Lucas Giolito might've made costly $19 million mistake with Red Sox contract

Lucas Giolito might've made costly $19 million mistake with Red Sox contract originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The free agent market for starting pitchers is typically always robust enough, with teams needing at least five, if not six, starting pitching options during a season.

That was why Lucas Giolito decided to reject his $19 million option with the Boston Red Sox this offseason. But, instead of signing a deal, he's still a free agent, and the season is more than two weeks in.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today highlighted how Giolito, after rejecting the $19 million mutual option with the Red Sox, might have made a costly mistake now that he's still a free agent and unlikely to land such a lucrative deal in the middle of the season.

Lucas Giolito might've made costly $19M mistake

"When starter Lucas Giolito rejected the $19 million mutual option with the Boston Red Sox last year, he figured it was a shrewd business decision and that he'd be paid much more on the free agent market, particularly when the Red Sox did not make a qualifying offer," Nightengale writes.

However, things did not go his way. Despite coming off a 3.41 ERA 2025 season across 26 starts, a solid year overall, he's not signed a deal to join an MLB ball club.

Giolito, a few weeks into the regular season, is still a free agent. And that has led to what Nightengale described as a "plummeting" value for a new potential contract.

"Teams are unsure how much he'd actually help considering the track record of poor performances by pitchers who sign late or miss the entire spring," Nightengale writes.

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The 31-year-old righty veteran starter took a big gamble this past offseason by rejecting the $19 million mutual option to stick with the Red Sox.

Now that he's remained unsigned a few weeks into the season, and with a contract value declining the longer he goes unsigned, this gamble has not worked out at all.

The former Chicago White Sox All-Star made a big mistake by not accepting the $19 million option with the Red Sox.

Giolito could've been making decent money, only $3.5 million off the qualifying offer, but instead is sitting at home, losing money with each passing week he's remaining unsigned.

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