The Red Sox made their pivot.
Four days after third baseman Alex Bregman agreed to a five-year free agent deal with the Cubs, the Red Sox on Wednesday shifted their resources to the mound, signing free agent lefthander Ranger Suárez.
According to major league sources, the deal — which will not be finalized until the pitcher takes a physical — is for five years and $130 million, and has no deferrals or opt-outs.
Suárez, 30, has quietly delivered consistently strong performances in Philadelphia over parts of eight big league seasons. He owns a 53-37 record with a 3.38 ERA, 22 percent strikeout rate, and 8 percent walk rate, and his pitch mix typically repels the barrels of opposing hitters.
Suárez, despite spending his career in Citizens Bank Park, has allowed just 0.8 home runs per nine innings in his career. His ability to keep the ball in the park has helped him produce an ERA+ of 125 — meaning a mark that is 25 percent better than league average when adjusted for park effects.
Though Suárez has never been a workhorse, he’s averaged 26 starts and 147 innings since moving into the rotation on a full-time basis four years ago, and he logged a career-high 157⅓ innings in 2025. He also has a history of postseason brilliance, with a 1.48 ERA in 42⅔ playoff innings spanning 11 appearances (eight starts) since 2022.
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“He’s a quality pitcher. He’s a big-game pitcher,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said in November. “He does very well, and he doesn’t get rattled by anything.”
Suárez represents something of an outlier in the game, a pitcher whose movement is good enough to remain consistently effective despite below-average velocity. Among the 87 pitchers who threw at least 1,000 fastballs last year (combined four-seamers and two-seamers), Suárez had the fourth-lowest velocity, with an average of 90.5 miles per hour.
Nonetheless, his movement, mix of pitches, deception, and strike-throwing have allowed Suárez to consistently produce outs in the big leagues. His primary offering (28 percent usage rate) is a sinker that helped him produce an impressive 47 percent ground-ball rate. He also spreads the strike zone with a changeup (19 percent), cutter (17), curveball (16), four-seamer (15), and slider (4).
Throughout his career, Suárez has given lefthanded batters fits, holding them to a .209/.255/.314 line. Lefties often will get the day off when he takes the mound.
“Suárez has got true four-pitch command. He is really what you would call a Zone Ranger,” mused his agent, Scott Boras, in November. “You look at the last three or four years, Suárez’s playoff quality, frankly, he’s the Lone Ranger in that category. So, if you’re interested in acquiring a postseason pitcher that has proven himself, I would suggest you don’t want to miss the Suárez postseason soirée.”
The Red Sox now have one of the deepest rotations in the game, with Garrett Crochet, Suárez, Sonny Gray (acquired from the Cardinals this offseason), Brayan Bello, Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval, Payton Tolle, and Connelly Early looming as options.
Of course, Suárez does not address the team’s desire to add a hitter to a lineup that now features first baseman Willson Contreras (acquired in December in a trade with the Cardinals) but has lost Bregman and Rob Refsnyder.
According to major league sources, the Red Sox continue to pursue offensive upgrades in the trade and free agent markets. The rotation depth achieved with the additions of Suárez, Gray, and Oviedo gives the Sox organizational latitude to trade young starting pitchers in pursuit of a hitter.
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The addition of Suárez represents one of the Red Sox’ biggest free agent moves in years. The five-year deal is the longest contract given by the Red Sox to a free agent since their five-year, $90 million for Masataka Yoshida in December 2022. The $130 million commitment is the team’s largest for a free agent since Trevor Story signed six-year, $140 million deal in March 2022.
Assuming the deal with Suárez is finalized, it would push the Red Sox’ projected payroll to $265 million-$270 million — a franchise record, and well beyond this year’s $244 million luxury-tax threshold. Because the Red Sox spent past the luxury-tax threshold in 2025, they’ll have to forfeit their second and fifth picks in the 2026 draft, as well as $1 million in international amateur bonus pool money in 2027 in order to sign Suárez, who rejected a qualifying offer from the Phillies after last season.
But, with the Red Sox — in the words of chief baseball officer Craig Breslow — focused on building the best possible team for 2026, that future cost was deemed acceptable in order to construct a pitching staff capable of competing in the formidable American League East.
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