Milliken: Should the Red Sox give Lucas Giolito the Qualifying Offer? I say no.

Since the World Series concluded shortly after midnight on Sunday, all the talk in Red Sox Nation has been about whether the front office should give Lucas Giolito the Qualifying Offer. I’m firmly in the camp of not offering it, because of the money needed to fill other deficiencies with the big league roster, Giolito’s uninspiring metrics, and plethora of backend arms currently in the organization. The Qualifying Offer is valued at $22.025 MM for 2026 (the mean of the 125 biggest salaries in the sport), and if Giolito were to turn it down, the Red Sox would receive a pick after the 4th round since they finished 2025 past the first Luxury Tax threshold ($241 MM).

Last winter, Craig Breslow surprised a lot of people when he opted to give Nick Pivetta the Qualifying Offer following a season where he posted a 4.14 ERA/4.04 FIP across 145.2 IP. He had dealt with a flexor strain in his right elbow in April of 2024, but bounced back quickly from the injury and continued to do his thing as an innings eater down the stretch. The biggest positive attached to Pivetta’s name ahead of free agency was how front offices were very high on his metrics underneath the hood. He was a Stuff+ darling and had an xERA that ranked in the 70th percentile, along with a K% in the 88th percentile, and BB% in the 80th percentile.

Pivetta sat on the market until the same night Alex Bregman signed with the Red Sox, which was after the start of spring training, before he signed a 4-year deal worth $55 MM with the Padres. He was also a year older than Giolito, but didn’t have two different UCL surgeries under his belt either. Those procedures seem to hold even more weight with how Giolito’s 2025 season ended, with his elbow barking again, which led to him missing the end of the year. To be fair, Chris Cotillo recently had 2 positive reports on Giolito’s elbow, but that doesn’t mean other teams won’t hold it against him in free agency.

Giolito finished 2025 with surface numbers that were significantly better than Pivetta’s. The former White Sox ace had a 3.41 ERA/4.17 FIP over 26 starts, with him throwing almost exactly the same amount of innings as Pivetta at 145 IP. Problem is, everything else underneath the hood looked like a warning sign for the future. He finished in the 13th percentile for xERA at 5.05 and that included ranking in the 45th percentile or worse in every other Baseball Savant metric outside of extension. How many teams will be willing to give up a draft pick and take a multi-year risk on those types of metrics? You have to hope a team like the A’s is desperate to spend some money, which was the case with Luis Severino a year ago, who still had significantly better metrics than Giolito. Don’t forget, the A’s were also desperate to spend some money because they didn’t want to lose their revenue sharing benefits. Can you bet on that happening again with the CBA expiring after 2026? Feels like a pretty big risk.

Why is that such a risk? Because if you dream of the Red Sox potentially bringing back Bregman at roughly $30 MM AAV, Nathaniel Lowe being non-tendered, and Giolito accepting the Qualifying Offer, you’d already be roughly at $257.32 MM in terms of the Luxury Tax. That’s more than $13 MM above the first threshold before adding a #2 starter, another power bat, and some left-handed bullpen help. In a perfect world where the Red Sox are willing to push that number to $300 MM like the top spending teams in the league, I wouldn’t care. Stockpile all the depth you can, especially a guy like Giolito who seemingly became an important leader on the pitching staff as the year went along. But that hasn’t been reality for some time, so I’m not going to expect it.

I’d rather be sure there’s enough funds to get that #2 starter and power bat that Craig Breslow seemed to hint at during his media sessions at the end of the season. During a conversation with 310 To Left, he even pointed to the organization being somewhat confident in their remaining depth, calling it “strong” and making it clear their focus was geared more towards top of the rotation talent. It didn’t seem like he wanted to be focused on filling up both buckets again heading into another offseason.

Just looking at the likes of Patrick Sandoval, Kutter Crawford, Hunter Dobbins, Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, Kyle Harrison, and Richard Fitts, it feels like they should be able to secure the back of the rotation. Sandoval was given a 2-year deal last winter worth $18.25 MM to rehab and it’s now time for him to earn that money. Crawford showed he was capable of at least being a #5 starter in 2024 before a bunch of injuries sidetracked his season. Dobbins was handed a rotation spot before going down with a torn ACL and his rehab has been going well, with him targeting an Opening Day return. Connelly Early showed more than any other young starter last season and didn’t flinch in his playoff start against the Yankees. Payton Tolle has the highest ceiling of any of the arms mentioned and I don’t think anyone would be shocked to see him take another massive step forward with another winter under his belt. Even Richard Fitts showed flashes as he dealt with different injuries throughout the season and Kyle Harrison was the biggest part of the Rafael Devers return.

That’s all without mentioning Luis Perales, who is currently building back up in the Arizona Fall League and was a Top 100 prospect before requiring Tommy John surgery last summer. He’s likely to start next season in Triple-A and could be pushing for a rotation spot sooner than later. It just feels like a waste of assets to throw more than $22 MM at an arm that isn’t expected to be more than a #4 or #5. You have enough of those types. It’s time to raise the ceiling of this team and that starts by finding a #2 that can take some of the pressure off of Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello.

A few days back, Cotillo said his sense was that the Red Sox were more into the idea of bringing back Giolito than they were with Pivetta a year ago, but I have a hard time figuring out how that aligns with their pitching models. It also feels important to note that Rob Bradford reported that the Red Sox rejected their side of Giolito’s $19 MM Mutual Option, which could potentially point to them not having much interest in him returning. If Breslow does decide to give the Qualifying Offer to Giolito and he turns it down, he deserves a ton of credit for it. That’d be him reading the market perfectly once again.

Tim Britton of The Athletic recently put out his Free Agent contract projections and he had Giolito getting a 3-year deal worth $57 MM, but we’ve seen teams flinch heavily at giving up draft capital for arms that project to be a #4 or #5. Another variable in all of this will be how the CBA expiring impacts Giolito’s thinking, who has a real feel for this stuff after being an MLBPA rep. Does that make him completely against a 1-year deal? And even still, is it enough to sway him away from $22.025 MM?

I’ll keep it simple: If there’s any real chance of Giolito accepting the QO, don’t offer it. I’m not willing to risk that kind of money being locked up for a pick after the 4th round. The priority has to be adding more elite talent to this rotation, not settling for another arm that isn’t suited to start a playoff game.