Amid a lot of consternation, we finally got some good news regarding the Boston Red Sox starting rotation. Per a report from ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel, Boston has reached an agreement with promising young righty Brayan Bello on a six-year, $55 million contract extension. The deal will kick in immediately, covering the remainder of Bello’s five years of team control in addition to what would have been his first year of free agency. It also reportedly includes a $21 million club option for a seventh year, meaning that he could conceivably be pitching in Boston into the 2030s.
Right-hander Brayan Bello and the Boston Red Sox are in agreement on a six-year, $55 million contract extension that includes a seventh-year club option for $21 million, sources tell ESPN.
The Sox lock up the 24-year-old into the 2030s.— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) March 7, 2024
When we put together our list of 10 young players who could sign contract extensions this spring, Bello was near the top, and momentum began building toward a deal over the last few days. It’s not hard to see why, for either side. Boston has had an awfully difficult time developing homegrown pitchers in recent years, and Bello is a rare success story, getting his feet wet in 2022 before pitching to a 4.24 ERA across 28 starts last season. He has a sinker that churns out grounders, a legit secondary in his plus changeup and enough upside to dream on future growth. He is, in short, a very solid mid-rotation starter, and you can just look back at this past offseason to see the going rate for those on the open market — the bidding starts at eight figures and only goes up from there.
By locking Bello down now, the Red Sox get to come in under that number, at a very reasonable average annual value of a little over $9 million. For a team in desperate need of some stabilization in its starting rotation — especially with Lucas Giolito out for the foreseeable future — that’s a no-brainer. For Bello, meanwhile, this deal allows him to see some real money well before hitting arbitration, much less free agency. Starting pitchers are at much higher risk of injury, and it’s a fraught path from your mid-20s to the open market at age 30 or 31. Bello will still have the chance to cash in during the back-end of his prime, and he’ll get a nice chunk of change before that — the same sort of bargain we’ve seen from other top prospects this spring.
This won’t be the cure for what ails all of the Red Sox’ problems amid what’s been a very angsty offseason. But Bello is a building block for the future, and Boston managed to keep him around long-term at a price that will hardly hamstring them financially moving forward.
