Report: Red Sox showing heavy interest in former All-Star pitcher

The Boston Red Sox would like to add a starting pitcher this offseason, and they reportedly are showing heavy interest in a former All-Star.

The New York Post’s Jon Heyman published a column on Thursday in which he mentioned the status of several free-agent pitchers such as Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell. In the column, Heyman said the New York Mets have been linked to pitchers Shota Imanaga and Lucas Giolito.

Heyman also said that Giolito is “getting big interest” from the Red Sox.

Giolito is an interesting case. He’s shown the ability to pitch at an All-Star level, like he did in 2019 with the Chicago White Sox. He went 14-9 with a 3.41 ERA that season and finished sixth in AL Cy Young Award voting. But he went 8-15 with a 4.88 ERA in 2023. He was fine over his 21 starts with the White Sox, but he imploded over his six starts with the Guardians and Angels.

For his career, Giolito has gone 61-62 with a 4.43 ERA.

The Red Sox were among the teams that tried to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who ended up signing with the Dodgers. They also reportedly are interested in Imanaga. Boston has reportedly shown interest in bringing back southpaw James Paxton, too.