Red Sox likely to tender contract to Tanner Houck

The Boston Red Sox are planning to tender a contract to right-hander Tanner Houck, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The club has until Friday evening to change its mind but it seems they are planning to keep Houck on the roster.

Friday at 7 p.m. Central is the deadline for clubs to decide whether or not to tender contracts to pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible players. Teams and players don’t need to decide on a salary by that date. They have until Jan. 8 to file salary figures. But the team needs to make a decision by Friday as to whether they are committed to paying the player or not. If the player is still on the roster beyond the deadline, the team will have to eventually pay him something, with various outcomes still possible at that point. A non-tender on Friday allows the team to walk away without paying anything.

Houck is arguably a borderline case on account of his health. He just had Tommy John surgery in August. He will likely miss the entire 2026 season. He can be retained via arbitration through 2027, at which point he is slated for free agency.

With 2026 likely to be a recovery year for Houck, the decision is more about 2027. The Sox could pay him for the 2026 season, hoping that the investment pays off in the following year. That’s something that teams often do in free agency. Pitchers recovering from surgery often sign two-year pacts, with the signing team knowing that they are probably only going to get meaningful return on investment in the second year, while the player banks a bit of cash while recovering.

The Sox themselves did this last offseason, as they signed Patrick Sandoval to a two-year, $18.25M deal. The lefty didn’t pitch for the Sox in 2025 but they will hopefully get something out of him next year. Other pitchers got similar deals recently. Shane Bieber got $26M from the Guardians last winter, for instance, with an opt-out halfway through. A year earlier, Tyler Mahle got $22M from the Rangers, with no opt-out. The Brewers gave Brandon Woodruff two years and $17.5M when he was recovering from shoulder surgery.

Investing in Houck will cost less than that. He made $3.95M in 2025, his first of three arbitration seasons. He only made nine starts in 2025 due to his arm issues but players going through arb usually see their salaries hold fairly steady when they miss significant time. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Houck for the same $3.95M salary in 2026. If he stays on the roster and is tendered a contract for 2027 as well, he would likely end up in the same range again.

Essentially, tendering Houck a contract for the next two years will probably cost the Red Sox about $8M total. They could also walk away after 2026 if he experiences some sort of setback, cutting their losses. The roughly $8M would be less than half of what they paid to Sandoval and the guarantees of those other aforementioned deals. Houck doesn’t have the same track record as those guys but has shown plenty of potential, particularly in 2024 when he logged 178 2/3 innings with a 3.12 earned run average, 20.7% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate and 55.9% ground ball rate.

If the Sox were to non-tender Houck, it would probably suggest that they don’t expect him to fully return to that level in 2027, though there also could be other contributing factors. There’s no injured list in the offseason, so the Sox do have to keep Houck on the roster throughout the winter. Tomorrow is the deadline to add players to a 40-man roster to protect them from being selected in the Rule 5 draft. The Sox currently have a full 40-man and need to open some spots, assuming they want to add a few guys. Cotillo mentions the possibility of a lockout disrupting 2027, which could prevent the Sox from benefiting from Houck’s eventual return. However, front office still have to plan as though the season will be played, as there’s no certainty around the labor dispute right now.

The Sox currently have Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello under club control through at least 2030. Other than that, there’s not a ton of certainty. Kutter Crawford has posted decent results and should be in the mix. He’s under club control through 2028. The aforementioned Sandoval is signed for just one more year. Guys like Connelly Early, Payton Tolle and Kyle Harrison are in the mix but still aren’t proven big leaguers. The Sox plan to add to the rotation this offseason but haven’t done so yet.

Even if a pitching staff looks good on paper, injuries are always inevitable, so it’s anyone’s guess what the depth will look like by the time Houck is back on a big league mound. He has also had some success as a reliever, so perhaps there’s a scenario where he gets pushed to the bullpen, especially if there are workload concerns in the coming years. Time will tell how it plays out but it appears the Sox would like the payoff to be with Houck pitching in Boston.