With Garrett Crochet and Walker Buehler added to the rotation and last year’s free agent signing Lucas Giolito expected to be ready for Opening Day after missing the 2024 season, the Red Sox are considering deploying a six-man rotation in 2025 according to a report from Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic.
That such a plan would be under consideration by the club’s front office makes sense, given the way their starting corps is constructed. On paper, it’s an exceptionally deep group with homegrown youngsters Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, and Kutter Crawford joining the aforementioned trio while depth pieces like Richard Fitts, Quinn Priester, and Cooper Criswell all remain in the wings as plug-and-play depth options. Beyond that group, the Red Sox have weighed veteran Michael Fulmer as a starting option and have additional potential options like Garrett Whitlock and Patrick Sandoval expected to return from the injured list at some point during the 2025 season.
While a list of credible, MLB-caliber starters twelve names deep is something the majority of clubs around the league figure to be envious of, that depth could easily prove necessary for the Red Sox given the concerning injury histories at play in their rotation mix. Giolito, Fulmer, Whitlock, and Sandoval will all be pitching off a big league mound for the first time since undergoing elbow surgery and will surely need to have their workloads managed carefully as they get back into the grind of work as a starter.
Additionally, Buehler will be just one year removed from the same situation and last pitched a wire-to-wire big league season in 2021 while Crochet made 32 starts in 2024 but nearly tripled his maximum single-season innings workload as a professional after struggling with injuries earlier in his career. Both hurlers may need to have their innings carefully managed in 2025, particularly given Boston’s postseason aspirations and the fact that the club surely wants to have both healthy and ready to go in the event that the club makes its first playoff run since 2021. Houck, Bello, and Crawford all also put together career-high innings totals in 2024, leaving reason to consider whether the club’s entire rotation mix may benefit from the additional rest that a six man rotation provides.
The biggest reason for a team to have pause regarding the possibility of a six-man rotation (at least, for clubs that do not employ Shohei Ohtani) is the 13-pitcher limit for MLB rosters, which cause any club using a six-man rotation to be forced to deploy a seven-man bullpen. The additional rest between starts could allow starters to pitch deeper into games and make playing a man down in the bullpen more feasible, at least in theory, but the occasional short start due to injury or ineffectiveness is inevitable over the course of a 162-game season and a bullpen with just seven pitchers that’s forced to cover six or seven innings during a shortened start could be hampered for the next several games by the surprise uptick in workload.
With that said, Boston’s extreme depth of potential starting options could set the club up to utilize a six-man rotation more effectively than the average club. With twelve pitchers at least potentially in the mix for starts this season, utilizing a handful of those arms as bullpen pieces capable of going multiple innings would be a way to allow the club’s relief corps to better handle its workload despite having just seven arms available at a time. All indications point to the Red Sox already planning to move Whitlock back into the bullpen once he’s ready to return to action, and players like Fulmer, Priester, Criswell, and even Josh Winckowski could all also seamlessly move into the club’s bullpen and throw multiple innings if needed.
Of course, the club’s ability to stack relievers capable of going multiple innings in the bullpen will surely depend on the moves they make to bolster their relief corps going forward this winter. Justin Slaten, Aroldis Chapman, and Liam Hendriks are all more or less guaranteed spots in the club’s Opening Day bullpen so long as health allows, and the same is likely true for lefty Justin Wilson. That would leave just three bullpen spots available if the club moves to a six-man rotation, and if the club decides to pursue another relief addition like Tanner Scott or Chris Martin then there would be just two spots available for traditional bullpen arms like Greg Weissert or Brennan Bernardino as well as any multi-inning options the club wants to utilize.
