The Red Sox have gotten a lot of calls about right-hander Brayan Bello, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon. The source who shared this information with Rosenthal/Sammon pushed back, however, on the idea that the Sox had “quietly shopped” Bello themselves, as one rival executive framed the situation.
On paper, it would seem odd that the Red Sox are trying to move Bello when they’ve spent most of the offseason trying to reinforce their rotation. Bello is coming off a season that saw him post a 3.35 ERA over a career-best 166 2/3 innings, and the righty has tossed 486 games over 87 games (86 of them starts) for the Sox over the last three years.
Back in March 2024, the Red Sox showed their commitment to Bello by locking him up to a six-year, $55MM extension covering the 2024-29 seasons, and Boston holds a $21MM club option Bello for the 2030 season that includes a $1MM buyout. Bello doesn’t even return 27 until May, so between his age and the long-term contract, it would seem like the Red Sox have a homegrown arm locked into the rotation for at least the remainder of the decade.
As Rosenthal and Sammon point out, however, it makes some sense that the Red Sox might at least be testing the waters about what they could get for Bello, given the value of controllable starting pitching. Even if “control” in this sense reflects Bello’s extension rather than a player’s arbitration or pre-arb years, Bello’s remaining price tag of $50.5MM over the next four seasons seems like a fair price, and potentially even still a bargain.
While Bello has been solid over his four MLB seasons, it can be argued that the Red Sox were hoping for a bit more from a pitcher who posted much bigger strikeout numbers in the minors. In the Show, Bello has only a 19.8% strikeout rate over 543 1/3 career innings, and his 17.7K% this season was the lowest of his career. He has an unspectacular 8.3% career walk rate to go along with that lack of missed bats.
Bello has gotten good bottom-line results by limiting hard contact, and inducing a lot of grounders, with a 52.7% groundball rate for his career. His 95.2 mph fastball has solid velocity but Bello’s sinker is his primary pitch, even if the sinker’s effectiveness hasn’t tended to vary in consistency. Over his career, Bello’s 4.09 ERA isn’t much below his 4.26 SIERA, but that gap stretched much wider (3.35 to 4.55) in 2025.
The Red Sox entered the offseason with plenty of big league-ready or experienced arms in their organization, but there was a clear goal of raising the rotation’s ceiling with more established hurlers. To date, Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo have been brought in via trades with the Cardinals and Pirates, respectively, and now project to be part of Boston’s 2026 rotation. Richard Fitts and left-handed pitching prospect Brandon Clarke were dealt to St. Louis for Gray, lower-level righty Jesus Travieso was moved to Pittsburgh as part of the Oviedo trade, plus Boston sent right-hander Hunter Dobbins and two more lower-level arms to the Cardinals in a separate trade for first baseman Willson Contreras.
Whether the Red Sox are actually trying to actively trade Bello or are just listening to offers out of due diligence remains unclear, as the Rosenthal/Sammon item implies. The truth may lie somewhere in between all of the common offseason hot stove terminology. Still, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has said his team is open to moving controllable pitching “in order to address other areas of the roster.”
Trading Bello would be a much different animal than moving a pitcher like Fitts or Dobbins or someone else not even guaranteed of a big league job in 2026, yet in a sense, a Bello deal would be an elevated version of the raise-the-ceiling strategy. If the front office has some misgivings over Bello’s ability to sustain his production, or he is no longer viewed as a pitcher who can reliably be counted on for a playoff rotation, the Red Sox could potentially look to deal Bello. Speculatively, he could be dealt for a more clear-cut frontline pitcher with fewer years of control, or perhaps moved to address a need in the lineup.
Within that same notes post, Rosenthal and Sammon also write that the Red Sox remain engaged with the Cardinals about Brendan Donovan. Boston is one of many teams linked to Donovan’s market, however, and the most recent reports suggested that the Mariners and Giants were the favorites to pry Donovan away from St. Louis. That said, Cards president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has shown plenty of willingness to swing trades with his former Boston team, and Bloom’s time running the Sox front office overlapped with a big chunk of Bello’s career. Speculatively, the length of Bello’s extension could make him a factor in a Cardinals rotation even after the team is through its rebuild period, even if the Cardinals are more likely to explore higher-end prospects in any Donovan trade package.
