Throughout the first few weeks of the off-season, the Red Sox remained engaged with Eduardo Rodriguez and exchanged numbers with his camp. But in the end, the deal Rodriguez signed with the Tigers earlier this week was too rich for Boston’s blood.
It’s unclear what the Red Sox offered Rodriguez, though the club reportedly made him a multi-year offer in addition to the one-year, $18.4 million qualifying offer. But the contract the Tigers gave the lefty -- a five-year, $77 million deal that comes with a $15.4 million average annual salary and can reach $80 million with performance bonuses -- was more than the Red Sox were willing to offer, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said Wednesday.
“It became clear as it unfolded that the market was going to take him to a point that we didn’t feel was the best use of our resources,” Bloom said. “We were certainly fighting our emotions on that the whole way because of how highly we think of him and how much we enjoyed having him here.
“Our interest in having him back here was genuine, but we also recognized that the interest on the market was really, really strong,” Bloom added. “It took things to a point that took him away from us.”
The Red Sox offered Rodriguez a multi-year extension midway through the regular season, as Alex Speier of the Boston Globe first reported, though a source said recently that the offer was a “non-starter” between the camps and that talks died on the vine. Months later, after Rodriguez switched agents (he fired Octagon and hired Gene Mato in September), the sides picked up talks again, with other clubs -- including Detroit, Toronto and the Angels -- showing interest as well.
Over the weekend, with Detroit showing a willingness to spend and Rodriguez expressing a desire to get settled before a potential work stoppage starts Dec. 1, the sides came together on a deal. The 28-year-old became the first major free agent to come off the board this winter.
“It wasn’t until the off-season got underway that it became clear how quickly Eddie’s market was going to progress,” Bloom said. “I don’t think it was particularly surprising.”
The nature of the qualifying offer -- which guarantees the Sox a compensatory draft pick because Rodriguez rejected and signed elsewhere -- forced the lefty’s market to move quickly. The deadline to accept the one-year deal is Wednesday; if Rodriguez’s interest throughout the league was lesser, he might have considered returning to the Sox for a salary of $18.4 million in 2022.
That timing, as well as Boston’s familiarity with Rodriguez, meant he was “Plan A” on the club’s list of free-agent pitchers. The Red Sox remain in talks with other pitchers as well and have been publicly linked to Steven Matz and Justin Verlander so far.
“We certainly would have loved to have (Rodriguez) stay a Red Sox if it had lined up for everybody,” Bloom said. “But we know that doesn’t always happen. So at the same time we were talking to him, we were laying groundwork in other places. At this point, sitting here, it’s still hard to say how and when it’s all going to come to fruition.”
Rodriguez, who was acquired in 2014 and made his major-league debut in 2015, was one of the longest-tenured players in the Sox’ organization. Including 2020, which the lefty missed after contracting myocarditis (heart inflammation) as a side effect of COVID-19, Rodriguez was in the majors with the Red Sox for seven years.
“I’m happy for Eddie,” Bloom said. “He got a really strong deal. He gets a chance to be a part of a really interesting building process in Detroit with a good organization and a good staff. It’s bittersweet. Obviously, we would have loved to have kept him here.
“I have nothing but respect for him getting to know him these last couple years,” Bloom continued. “It’s especially great to see this for him given how 2020 unfolded and everything he went through last year. There were points in time where we weren’t even sure if he was going to be able to play again, so to see him come back this year, do what he did, and now to have the market reward him for it, it’s a really great story.”
Related links:
Ad Choices