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What Boston Red Sox are getting in Ranger Suárez, why his contract could age well
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- What Boston Red Sox are getting in Ranger Suárez, why his contract could age well
The Red Sox are getting a true No. 2 starting pitcher in free agent lefty Ranger Suárez , who they signed to a five-year, $130 million contract on Wednesday .
Boston also is getting a pitcher who relies heavily on both his plus breaking ball and offspeed pitches, not fastball velocity.
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The Venezuela native turned 30 in August. The Red Sox have been reluctant to sign pitchers 30 years or older to long-term contracts. But Suárez doesn’t have to rely on maintaining top fastball velocity to be effective into his mid-30s. That could help the contract age well as opposed to a pitcher in his 30s who relies so heavily on velocity and doesn’t have elite secondary pitches.
Suárez, who spent the first eight years of his career with the Phillies, ranked in the 90th percentile in offspeed run value and 88th percentile in breaking ball run value in 2025, per Baseball Savant . Opponents batted .203 with a .207 expected batting average against his changeup and .192 with a .163 expected batting average against his curveball. He doesn’t use his slider often, and uses it almost exclusively to left-handed hitters, but it was effective in limited usage last year. He held opponents to a .174 batting average (4-for-23) with a .159 expected batting average against it.
His average four-seam fastball and sinker velocities have dipped in recent years. His four-seamer averaged 91.3 mph in 2025, down from 93.4 mph in 2023. His sinker averaged 90.1 mph last year, down from 92.8 mph in 2023. That said, he was a better pitcher in 2025 (3.20 ERA in 26 starts) than in 2023 (4.18 ERA in 22 starts).
While being a finesse pitcher can put less stress on the arm and, as a result, reduce injury risk, there should be some injury and durability concerns. He has never pitched more than 157 ⅓ innings in a season, which he did in 2025. He has never made more than 29 starts in a season, which he did in 2022.
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Suárez missed time in 2025 with low back stiffness, in 2024 with lower back soreness and in 2023 with both a right hamstring strain and a left elbow strain. He also dealt with low back spasms in 2022.
But his 588 ⅓ innings from 2022-25 are 33rd most among major league pitchers .
It’s important to get swing and miss at Fenway Park, which is the venue with the second highest batting average on balls in play (.316) dating back to 2008, trailing only Coors Field (.329).
Suárez ranked in the 55th percentile in strikeout percentage (23.2%) and 24th percentile in whiff percentage (22.2%). But he also limits hard contact. He was in the 98th percentile in hard-hit percentage (31.1%) and 89th percentile in barrel percentage (5.5%) last year while getting hitters to chase pitches out of the zone at a 30.5% rate.
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He also has showed strong command with a 5.8% walk percentage in 2025. His control has improved over time. He averaged 2.3 walks per nine innings combined in 2024-25, down from 3.2 from 2018-23.
The Red Sox are also getting a starter with a strong postseason resume. He has a 1.48 ERA in 11 career postseason outings, including eight starts. He has limited opponents to seven earned runs, 32 hits and 13 walks while striking out 44 in 42 ⅔ innings.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said at the GM Meetings in November , “If we’re going to make a starting pitching addition, I think it should be somebody who can pitch at the front of a rotation, start a playoff game for us.”
That’s exactly what the Red Sox are getting in Suárez, who already knows the pressure of pitching in a big market having pitched in the postseason the past five offseasons for Philadelphia .
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