with the way the market’s shaking out, that’s likely to be not in the form of a big check, but rather, some really prized prospects.