Red Sox Reportedly Could Deal Rising Pitcher At Peak Value
The Boston Red Sox's pitching staff has been decimated by injuries, leading to two openers a week in the rotation.
That said, don't be surprised if the Red Sox trade away one of their better innings eaters at the upcoming trade deadline.
"A guy they could try to move is Nick Pivetta," Chris Cotillo said on his most recent episode of the Fenway Rundown.
"I think that over the course of the last couple of months, we've seen the best version of Nick Pivetta and maybe they should try to sell high on him. A team can look at his bulk in the last few weeks and say 'Okay, he built up to give five or six innings, we have a spot in the rotation for him right now. He's found something in his pitch mix.'"
The right-hander would make sense to trade for a plethora of reasons -- though it would be easier if Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock and Chris Sale were to return sooner rather than later.
Pivetta is 6-5 with a 4.44 ERA, 94-to-33 strikeout-to-walk ratio, .207 batting average against, 1.21 WHIP and 105 ERA+ in 75 innings this season.
Those numbers are strong enough to warrant a solid trade at the deadline but his stats since moving into a multi-inning bullpen role are much more impressive.
The 30-year-old has a 2.31 ERA with a 52-to-14 strikeout-to-walk ratio, .124 batting average against and 0.83 WHIP in 35 innings out of the bullpen. All of those numbers are elite and jolted by his latest outing, where he struck out 13 batters in six scoreless innings without allowing a hit (and walking two).
His value is at an all-time high but he's been a 101 OPS+ pitcher since coming to Boston -- the optime of league average.
As Sean McAdam noted in the Fenway Rundown episode, Pivetta is currently making $5.35 million and is expected to make somewhere in the range of $8-9 million next season due to arbitration. Boston could benefit from trading Pivetta not only before his price outweighs his career production next season but while he'd be easy to move from a contractual standpoint, which is right now.
Pivetta has proven to be a valuable piece this season after a rocky start but it still would make the most sense from a long-term perspective to ship him out at the upcoming trade deadline.
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