Red Sox sign Nick Pivetta, 3 other players to avoid arbitration
As the wait continues for chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to meaningfully improve the club’s roster for 2024, the Red Sox took care of some league-mandated business Thursday
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Boston reached one-year contract agreements with all four of its arbitration-eligible players — Nick Pivetta ($7.5 million), Tyler O’Neill ($5.85 million), Reese McGuire ($1.5 million) and John Schreiber ($1.175 million) — before the league deadline to get such deals done, according to a major league source. While none of those players were in jeopardy of getting cut loose Thursday, the agreements mean the Red Sox won’t have to use an independent arbiter to determine those players’ salaries for 2024. The deals also don’t preclude longer-term deals for any of the four.
Pivetta and O’Neill are both entering their final years before free agency. Pivetta, who is penciled into the starting rotation but may move to the bullpen if the club makes more additions, received a raise from his $5.35 million salary in 2023 and eclipsed MLBTradeRumors’ projection of $6.9 million with his $7.5 million agreement. O’Neill, a right-handed hitting outfielder acquired from the Cardinals in a December trade, made $4.95 million last year in St. Louis and was projected by MLBTR to earn $5.5 million in 2024.
McGuire, the backup catcher to Connor Wong, got a raise from $1.2225 million in his second year of arbitration. MLBTR projected him a tick higher than his ultimate salary at $1.7 million. Schreiber, a middle reliever, earned $750,000 last year in his last pre-arbitration year; MLBTR projected him for $1.3 million.
All four players were tendered contracts before a separate deadline in November (when the club traded Luis Urías to Seattle and non-tendered Wyatt Mills). At the time, Boston tendered deals to Pivetta, Schreiber, McGuire and Alex Verdugo (before trading him to the Yankees) and O’Neill was tendered by the Cardinals before they traded him to the Red Sox. Those decisions guaranteed the tendered players would not hit the free agent market; Thursday’s deals locked in their salaries for 2024.
The four arbitration agreements combine for $16 million, giving the Red Sox a solidified number as they look to build their payroll for 2024. Currently, they’re projected to have about $202 million of payroll commitments on the books, which is far short of the $237 million first competitive balance tax threshold.
