As the Red Sox sought to build out their rotation this winter, finding a top-of-the-rotation arm remained priority No. 1. In trading for Garrett Crochet, they accomplished that objective.
But even with Crochet, the club lacked true veteran experience in the rotation, an element members of the 2024 team suggested was missing from the roster.
And so in late December, the Red Sox also checked that off their list, signing right-hander Walker Buehler to a one-year, $21 million deal.
The 30-year-old closed out the World Series for the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium in October to win his second championship with Los Angeles in seven seasons with the club. And now he’s hoping he can bring that same success to Boston.
“I’ve played in a place where I’ve always been the young guy and the up-and-coming guy,” Buehler said on Friday in a call with reporters. “At the end of the day, I think it’ll be fun to be on the other side of that coin. There’s a lot of young talent in Boston and a lot of major-league proven talent. It’s a team that I think is ready and able to compete in the division and in the league, so I’m very excited.”
Walker Buehler threw the final pitch in the Dodgers’ World Series win over the Yankees. (Wendell Cruz / MLB)
Despite Buehler’s championship experience, the past two seasons have been tough sledding for him. He missed the 2023 season following Tommy John surgery in 2022 and upon returning to the mound this past spring, he struggled to find his rhythm, finishing with a 5.38 ERA in 16 starts. It wasn’t until the end of the season and into the postseason that he started to tap into what made him an elite starter in 2021, when he posted a 2.47 ERA in 33 starts and finished fourth in National League Cy Young Award voting.
“I don’t want to oversimplify it, just because it was such a long period of time that I was pitching so poorly, but my back leg wasn’t working right in terms of the sequencing, and there’s just some little nuance-y stuff that I hadn’t felt since I had been in a game,” Buehler said of what helped him late in the year. “When you get into a rehab scenario, there’s a lot of feel, you’re trying to remember all the stuff I did pregame to get myself right.
“The last few weeks of the season and into the playoffs, I felt like I was kind of figuring it back out and throwing the ball pretty well,” he said. “Obviously, I wish it would have happened in June or whatever, but it happened at the most important time.”
The subtle tweaks after 18 months away from big-league games finally took effect as the Dodgers surged through the postseason. In October, after an NL Division Series start in which the Padres tagged him for six runs, he locked in and made consecutive scoreless starts against the Mets and Yankees before recording the final out at Yankee Stadium to clinch the title. After a long stretch of finding his way, the strong end to the season boosted his confidence heading into free agency and convinced the Red Sox he could be the pitcher he’d been in the past.
“I think we saw in the postseason last year really an uptick in stuff, and some indicators that we feel like he’s primed for a great 2025,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said. “Specifically, the shape of the fastball, shape of the curveball was back to when he was at his best. And so we’re really excited about adding him to the rotation.”
With Buehler seeking a full bounce-back season, Crochet coming off his first full season as starter and Lucas Giolito aiming to pitch a full season after missing all of last year with an internal brace procedure, maintaining pitcher health will be a priority for the Red Sox. Meanwhile, the Red Sox also have Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford in the mix, with Patrick Sandoval expected to be ready in the second half. Because of that, the club is considering a six-man rotation to give each starter an extra day’s rest rather than the typical five-man rotation.
The Dodgers implemented the six-man rotation last season and it’s becoming a growing trend in the game as teams seek to keep pitchers healthy. Buehler’s experience in Los Angeles has him ready for any kind of setup the Red Sox choose.
“For me, you go to six-man if you have the talent to do it, if you have six guys that are ready to take the ball every day in the big leagues and I think we certainly do,” Buehler said. “If that’s something they want to go to, I’m obviously open to it, or kind of accustomed to it. But, there’s also some pride in trying to go and make 32 (starts) and throw 200 (innings). I know given my injury history, that that’s kind of a different deal, but I have done that. And that was something that I’m really proud of and something I would love to do again. So, I think there’s pros and cons to both.”
A first-round draft pick in 2015, Buehler has spent his entire career in Los Angeles, but is excited for the East Coast. He’s not wholly unfamiliar with baseball in New England, either. As a standout pitcher at Vanderbilt, Buehler played for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in the Cape Cod League in 2014.
“I always liked it up there and I played with a bunch of guys from the Boston area in school (at Vanderbilt),” he said. “It’s one of those places that you feel a little more tied to than others and for about three or four weeks before I ended up signing, I thought that was probably where I was going to go and happy that it worked out that way.”
( Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
