Red Sox in 'advanced talks' on extension with pitcher

Rumors about an extension between the two sides have been swirling for quite some time. Back in January 2023, the young righty expressed his openness to such an arrangement, and reporting from July suggested the club would likely broach the subject at some point. 

A few weeks ago, further reporting indicated that the two sides were discussing a new deal and it seems they are now making some headway.

Bello, 25 in May, was signed out of the Dominican Republic for a modest bonus of $28K. But he continued to find success as he moved up the minor league ladder, climbing prospect lists in the process. 

Baseball America had him in the 15-20 range of their list of the top-30 Red Sox prospects in 2020 and 2021, then vaulted him up to No. 5 going into 2022. 

That was based on a 2021 season wherein Bello tossed 95 1/3 innings on the farm with a 3.87 earned run average, 32.8 percent strikeout rate and 7.7 percent walk rate while also keeping about half of balls in play on the ground.

He was added to the club’s 40-man roster late in 2021 to keep him out of that year’s Rule 5 draft. In 2022, he posted a 2.76 ERA at the Triple-A level and also got to make a brief major league debut, tossing 57 1/3 innings. His 4.71 ERA in that time wasn’t especially strong but his 55.7 percent ground ball rate and .404 BABIP suggested at least some of that was misfortune.

Last year got out to a shaky start, as he began the year on the injured list due to some elbow inflammation. He returned in mid-April and had a couple of shaky starts before the Sox decided to option him to the minors. 

An injury to Garrett Whitlock led to a quick return for Bello and it was at that point that he put together a strong stretch of work that established him as a viable big-league hurler.

From his April 28 recall through the end of August, he made 21 starts for the Sox with a 3.20 ERA. His 19 percent strikeout rate was below average, but his 6.4 percent walk rate and 55 percent ground ball rate were very strong. 

He seemed to run out of gas at that point, as he allowed 22 earned runs in 26 September innings. Between the poor finish and the rough start, Bello ended up with a 4.24 ERA on the year overall, but the middle section of the season opened some eyes.

It’s a bit favorable to Bello to exclude his worst results, but he was a bit banged up at the beginning of the year and the thud at the end could be chalked up to last year being his largest innings tally thus far. 

The Sox believe he’s capable of taking a step forward if they are willing to invest in him. He’s already shown he can keep the ball on the ground and the strikeouts might come around eventually, as his 11 percent swinging strike rate in his career so far is right around league average and he’s punched out 28.9 percent of hitters faced in the minors.

The Sox have very little starting pitching certainty going forward. Lucas Giolito was signed to a two-year deal this offseason, but he now seems to be facing a potentially significant absence due to a partially torn UCL and a flexor tendon strain. 

Nick Pivetta is slated for free agency after 2024. That leaves their long-term rotation mix consisting of guys like Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock. 

Those are talented arms, but each of Crawford, Whitlock and Houck are still somewhat unestablished, with none of them having tossed 130 innings in a major league season yet. 

On BA’s current list of the top-30 prospects in the system, only two of the top 10 are pitchers, with Wikelman Gonzalez at No. 7 and Luis Perales at No. 9. The latter has yet to reach Double-A and the former has less than 50 innings pitched at that level.

Given those options, it’s understandable why the Sox might want to build around someone like Bello. From the player’s perspective, his small bonus means he has yet to bank meaningful earnings, unlike a top draft pick or hyped-up international player who may already have millions stashed away. 

Bello’s service time clock is currently at one year and 82 days, meaning he wouldn’t be slated for arbitration until after the 2025 season.

If a deal gets done now, he’ll be able to lock in some big money a couple of years ahead of schedule while giving the Sox some extra control over his services in the future. 

He’s currently on pace to reach free agency after 2028, which will be his age-29 season. If completed, the deal will push back his trip to the open market but give him greater financial security in the present.

MLBTR’s Contract Tracker can provide a framework for the kind of deal that Bello and the Sox may be discussing. Since 2016, seven pitchers have signed pre-arbitration extensions that were at least four years in length. 

Each of Blake Snell, German Marquez, Spencer Strider and Hunter Greene got guarantees between $43M and $75M, but they were all more established or had more prospect hype than Bello. 

Freddy Peralta, Randy Dobnak and Aaron Ashby got guarantees between $9.3M and $20.5M with less of a track record than Bello currently has. 

Details on Bello’s extension talks have not yet surfaced, but he may wind up somewhere between those two groups.

Extensions usually feature climbing salaries as the years progress, roughly mirroring the arbitration process. The Sox currently have little on the books that would coincide with the most expensive years of this potential extension. 

Rafael Devers is under contract through 2033, but no one else is guaranteed a contract beyond 2027. Trevor Story and Masataka Yoshida are the only players guaranteed a salary beyond 2026.