NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 30: (NEW YORK DAILIES OUT) Walker Buehler #21 of the Los Angeles Dodgers in action against the New York Yankees during Game Five of the 2024 World Series at Yankee Stadium on October 30, 2024 in New York City. The Dodgers defeated the Yankees 7-6. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
The Red Sox continued to bolster their starting rotation mix on Monday morning, reportedly agreeing to terms with free agent Walker Buehler on a one-year, $21.05 million contract. The hard-throwing 30-year-old former fantasy stalwart appears unlikely to return to perennial Cy Young contender status in Boston, but he showed some flashes during the Dodgers’ World Series title run that his previously elite stuff is starting to return the further away he gets from Tommy John surgery. His arrival provides the Red Sox’ starting rotation with a massive upgrade heading into next season and he’s a logical rebound candidate for fantasy purposes if his fastball/curveball/sweeper mix from the postseason shows up at Fenway Park. Let’s take a deeper dive into Buehler’s immediate outlook as a co-anchor of Boston’s starting rotation and his potential impact next season for fantasy managers.
Breaking: Right-hander Walker Buehler and the Boston Red Sox are in agreement on a one-year, $21.05 million deal which includes incentives, sources tell @YahooSports. The two-time World Series champion with the Dodgers now becomes the veteran arm in Boston’s new-look rotation.
— Russell Dorsey (@Russ_Dorsey1) December 23, 2024
How does Buehler fit into Boston’s rotation mix?
Will the dominant version of Buehler that showed up in the postseason for Los Angeles show up at Fenway Park? That’s the (several) million-dollar question here for Boston (and fantasy managers) heading into next season. The former fantasy ace struggled mightily last season for the Dodgers in his highly anticipated return from Tommy John surgery, compiling a calamitous 5.38 ERA, 1.55 WHIP and 64/28 K/BB ratio across 75 1/3 innings (16 starts). There’s no way to sugar-coat his regular-season results, they were downright ugly. His once-electric stuff looked downright pedestrian throughout his regular-season outings as his strikeout rate plummeted to just 18.6 percent and he was also lit up for a staggering 16 round-trippers during that span. It’s not what you want.
Buehler seemingly flipped a switch during Los Angeles’ extended postseason run, showing flashes of his previously dominant form in the process, leading to 13 strikeouts and only one home run allowed over 15 innings of work. The biggest tweaks he made involved adding nearly two inches of rise to his four-seam fastball, which led to the pitch dropping less on its way to the plate and immediately translated into a significant uptick in swinging strikes from opposing hitters. The other key developments for Buehler during his resurgent postseason were centered around his curveball and sweeper looking once again like the hard-biting swing-and-miss offerings we were accustomed to seeing pre-Tommy John surgery. Was it a small sample mirage? It’s possible. We’ll have a much easier time forecasting Buehler’s future once we see how his stuff is shaping up in Grapefruit League outings, but he represents a worthwhile short-term gamble for the Red Sox as a complementary partner for newly acquired ace Garrett Crochet. He’ll likely slot in ahead of homegrown talents Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford in Boston’s starting rotation, which figures to get veterans Lucas Giolito and Pablo Sandoval back in the mix at some point during the 2025 campaign.
What is Buehler’s fantasy outlook at Fenway Park?
After spending his entire professional career with Los Angeles, there’s going to be a natural adjustment period for Buehler as he acclimates to pitching in the hitter-friendly environments and loaded lineups of the AL East. The hope for fantasy managers is that the version of Buehler that looked borderline dominant in the postseason shows up at Fenway Park in late March. There’s some natural trepidation from a projection standpoint since we can’t just assume that he’s going to be 100 percent physically. Yet, history tells us that it sometimes takes much longer than the initial recovery timeline for a pitcher’s stuff to fully rebound from Tommy John surgery.
The central question for fantasy managers is whether Buehler will ultimately excel in Fenway Park’s high-octane offensive environment, which ranks second out of 30 ballparks in Baseball Savant’s overall park factors over the last three years. Dodger Stadium wasn’t exactly a pitcher’s paradise, but Fenway Park’s homer-friendly dimensions might not be a perfect fit for a veteran pitcher coming off a homer-prone campaign. We’re not anticipating a return to upper-echelon status in the run-prevention department for Buehler, but his swing-and-miss stuff gives him a better chance to survive and excel in Boston than most.
There are some workload concerns given Buehler’s injury history, but assuming the stuff is back somewhere close to pre-surgery levels, it’s difficult for fantasy managers to envision a scenario where he finishes outside the top 60 starting pitchers for fantasy purposes. He’s currently being selected just outside the top 250 overall, on average, in early NFBC drafts, which makes him a logical bounce-back candidate considering his SP2-range upside. It’s not a perfect fit for Buehler, but if his dynamic arsenal is truly back to pre-surgery levels, he’s going to make a significant impact for fantasy managers again.
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