Thursday on MLBTR: Red Sox Make Commitment To RHP Brayan Bello
Red Sox Extend Brayan Bello
The Red Sox finalized a six-year, $55-million extension with righty Brayan Bello on Thursday. The pact adds two years to Boston’s control over Bello via the sixth guaranteed season and a $21-million club option for 2030.
Bello will receive a $1-million signing bonus and $1-million salary this season followed by salaries of $2.5 million in 2025, $6 million in 2026, $8.5 million in 2027, $16 million in 2028, and $19 million for 2029. The club option has a $1-million buyout, and the deal includes bonuses and escalators based on All-Star selections and Cy Young votes.
The overall size of the contract is comparable to the six-year, $53-million extension the Reds signed righty Hunter Greene to last April, when he was in the same service bucket as Bello is now (between one and two years of major-league service).
Bello was a well-regarded prospect, who made his major-league debut in July 2022, and led the Red Sox in starts (28), innings (157), and wins (12) in 2023.
A groundball pitcher, Bello has posted a consistently below-average strikeout rate (20.0 percent compared to the league average of 22.6 percent) across his 214 1/3 major-league innings. As a rookie in 2022, his inflated walk rate resulted in a mere 2.04 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Bello got his walks under control in 2023, but he gave up 24 home runs in just 157 innings, a huge total for a pitch-to-contact groundballer.
He also was in the bottom 13 percent of the league in hard-hit percentage, per Statcast. In the second half of last season, Bello posted a 5.49 ERA with diminished peripherals.
On The Horizon
Fellow righty Tanner Houck cold be next in line for an extension. He told Rob Bradford of WEEI that he has had talks with the team. Houck will be arbitration-eligible for the first time next offseason and is under team control through his age-31 season in 2027.
Injury News
Cubs RHP Caleb Kilian has a teres major strain and could miss as much as the first half of the coming season, manager Craig Counsell told reporters.
Opening Day Rumors
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts refused to commit to Gavin Lux as the team’s Opening Day shortstop when speaking to the media on Thursday. Per MLBTR’s Anthony Franco, Lux has been shaky in the field in the early going, particularly with his throwing. The Dodgers have Miguel Rojas, Enrique Hernández, and Chris Taylor, all right-handed hitters, as alternatives at the position.
Marlins LHP A.J. Puk is “a frontrunner” to claim a spot in Miami’s Opening Day rotation, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
Minor-League Transactions:
Giants signed RHP Justin Garza to a minor-league contract, per Ari Alexander of KPRC 2.
Pirates signed LHP Eric Lauer to a minor-league contract, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Ask Darragh
Why does it seem that MLB teams that spend high amounts (Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, etc.) get penalized more that teams that hardly spend any money on payroll? I get the need for putting something in place so the Pirates, for example, can compete with teams like the Yankees. It just feels like teams should actually be rewarded for spending and teams that don't should have some tougher penalties. Obviously a salary cap is never going to happen, but this current system needs to fixed, or am I wrong?—Anthony
Darragh: The league has a number of rules in place that are supposed to help with competitive balance, so that the richer clubs don’t just win all the time and the clubs with less money have a chance. The latter clubs get revenue sharing, extra draft picks, and larger pools to spend on international prospects. The larger playoff field is mostly about extra revenue but also makes it easier for smaller clubs to find success. This also includes the competitive balance tax, which makes it harder for the wealthier clubs to use their financial might to their advantage.
You are not the only one to be dissatisfied with the current state of things, and the system will probably never be constructed in a way that’s perfectly satisfactory to everybody. That’s because all of these elements have to be collectively bargained between the league and the MLBPA whenever a collective bargaining agreement is winding down.
Broadly speaking, the two sides have different priorities in moving the levers to alter this system, and the end result will be a compromise somewhere in the middle. The players want to encourage as much spending as possible, so they would love to get rid of the luxury tax altogether. Failing that, pushing up the thresholds or reducing the penalties would be things they could push for during negotiations. A salary floor would certainly have appeal for them as well.
But on the other hand, the owners generally want to tamp down spending. There can sometimes be disagreement within ownership ranks, as these competitive balance measures help some clubs but hurt others. But despite those disagreements, the 30 clubs are usually in favor of things like the CBT, as the effect of lowering player salaries is beneficial to all of them in a general sense.
The owners would love the inverse of everything the players would want. They would want a hard salary cap or, failing that, greater penalties for the CBT or lower thresholds.
In the most recent CBA negotiations in 2021–22, the league proposed a $100MM salary floor, but it also came with a $180MM base threshold of the CBT, well below the previous $210MM line. The MLBPA rejected this proposal and ended up pushing the base CBT threshold to $230MM in 2022 and escalating in subsequent years, but they didn’t get a salary floor.
You’re surely not alone in thinking that the current system needs fixing, but there are competing ideas of what a fix would look like. The two sides will have to agree on another CBA after 2026, and the current slow offseason should give them much to discuss.