As the Boston Red Sox approach their first spring training game, when they take on the collegiate Northeastern Huskies at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday, the consensus opinion among fans and media is that Boston turned in a Grade A offseason. But there remains one important position that the Red Sox still have not addressed: closer.
The Red Sox have a few candidates for the job on their current roster. But former Chicago White Sox closer Liam Hendriks has pitched just five innings since 2022 due to Tommy John surgery and, even more frightening, a battle with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The there’s new $10 million acquisition Aroldis Chapman. The flame-thowing lefty has recorded 335 saves in his 15-year career, ranking him 16th on the all-time list. But at age 36, Chapman has become too inconsistent and erratic to be counted on as more than an occasional closer.
Finally, there’s 27-year-old righty Justin Slaten, who in 2024 rose from being a minor-league Texas Rangers discard in the Rule 5 draft to become the top setup man for then-closer Kenley Jansen in the Red Sox bullpen. Slaten notched two saves of his own last year, but will the Red Sox want to entrust him with the crucial closer’s role on a full-time basis?
On Thursday, Pat Brown of the popular Red Sox podcast “Play Tessie,” proposed a solution to the closer problem. Brown urged the Red Sox to trade for San Diego closer Robert Suarez, who at age 33 saved 36 games for the Padres in his first full season as a closer.
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In exchange, Brown proposes sending two of the Red Sox’ most promising prospects: 22-year-old Venezuelan outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia, and 21-year-old shortstop Mikey Romero — a 2022 first-round draft pick (24th overall) out of Orange Lutheran High School in Orange, California.
Garcia was a $350,000 international signing in 2019, and is currently ranked ninth on the Red Sox prospect list by MLB Pipeline. Romero is Boston’s 12th-ranked prospect — but with Trevor Story holding down the shortstop position at the major league level, and 2021 No. 4 overall draft pick Marcelo Mayer ahead of him on the organizational depth chart, Romero may find himself expendable, from the team’s perspective.
“The thought process here: Sox obviously add another leverage arm to the back of the bullpen which (chief of baseball operations) Craig (Breslow) has been saying they’re going to do for what feels like a 13 months now. They finally do it. They finally get a guy,” Brown said on the podcast.
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The Padres farm system is “barren,” Brown said, after the team dealt away numerous prospects in trades for major league talent. But the Red Sox have Baseball America’s top-rated farm system in baseball heading into 2025.
Romero, he said, would “probably slide into the back 10 of the Padre system pretty comfortably so they get Suarez off the books, they restock the cabinet.”
Suarez is owed $10 million for 2025, salary that the Padres are looking to shed. Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune earlier in February named a Suarez salary-dump trade as “the move that appears most probable.”
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