The Red Sox Are Being Linked to Kyle Schwarber And Of Course The Team Should Bring Him Back

Hell, yes. 

As we wade into MLB's silly season...which, sidebar, has unfortunately become much less silly. 

Players and agents now wait until late winter or early spring to sign. They sign one-year deals. It used to be around Thanksgiving —like early December —you'd get these huge deals that would shake up baseball. Now it's all dragged out, and it's not as fun. /rant 

Anyway, the Red Sox have some holes to fill this offseason. They need to figure things out with Alex Bregman. They need a legit No. 2 pitcher behind Garret Crochet. And they need more pop in the middle of the lineup. 

Enter Kyle Schwarber. 

The hulking power hitter just spent four years smashing in Philadelphia. He posted regular seasons of 46, 47, 38, and 56 home runs. He walked 126, 106, and 108 times in his final three seasons. He hit 14 more home runs in he postseason. There's a chance he could have hit all those bombs for the Red Sox.

After being traded here in 2021 and helping Boston get to the playoffs, all reports were that he wanted to come back. But baseball boss Chaim Bloom didn't like the price tag. 

"We stayed in touch with him the whole way,” Bloom said about the negotiation with Schwarber before he left for the Phillies. “Ultimately, you want to make sure it actually aligns in terms of term, in terms of price, with other things you might be able to do not just now but over the course of the whole time you might have him. Ultimately, we just thought it was to a level that didn’t make sense.” 

And ultimately, it was a terrible call by Bloom. Sounds like the 2025 Red Sox front office likes Schwarber more than Bloom. Chris Cotillo of MassLive wrote over the weekend- I bolded my favorite part 

"Cora has been clear about his admiration for Schwarber, who the Red Sox love, and if a quick reunion with the Phillies doesn't come together, expect Boston to show some real interest there. Doing so might force the club to spend something close to $50 million — yes, you read that right — on its DH spot between a Schwarber average annual value around $30 million and Yoshida's sunk cost at $18 million. That, however, is what big-market, win-now teams do."

The Red Sox, you'll recall, had a pretty good DH by the name of Rafael Devers. They traded him, and he went on to hit 20 home runs for his new team, the Giants. Boston's offense, in almost 100 games after the trade of Devers, got just 10 home runs out of the designated hitter position. 

Then, in the Wild Card loss to the Yankees, Sox No. 5 hitters went 0-3, 0-3, 0-4 in the series, good for a disgusting 0-10 against New York. 

Schwarber was beloved in Boston. And he became a HUGE fan favorite during his far-too-short stay here. And not just because he mashed the ball, but for moments like this. 

So good. I can't believe Bloom didn't try harder to bring him back. SMH. 

The Red Sox have this nasty habit of being linked to a lot of good players in recent offseasons, only to then not sign any of them. The lone benefit to the Devers trade was that the Giants took all his money, so the team has real cash to spend. 

So if they "love" Schwarber, they can sign him, since they have the money. It would mean moving on from Masataka Yoshida . And yes, you'd have to eat some of the roughly $37 million owed to Yoshida over the next two years. But it would be worth it to plug Schwarber back in the lineup as your DH. 

Kyle Schwarber is 'the one that got away' for Red Sox fans. The team's front office has to make a chance to bring him back, add some much-needed power to the lineup, and fire up the fanbase in the process. Craig Breslow and Sam Kennedy have both said the team is in their "window of contention" following the Wild Card playoff appearance. 

Spending some big money on Schwarber would be putting some action behind those words.