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Bill Bonham was another in a long line of similar pitchers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s — a really hard-throwing right-hander who didn’t always know where the ball was going.

Three times he was drafted out of high school and junior college, and three times he didn’t sign. Then he went undrafted after his senior season at UCLA, and his SABR biography explains:

“I really didn’t have a great record with UCLA,” Bonham said. “Too, I think a lot of clubs thought I had a bad attitude.”

So the Cubs signed him as an undrafted free agent in June 1970 for $2,000. Even by inflationary standards that’s not a lot of money today — the equivalent of about $17,000.

As was the case for many in the Cubs system at the time, they didn’t have the infrastructure to develop good pitchers. So Bonham made 18 appearances in the Cubs system in 1970 and 1971, striking out 81 batters in 50 innings, and was deemed ready for the majors.

At age 22 in 1971, he posted a 4.65 ERA in 33 appearances, all but two in relief, with a high walk rate (13.2 percent), and started 1972 at Triple-A Wichita, where he struck out 116 in 125 innings. That was a really good K rate for the time, and in 1973 he was with the Cubs to stay.

Used mostly in relief early on, Bonham was pressed into the Cubs rotation in late July 1973, while the team was fading, and stabilized things, a bit, peaking with an 8.1-inning, three-hit, nine-strikeout performance against the Dodgers Aug. 17 at Wrigley Field.

The 3.02 ERA and six saves, along with a 19.3 percent K rate (very good for the time), got him 4.3 bWAR at age 24. With the team rebuilding after ‘73, Bonham was given a full slot in the Cubs rotation in 1974, basically second starter behind Rick Reuschel, and hopes were high.

If you ignore Bonham’s W/L record, his 1974 season was quite successful: 3.86 ERA, 191 strikeouts (sixth in the NL) and 3.2 bWAR. On a 96-loss team, though, a pitcher like that is likely going to lose more than he wins and Bonham wound up 11-22. He is the last Cubs pitcher to lose 20 or more games in a season. Of that, Bonham said (from the SABR bio):

“When I pitched badly I lost,” said Bonham, “and when I pitched good, I lost some of those games, too. For a while, it seemed it didn’t make any difference how I pitched. I didn’t get much in the way of results. It’s an unsuccessful thing to lose that many games and it makes you feel like a failure. It’s tough to digest 20 losses. But I try to look at the other aspects. I got a lot of innings in. I picked up a lot of experience.

“When you lose 22, you’ve got something wrong. I have to change something, but I don’t really know what it is. I’m going to have to keep working hard until I find the answer.”

It mostly wasn’t his fault. Bonham ranked 45th of 52 qualified starters in the NL in 1974 in run support at 3.3 per start. Of his 10 complete games, five were losses: two 1-0 losses, a 2-0 loss and two 2-1 losses.

Another note on Bonham’s 1974 season: In the first game of a doubleheader July 31 at Wrigley Field against the Expos, he became just the third pitcher in franchise history to strikeout four in an inning. The opposing pitcher, Mike Torrez, was the guy who reached base after striking out, on a passed ball.

Bonham’s ERA went up nearly a run in 1975, to 4.71, as the Cubs staff was torched for a league-high 827 runs, 133 of those charged to Bonham, and he gave up the most earned runs in the NL at 120. Things didn’t get any better in 1976, but in ‘77 Bonham started 34 times and posted a relatively high ERA, 4.36, but still had a 3.7 bWAR season.

All that did was get him traded to the Reds after 1977 for Woodie Fryman and Bill Caudill. Fryman, a veteran starter, was pretty awful and didn’t last even two months with the Cubs before being traded to the Expos for Jerry White. Caudill had a couple decent years in Chicago before he was sent to the Yankees as a PTBNL in the deal that brought Pat Tabler to the Cubs.

As for Bonham, he had a couple decent years in Cincinnati but was done after 1980 at age 31 due to elbow issues. He also had shoulder surgery after the 1980 season, and then was involved, along with his teammate Tom Hume, in an event that made national news:

A month after the surgery, Bonham, his wife, and Hume and his wife were staying at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, when the hotel was devastated by a fire.

The Bonhams and the Humes were in their rooms on the 24th floor when the fire broke out shortly after 7 A.M. After being awakened by shouts, “the Humes quickly aroused the Bonhams, who occupied an adjoining room, and the two couples headed for the fire exit stairway, aware they were 24 floors away from safety. As they descended, the smoke became denser. It became unbearable when they reached the 16th floor. All the guests who jammed the stairway then turned around and headed for the rooftop.”

About 1,000 people were rescued from the rooftop. The blaze, one of the worst hotel fires ever in the United States, claimed 85 lives, 75 from inhalation.

After his playing career, Bonham worked as a minor-league pitching instructor in the Astros organization for several seasons and later settled with his wife in southern California. He turned 78 in October.

Bill Bonham posted 14.6 bWAR in his seven seasons with the Cubs.

Unlike last year, where Eugenio Suarez’s four-homer performance was an absolutely shoo-in, this category likely counts as wide-open. There is no “obvious” choice this season, and that probably makes it more fun, since there is consequently no wrong answer here. Thanks to BTBaseball, kilnborn and Bryce.dbacks for giving their thoughts in the nomination thread. That helped me narrow down a field of performance which, in the final analysis, are likely to end up enshrined in the Diamondbacks Hall of Quite Good, rather than anything else.

Still, all of these were thoroughly enjoyable to experience, and deserve to be appreciated. Interestingly, the final selection ended up pitching heavy, with an extra relief performance being chosen over an offensive one. And, without further ado…

3/31, Jose Fernandez: 3-for-4 with two home-runs in his debut

Never mind nine total bases, before Fernandez, only one D-back had as many as six bases in their first game. And it was 28 years ago: the franchise’s first ever game and Travis Lee. Fernandez almost matched that by the fourth inning. After legging out an infield single in the second, he cranked a solo home-run off Casey Mize in the fourth. In the bottom of the eighth, he added a three-run shot to complete the comeback for Arizona, who scored seven unanswered runs after falling 5-0 behind, Fernandez driving in four of them. Jose had a WP of +64.5%; no D-backs debutant position player previously had reached even 35%. It was the highest in the NL since Kyle Farmer for the Dodgers in July 2017.

5/15, Merrill Kelly: 9 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, in Coors

The Diamondbacks have had only one complete game thrown for them in the past three years. Of course, it would happen in Coors Field. Merrill became just the fourth Arizona starter to toss a complete game in Denver, in 243 attempts, and the first for almost 13 years. Randy Johnson didn’t. Nor did Curt Schilling or Brandon Webb. [Try and guess the other three – answers below] It’s a very special achievement. The only blot was a solo shot by Hunter Goodman, but that’s okay. He hit 41 HR. And besides, Kelly’s predecessors in complete games at Coors all allowed at least a run too. Heck, one allowed eleven hits in his complete game. Merrill? Four, and no walks. Top stuff in an utterly unforgiving environment.

7/28, Gerardo Carrillo: 2 IP in extras, 0 H, stranded both Manfred Men, +76.7% WP

That Win Probability added is the highest ever by an Arizona reliever, surpassing the +65.1% set by Anthony DeSclafani last year. In the National League, it’s also the highest by any reliever since 2020, and the 7th highest in the wild-card era, dating back to 1995. Oh, and did I mention that Gerardo did it in just his third appearance in the major-leagues? Coming to any inning with a runner on second and no outs is a situation where you are expected to fail. Doing so would have ended the game, because it was tied 7-7 in the bottom of the 11th. But Carrillo not only kept the game tied there, he came back out in the 12th as well, and did it again to secure a D-back victory. He needed just 17 pitches, and retired all six batters faced, three by strikeout.

7/29, Eduardo Rodriguez: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 SO, +46.4% WP

The following night, E-Rod threw eight shutout innings against the Pirates – and, boy, was it needed. Arizona had used six relievers in Carrillo’s game, and available arms were thus extremely limited. Rodriguez had averaged barely five frames over his four previous outings in July, but really stepped it up on the night. A seven-pitch first inning set the tone for the night, Eduardo needing fewer than 15 pitches for five of the first six times up. Pittsburgh managed just two PA with a runner in scoring position all night, and Rodriguez faced four over the minimum, before handing the ball to Brandyn Garcia to close out the victory.

9/11, Justin Martinez: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, immaculate inning

From 2013-25, the Diamondbacks didn’t have a single case of an immaculate inning – a frame where a pitcher throws nine pitches, all strikes and gets three K’s. This year, they had two. One by Michael Soroka in his debut for Arizona, and this outing by J-Mart. It only his eighth game back after missing fourteen months due to elbow surgery. You wouldn’t have known, six of the nine pitches being in triple digits, topping out at 102.6 mph. Pity the Tigers’ Evan Carter, who took an 89.2 mph splitter for a strike, then had to try and catch up with the next pitch at 102.5 mph. The Tigers swung at six pitches, with five whiffs and a foul. Arguably the most dominant frame in franchise history.

Here’s your poll – of course, you can explain your choice in the comments!

[The other three D-backs to throw a complete game in Coors: Omar Daal, 1999-05-22; Armando Reynoso, 2000-09-28; and Patrick Corbin, 2013-05-20]

The Yankees officially have their seventh AL Cy Young Award winner in franchise history! Cam Schlittler rightly claimed a clean sweep of the highest pitching award in the land, becoming the third Yankee after Ron Guidry in 1978 and Gerrit Cole in 2023 to win the award in unanimous fashion. He fended off fellow frontrunner Dylan Cease with a stretch of late season excellence to author the best pitching season in franchise history since Guidry’s extraterrestrial award-winning campaign, finishing the year 14-6 in 33 starts, with a 1.95 ERA (215 ERA+), 2.56 FIP, 0.92 WHIP, and 239 strikeouts in 193.2 innings, leading all AL starters with 6.2 fWAR and setting a single-season franchise record with 21 starts allowing one or fewer runs. After enduring a 22 year drought since Roger Clemens took home the prize in 2001, the Yankees have now claimed two of the last four AL Cy Young’s between Cole and now Schlittler.

With Schlittler’s meteoric rise from an obscure draft pick to unheralded prospect to playoff hero to now the best pitcher in the AL, I would like to offer a mea culpa of sorts. I am not ashamed to admit that I was wrong about the Yankees’ now-undisputed ace.

First, I’ll give myself a small bit of credit for identifying Schlittler as the team’s breakout pitcher during 2025 spring training. While certainly impressed by his high octane velocity that seemingly came out of nowhere, I had my reservations about the repeatability of his mechanics and the resulting lack of command I believed that conferred. I was sharply critical during his first six or so starts during the regular season in 2025 about what I perceived as him being a thrower rather than a pitcher, his imprecise command, and the erratic nature of his slider. I went back to the time period surrounding those half-dozen starts to pull a few of my own quotes evaluating his up-and-down performances that yielded a 3.94 ERA, 5.26 FIP, and 10.8-percent walk rate at the time:

“Cam Schlittler’s principal issue since being promoted to the big league rotation has been a complete lack of command over his secondary pitches.”

“For all the velocity he possesses, far too often Schlittler seemingly has no idea where the slider is going which effectively removes the pitch as a reasonable selection. No amount of velocity in the world will then save you once you become a fastball-only pitcher.”

“The command of the slider was an issue with too many staying elevated or in the heart of the zone. He actually reworked the pitch in the offseason, adding velocity at the expense of movement — he even said during the postgame that he now considers the pitch to be a cutter rather than a gyro slider as Statcast currently has it categorized. I’m not convinced the current version of the pitch can be a reliable swing-and-miss option and I’d like to see him expand the use of the sweeper in advantageous counts.”

“His cutter was a home run machine when he first came up owing to a propensity to miss middle-middle.”

Suffice to say I did not envision at that point that roughly 15 months later, Schlittler would be unanimously selected as the 2026 Cy Young winner. And all the credit goes to him for not only identifying the areas of his game that needed improvement, but actively seeking help from the Yankees pitching coaches and his veteran teammates in the rotation. It is said that Schlittler is among the most eager and proactive pitchers in the organization at pouring over the pitch metric data and high-speed video to find the subtle adjustments for fine-tuning grip, finger positioning, release, and arm path mechanics, squeezing every drop out of his physical gifts.

One of the first things I noticed this year was a simplifying of his delivery. In 2025, it seemed he relied too much on brute arm speed to supply velocity, the longer arm path and more maximum effort delivery robbing him of precise fastball command. In 2026, he learned to engage his lower half more, sinking his hips to draw more power from his leg drive. This allowed him to shorten his takeaway and turned his somewhat loopy arm path into a more compact stroke, which not only sharpened his command but gave him access to a few more ticks on the heater, allowing him to touch 101 mph. With a more repeatable delivery, Schlittler found he could live on the top shelf of the strike zone with relative ease.

Schlittler’s receptiveness to feedback is super impressive, especially for a young player with rapidly growing hype surrounding him. He sought out Cole before the season, and a conversation they had about reshaping his slider into a cutter and throwing it as hard as he could unlocked a new level for Schlittler. Thus, he was able to transform probably the weakest facet of his game — a slider with unpredictable command — into one of the best cutters in the game, which also boosted the effectiveness of his four-seamer and sinker given the way its movement diverged from that latter pair of pitches. Adding the cutter is what allowed him to excel while throwing a fastball variant 89.3-percent of the time.

What impressed me most — and another piece of overwhelming evidence that Schlittler is indeed a pitcher and not just a thrower — is his constant quest to find that next level. Not content to simply rest on the laurels of his three overpowering fastballs, Schlittler evolved his game in the second half of the season by developing a unicorn curveball that could play off his new-found mastery of the top of the zone. Facing a Red Sox team fully expecting him to go heavy fastball when they met in the AL Wild Card Series, Schlittler threw a career-high 32 curveballs to completely confound their gameplan. This ability to be a step ahead of the opposition to me is evidence of Schlittler’s dedication to his craft.

It absolutely delights me to say how wrong I was about Schlittler in his first taste of the bigs. More and more pitchers these days can touch triple digits with their fastball. It is the rare player like Schlittler who is never satisfied with his physical gifts, and this insatiable push to keep becoming a better version of himself is why this unanimous AL Cy Young might not be the last of his career.

Welcome to the 2026 edition of Ranking theRockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for theRockies in 2026. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.

No. 22, Seth Halvorsen (0.3 rWAR)

Seth Halvorsen’s potential was always as high as his 100-plus-mph fastball velocity.

But that potential hit roadblocks in 2026 — most notably shoulder inflammation in his throwing arm, a lower strikeout rate and the highest ERA of his three-year MLB career — and that ended Halvorsen’s career with the Colorado Rockies.

Throughout the first half of 2026, Halvorsen — who the Rockies drafted in the seventh round of the 2023 MLB Draft out of the University of Tennessee — went back and forth between Triple-A Albuquerque and the Rockies. Through the end of June, Halvorsen ranked No. 7 in MLB with consistent heat, throwing 233 pitches at 100 mph or faster since the beginning of 2025. Outside of his four-seam fastball, Halvorsen uses a split-finger and splitter, which can lock up hitters.

Just ask San Diego’s Ramón Laureano.

On June 30, Halvorsen had a rough outing, giving up three runs on four hits with one walk in one inning against the Miami Marlins in what would be his final outing in purple. By July 4, Halvorsen was placed on the 15-day IL, retroactive to July 1, with right shoulder inflammation. The 26-year-old was sent on a rehab assignment with the Isotopes on July 19. That same day, he threw one scoreless inning despite surrendering two hits against the Sacramento River Cats.

He didn’t pitch with Rockies organization again, however, as he was dealt to the Dodgers for RHP Nick Frasso and outfielder Landyn Vidourek (HM PuRP) on July 20.

Halvorsen ended his last season as a Rockie with 21 appearances (19 innings), posting a 4.74 ERA with two holds, 17 strikeouts and 15 walks with a 1.95 WHIP. In 16 games with the Isotopes, he was impressive, recording a 2.04 ERA with 24 strikeouts and only seven walks in 17.2 innings.

He followed a similar pattern with the Dodgers — showing promise in Triple-A, but struggling with command in the big leagues. In bouncing between the Oklahoma City Comets and Dodgers, Halvorsen never surrendered a run in 9.2 innings, while striking out 13 and only walking four for the Comets. For L.A., Halvorsen only threw 11 innings over 10 appearances because he posted an 8.10 ERA. Three homers didn’t help, significantly contributing to his nine earned runs.

Halvorsen combined to make 32 appearances in 2026 between the Dodgers and Rockies. He finished with his worst season with a 5.80 ERA and a 16.3% strikeout rate, way down from 28.3% in his short rookie campaign in 2024. His 100-mph four-seamer average from 2025 was reduced to 98.9 mph in 2026, even though he threw 114 fewer MLB pitches (636 in 2025 vs. 522 in 2026).

Halvorsen seemed like the type of pitcher the Rockies could really use in their bullpen, bringing heat and shutdown velocity. That promise didn’t come to fruition and the Rockies ended up getting Frasso to try to have that impact in the bullpen.

As Purple Row reported at the time of the trade, Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta told media, “I think Seth is going to be a really good major league reliever. He’s already had some major league success. It’s obviously a huge fastball, and I think he’s got the right mentality to pitch late in games. So again, it wasn’t something we were anxious to do, but in this case, we were presented with an opportunity where we get a player back that we think can actually fill a similar role to what we envisioned for Seth going forward.”

Frasso, a 28-year-old fourth-round pick by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2020 MLB Draft, didn’t fare much better. Frasso made his MLB debut on Aug. 4 and made 20 appearances. In 21.2 innings, he gave up 25 hits and 14 earned runs with 22 strikeouts and seven walks.

Both pitchers still have sky-high potential. If the Dodgers are able to help Halvorsen reach his, it won’t be the first time a former Rockies pitcher finds his way with L.A. With Frasso still in need of some work, and Vidourek struggling in his short time with the Low-A Fresno Grizzlies, time will tell whether the Dodgers or Rockies will win the Halvorsen trade.

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This morning, Spencer Nusbaum wrote about the state of the Nationals pitching staff entering 2027, and there was one thing that stood out. He said that Paul Toboni indicated Jake Irvin had “put himself in good position to compete for a rotation spot”. Given the way Irvin has pitched for the past 2.5 seasons, I find that to be discouraging. 

Back in 2024, Jake Irvin had a solid season, carried by a great first half. He posted a 4.41 ERA in 187.2 innings with 2 fWAR. Those are solid back of the rotation numbers. However, things have fallen apart since then. In 2025, he posted a 5.70 ERA and this season he had a 5.48 earned run average. With lower velocity and home run struggles, things have not been pretty for Irvin.

Given how bad things have been, I would be quite pessimistic about giving Irvin yet another year in the rotation. We have a very long sample size of Irvin not being effective now. Since the All-Star break of 2024, Jake Irvin has posted a 5.68 ERA in 358.1 innings. I get that the Nats trust their player development team, but running it back with Irvin in the rotation does not make much sense.

In some ways, I get why people would like Irvin. He is a big, strong right hander who generates a ton of extension and throws from a low arm slot. By all accounts, he is a great guy and hard worker as well. I actually think he could have success in the bullpen because of the fact he has shown the ability to sit in the mid-90’s for short bursts.

A big reason why the Nats seem to have faith in Irvin is because they believe that with the right development, he can sit at 95 MPH deep into starts. That is what Nusbaum wrote in his piece. However, I am not as convinced about this. Velocity fluctuation has been a problem for years now with Irvin. Will the light just suddenly come on for a pitcher who is about to turn 30 years old?

That is what the team seems to hope for. Right now, he is working in West Palm Beach trying to increase that velocity. I will have to see it to believe it though because Irvin has been trying to solve this velocity problem for years now. In my opinion, the best way to solve that issue is to move him to the bullpen and just let him rip.

We have a multi-year sample of Jake Irvin being an ineffective starting pitcher. Not many guys get a third opportunity after back to back seasons with an ERA over 5.45. I am pretty confused about why things should be different for Irvin.

If a pitcher goes down and you have to find someone to fill in, Irvin can do that. However, rolling into 2027 with Irvin in the starting five is just asking for trouble. Apparently, the Nats are likely to hold on to CJ Abrams, at least partially due to the fact they want to compete in 2027. Jake Irvin being in the rotation does not line up with that idea.

I really like Jake Irvin as a person, and his fastball-curveball combination can be money when he is on point. However, we have given him plenty of chances and things have not worked out. After winning 11 more games than last year, can the Lerner’s finally invest in this team and help this pitching staff.

Even if the budget is limited, I would want Paul Toboni to get creative and find different ways to fill out the rotation. Whether that is trading Dylan Crews for pitching or taking some higher risk fliers, those would be better than running it back with Irvin.

After last season, the expectations have been raised. We know this offense will at least be solid, especially with Abrams coming back. Now there needs to be some investment in the pitching staff. While player development is part of the equation, we need more talented arms to come into the fold.

I am not asking Lerner and Toboni to go out and get Tarik Skubal here. Just show the fans you are serious about winning and building a competent pitching staff. If the goal is to push for a Wild Card spot in 2027, the Nats have to aggressively look to upgrade the pitching staff with outside additions.

We have been doing this for a few years now: looking at the top free agents, using the contract Ben Clemens suggests he’ll get, and asking whether you would like the Jays to give him that contract. This year, the lockout makes it a little more complicated. Keith Law’s list is here. Ben Clemens’ is here.

Number 4 on Ben Clemens list and number 10 on Keith Law’s is Michael King.

King declined a $28 million option for 2027, taking a $5 million buyout instead.

He had a nice 2026, with a 3.21 ERA in 32 starts, with a 12-10 and a 4.3 bWAR (you don’t opt out of $28 million if you had a bad season). I bet you are thinking of checking your employment contract to see how much you would be paid if you quit.

King has been in the majors for eight seasons (well, one of those seasons totalled 2 innings), five with the Yankees, the last three with the Padres. In the last three years, he has a 3.15 ERA in 78 games, 77 starts with a 9.5 bWAR.

Among the things Law said:

He’s still a sinker/changeup guy, although in the last two months or so of the season he ramped up the use of a different slider, generating a 20 percent whiff rate on the pitch. It’s shorter, with more tilt to it and less vertical break, and having a better breaking-ball offering than his sweeper may actually mean he has a chance to be better in 2027 and beyond. I wrote last winter that the 2023-24 version of King was a $25 million a year pitcher. The Padres gave him that, and he delivered that and more. He’s a $30 million a year pitcher now, at least, and should get three years again at a higher AAV.

Ben:

Like Trevor Rogers ahead of him and Freddy Peralta behind him, King has a few blemishes that suitors will have to weigh against his bona fides. He posted career worsts in a number of process statistics this year – lowest swinging strike rate, lowest strikeout rate, highest walk rate, highest xFIP, xERA, and SIERA. He withstood those headwinds thanks to a low BABIP and a high left on base percentage, but you probably shouldn’t count on that happening to the same extent again. That would make King more of a nice starter than an elite one, which is roughly what the projections say too. I rounded up from there because I value King’s steady presence and flexibility, and because the Padres under A.J. Preller have never been averse to paying up a bit to retain their own guys.

Ben figures he’ll get $25 million a year for four years, $100 million total, making it a little weird that he would turn down $28 million for next year, but let’s go with it anyway.

If your answer depends on whether he can shower enough to get rid of the Yankees smell, you are my kind of people.

Welcome to the 2026-27 edition of Smash or Pass, in which we examine potential free agent and trade targets to determine whether the Red Sox should pursue them and what it would take to land them. Today, we continue the series with the surprisingly mysterious Brandon Lowe.

Who is he, and where does he come from?

He’s Brandon Lowe, and according to WAR (both Fangraphs (4.9) and Baseball Reference (5.3)), he just had the best season of his career for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Before that, he spent eight seasons playing for the Rays to varying degrees of availability and success.

Is he any good?

Yes, but he falls into the solid be not spectacular bucket. Lowe’s been a surprisingly reliable bat every year outside of 2022 when he dealt with multiple injuries, and 2026 marked the third time he’s hit over 30 home runs in his career. I do have my doubts however about whether he’d hit the most home runs on the 2027 Red Sox if you suddenly dropped him onto this roster, but he did manage to outhomer everybody in Boston on the 2026 team, so I can’t completely ignore what he brings to the table either.

One thing that does concern me however is his abysmal playoff record. He’s batted just .115 with a .423 OPS in 120 postseason plate appearances. (Although to be fair, a huge chunk of those were during Covid, which was the most useless MLB season of all time.)

TL;DR, just give me his 2026 stats

150 games, a .260 batting average, a .331 on base, an .824 OPS, a 121 wRC+, and a 5.1 WAR* when you average Baseball Reference and Fangraphs.

*Important disclaimer …

Here’s the thing that line doesn’t tell you: Lowe just had a career year on defense. Baseball Reference has him down for +13 runs in 2026 after being a -14 runs in 2025. Fangraphs meanwhile tells a very similar story, pegging him at +10.7 runs in overall defensive value in 2026 after clocking in at -10.0 in 2025. While the details vary slight, both agree that Lowe had BY FAR his best defensive season in 2026, and BY FAR his worst defensive season in 2025. That’s not really supposed to happen at age 32, and it makes nailing down his value going forward extremely tricky.

Why would he be a good fit for the Red Sox?

2026 Brandon Lowe would be a great fit for the Red Sox! Outstanding defense, 30 plus home run pop, took the field for a full 150 games, and plays a position that’s been a revolving door for a decade. What’s not to love?

Why wouldn’t he be a good fit for the Red Sox?

Well, for starters, he averaged just 93 games a year in his first eight seasons. (To be fair, the real number is probably closer to 115 games per season, which is the average you get before 2026 when you throw out his rookie season and Covid.) But on top of that, those wild swings in the defensive metrics really take a potential bite out of his value. You simply can’t rely on him to be a plus defense at second base for the life of his next contract when you combine his career numbers with the general fact that most guys tend to fall of sharply defensively once they hit their mid 30s.

The bottom line is that for a player who was so consistently good in 2026, he’s surrounded by question marks when you look at the bigger picture. And unfortunately for whoever signs him, this feels like the classic example of a guy who had a career season in his contract year and is never going to duplicate it again.

What would it take to get him?

So here’s the fun part — Nobody knows. Keith Law of the Athletic thinks he’s getting five years and $150 million while other outlets have him getting approximately half of those figures. Again, Lowe’s value going forward is mystery worthy of an Agatha Christie novel.

One thing we do know however is Lowe will come attached with a Qualifying Offer (assuming he declines it by the deadline next week), which means you’ll be paying in draft capital on top of the dollars.

Show me a cool highlight.

Here he is rocking a walk-off home run in August off Kenley Jansen, which is always nice to see after Jansen quit on the Red Sox clubhouse at the end of the 2024 season.

Smash or pass?

I’m a pass for now. The Red Sox have too many guys going into 2027 surrounded by question marks, and Lowe would only further muddy those waters. And curiously enough, the wild volatility of this club already includes what they’re going to get at second base with Curtis Mead. He could be anything from a power bat at the position who just unlocked the skill in 2026, or a borderline hitter who can’t stick at second base defensively.

But back to Lowe, because there is one caveat: I feel like Lowe is not going to be signed anytime soon (I could be completely wrong about this). He feels like a guy who is going to wait out for that $150 million Keith Law is predicting, and I don’t think he’s going to get it. It’s possible he’s sitting there on the backside of the lockout after the Red Sox have made several other moves. So who knows, maybe they loop back to him after the deck has been shuffled. Maybe he’s the lsat of the QO guys sitting there and the Red Sox whiffed on everybody else and have a gigantic hole left at second base and more room to spend than other big market clubs with a cap going in place. It’s not likely, but we’re not dealing with a normal winter here.

For now though, I’d echo Fitzy Mo Pena’s desire to prioritize Seiya Suzuki, and figure out where the dust settles with Franklin Arias, Trevor Story, Curtis Mead, a whole host of other middle infield utility options the Sox already have, and any potential middle infield trade rumors we don’t even know about yet. Just like with Lowe himself, uncertainty is the name of the game.