Two months ago, Michael Wacha was good again. His pitch mix was new, his ERA was falling, and the first-place Rays were leaning on him down the stretch. The Red Sox, it seems, took notice.
According to a report from ESPN, the Red Sox and Wacha are finalizing a one-year deal for next season. It is not the type of addition to instantly revitalize the rotation and single-handedly make up for the loss of Eduardo Rodriguez, but it does fit with the team’s focus on pitching depth and its search for secondary players with upside.
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Wacha, who turned 30 in July, pitched to a 5.05 ERA last season, and many of his expected statistics — the ones based on Statcast’s batted-ball measurements — were similar to those of Red Sox starter-turned-reliever Martín Pérez. Wacha and Pérez went through some of the same ups and downs throughout the year.
At the end, though, Wacha was better. He had a 2.88 ERA in his final seven games, six of them starts, and his last two regular-season starts were on the road in Houston and New York. He went five scoreless innings each time.
“We’re looking at his stuff, his command, his competitiveness, the way he’s willing to make adjustments,” Rays vice president of player development Peter Bendix told the Tampa Bay Times in September. “With Wacha, we saw a lot of positives there before we signed him, as well as through the first couple of months of the season.”
Signed for $3 million last winter, Wacha did start strong. He had a 3.86 ERA in April and was still decent through the middle of June — kind of like Pérez and Garrett Richards for the Red Sox last season — but Wacha stumbled badly in the middle of the season before making a key change to his repertoire. Note the brownish line in the Baseball Savant chart of his pitch usage.
Wacha went from throwing more than 30 percent cutters to dumping the pitch altogether. He gradually increased the use of the changeup, which had long been one of his strengths, and he also threw more curveballs, something he’d done in St. Louis earlier in his career.
That doesn’t mean Wacha’s small sample of seven good games down the stretch is sustainable, but it is notable considering the Red Sox’s recent tendency to stockpile as much rotation depth as possible.
As it stands, the Red Sox have Nathan Eovaldi, Chris Sale and Nick Pivetta returning to their rotation. They also have Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock as young in-house options for two more spots, plus improved depth in the upper levels of their minor-league season to provide additional options as needed.
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But the Red Sox have lost Rodriguez, Pérez, Richards and Matt Andriese to free agency this winter. Andriese wasn’t very effective, and Pérez and Richards were inconsistent, but those were four pieces of the depth that chief baseball officer Chiam Bloom has emphasized since taking over baseball operations two years ago. It’s safe to assume Bloom will want to replace much of that lost depth this offseason. Wacha seems to be the first step toward that goal.
“I think by the time the offseason is over, we will have added pitching of various sorts, including starting pitching,” Bloom said earlier this week. “I think that’s something that’s a clear goal of ours.”
The market for starting pitching has been active in recent weeks. Most of the biggest names have yet to sign (Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray, Marcus Stroman, Kevin Gausman), but Rodriguez’s five-year deal with the Tigers kicked off a spree of free-agent pitcher signings that’s already seen Justin Verlander (Astros), Steven Matz (Cardinals), Noah Syndergaard (Angels) and Anthony DeSclafani (Giants) sign deals worth more than $20 million. Financial details of Wacha’s reported agreement were not immediately available, but his contract won’t come close to that $20 million threshold (he made just $3 million last year), which means the Red Sox still have financial room to maneuver. Wacha gives them one more name for the depth chart.
(Photo: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)
