MLB Free Agency Feast: Who the Red Sox and Pirates Must Sign

That’s a beauty right there. That’s a free agent feast and Thanksgiving is here. So, this is what we’re going to do. Yes. While Eric Kratz tries to prevent himself from salivating so much that he breaks the entire screen and camera and our whole operation, we are going to show you the food that we’re working with as we build the perfect Thanksgiving platter for your favorite or least favorite or a team that you just don’t care about, but you’re going to watch this right now. Ready? Turkey is the main piece of the puzzle for the offseason for you for your free agent signings. Gravy, it’s a closer. It seals the deal, right? That’s the finishing touch. Stuffing not as important as turkey, but it is still needed. It is required. It is a big component of the free agent feast. The potatoes are an important bat like potatoes on Thanksgiving. Consistency is key on that one. And then cranberry sauce does not need to necessarily happen. It’s a smaller deal. Some people might say you don’t need it at all. And that is the kind of last little piece that you add, right? It’s not going to necessarily garner any headlines, but it’s there for you. Okay, herocrats, lay out your free agent feast. Which team are you choosing? Boston Red Sox. Boston Red Sox are a team that need take they need to be the splasher in this free agent pool. They need to bring their plate to absolutely crush spread like KP after games when we played together. And I’m gonna go right to the turkey because nobody ever starts with the cranberry sauce. All right. You have to get stuff on your plate before you put stuff on top of it. So, the turkey for the Boston Red Sox, Alex Bregman. Alex Bregman has shown that he is a leader. He can be this guy on this roster of young guys that really needs to they need to learn to win and play at the big leagues. No better player than Alex Bregman, who never doesn’t go to the playoffs. That’s just what he does. I guess we’ll never know. was his quote. That is the turkey. I don’t care how much of that turkey, how much that turkey costs, you got to put it on your plate and it can take up maybe some of the rest of your plate. And I get it. I’m going to get roasted for not having gravy on there because I feel like when you have your plate, when your plate is full of really good, juicy turkey, incredibly well done stuffing and mashed potatoes that are perfect, you don’t need gravy. I’m not saying I don’t like gravy. I like gravy. I just don’t need it when everything else is done. Gravy is for the people who are like, “Oo, we didn’t we didn’t get good turkey stuffing or potatoes.” So, I got to soak it all with some something that will make it taste better. So, I’m going to skip over gravy and I’m going right to the stuffing. They’ve already gotten the the comments out there that they’re only going after, you know, one’s and twos. Well, they got Sunny Gray and the argument would be that he’s a three. So, if the Red Sox are going in that direction, I think one of the guys that’s going to be about 20 to $21 million a year is Zack Gallon. Now, Scott Boris wants more than that, and it might cost $100 million plus, but I feel like with Zack Gallon, I feel like he can have a bounceback year. The Red Sox are not afraid to give a guy 20 million plus to start. Maybe the five years, six years is too much, but you know, they’re going to cook in a little opt out. So, there’s an opportunity there to get a starting pitcher who when he has a really good year can opt out and look at the Red Sox. They get out of another long-term deal. So, I feel like you move on to the potatoes and you can mix potatoes with anything. And that’s why I chose Hassan Kim. Now, you say, “Well, Trevor Story is going to play shortstop till at least 27. got a team option till 28, but Trevor Story got kind of tired. Trevor Story can play second base. This is a my Thanksgiving feast and so I want to have my plate filled with the best players and I think this does a incredible job of shoring up this defense with a little uncertainty of what Marcela Meyer is going to give you. Now you have a really strong left side that Trevor Story could play shortstop still. Hassan Kim could play a little bit of second base. You figure it out. You get the best players and you figure it out as the season goes. Cranberry sauce. They’ll say they don’t need it, but they don’t know what Tristan Kasus is going to bring them. Reese Hoskins. Rarely can you get a guy on a one-year deal that is a really good teammate and has a chance to pump 30 dingers for you. Oh, and what else does he do? He pulls the ball. Guess where he’s going to play 81 of his games? Fenway. Rhys Hoskins, incredible leader, will fit into any clubhouse, and I think he’s he’s now going to be a full two seasons off of his ACL surgery. I think this I think it would he will be one of the biggest lowcost signings of this off season. Wow, really nice, KP. I’m stuffed. I’m actually even a little bit nauseous. I mean, this is a lot more than you’d expect from the Red Sox here after the sunny gray edition already, but I like it. I like it a lot. Any criticisms here? I guess the only one for me, KP, that stands out is how the infield alignment would look, but I’m with Kratz here. Nobody’s going to complain about a little bit of extra depth. Yeah, Reese Hoskins can be there as your insurance. And then Kim, I know you’ve got Meyer. I know you’ve got Story. Cost is coming back from injury. Let your worst problem be that at the beginning of the season you’ve got to figure out a little bit of a PT split in the infield. No, I mean I love his point too. Go get the best players available, especially middle infielders. And I think the Padres’s kind of prove that theory. If you just get good baseball players that play in the middle of the diamond, you can find a place for them. And if they aren’t able to kind of fill out some of that other part of their list, they have a ton of young prospects. If you get a Alex Bregman, do you need some of these younger guys that you’ve drafted, developed, brought up to the big leagues? If Bregman’s going to hold down third base for the next probably he’s going to get six or seven years, maybe you can use some of these guys to go out and get your number two starter. So, I got no complaints with it. It just makes me um excited for tomorrow cuz I love Thanksgiving and I love filling my plate. If you are still carrying a clunky leather brick that can be mistaken for an old school wallet, may I introduce you to what Eric Kratz is getting himself for the holidays. I mean, this is the greatest wallet that I’ve ever seen in my life. Your credit cards fit in here. It’s adjustable. Lifetime guaranteed. Like, what what like this is a musthave for the holidays. Absolute must have. Ridge olive matte. That is the design that Kratz has right now and you can get a hold of that. There’s over 50 plus colors and styles to choose from over at Ridge. You can even get a wallet that features every NFL, MLB, or college team. And for a limited time, Ridge is having their huge Black Friday sale. Head to Ridge.com/foul to get up to 47% off your order. This is by far the biggest discount they’ve given all year. That’s ridge.com/foul for up to 47% off your order during their biggest sale of the year. After your purchase, I’ll ask you where you heard about Ridge. Tell them Foul Territory sent you. I’m excited for your feast. So, which team are you going to pile up? Yeah, I mean, it was a good kind of segue with the Reese Hoskins. So, I kind of wanted to think a little bit outside the box here and go to a team that kind of made headlines the other day in the Pittsburgh Pirates saying that they’re going to actually go out and spend some money. So, I’m going to spend their money, but I also do know how the Pittsburgh Pirates operate. So, I had to kind of go through the list of free agents, find guys that I felt like maybe either coming off a bad year, an injury year where they kind of are going to go out and sign a maybe a one-year kind of prove it deal because if you look at the recent history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, they do not go out and sign guys for multiple years. So, these guys are all going to fill my plate for the Pittsburgh Pirates on one-year prove it deals. And I’m going to start with, like Pratt said, I’m going to start with uh the main course here and go turkey. And what do the Pittsburgh Pirates need in my opinion the most? They need someone at the back end of the bullpen that can close games. They got rid of their closer last year and David Bettar. So, these are the three guys that I have options for him. Evan Phillips, Michael Copek, or a Jason Foley. All guys that have proven at the highest level that they can close games. What do the Pittsburgh Pirates have? Arguably some of the best young starting pitching with arguably the best starting young starting pitcher in the game in Paul SK. These guys pitch deep into games. if they are if they’re able if they are trying to be a for real team and try to make a push in the division, they’re going to need someone at the back end that can solidify some of these games where you have guys like Paul Skins going deep into the games. So Evan Phillips obviously missed a ton of time last year. Probably would have been the Dodgers closer this year if healthy. Even though they went out and signed guys like Tanner Scott, Kirby to kind of shure up their bullpen, Evan Phillips has been their guy. He’s proven track record of being able to close games. Michael Copek, also another guy who’s very capable of closing games, who missed a ton of time with injury, probably looking for a one-year deal opportunity to close some games to kind of, you know, re-up his value. And Jason Foley also was a guy, you know, in Detroit for a long time that was closing games. Kind of had a weird year being sent to the minor leagues, probably looking for a chance to kind of, you know, up his value, up his stock going into free agency the following year. I the next guy that I think would kind of just fit perfectly with kind of the uh main course, the gravy, Michael Conforto. I love the player. I love the guy. coming off a a down year, coming off a couple down years, actually had the weird kind of shoulder injury in the off season, uh, when he when he left a lot of money on the table with the New York Mets. I still think there’s a ton of value in Michael Conforto. I don’t think it’s on a long-term deal right now. Um, you know, to the point where he wasn’t even on the playoff roster for the World Series champion, uh, Los Angeles Dodgers. I think he’s got a lot to prove. I think a place like Pittsburgh with that kind of shorter porch in right field uh could fit perfectly into his swing. I know he’s got some opposite field power too, but you know, I think Michael Conforto could be a great fit in Pittsburgh on a one-year prove it deal. The next is the DH position. And I know this is Andrew McCutchen’s job until he doesn’t want it anymore. You know, I haven’t he hasn’t signed quite yet. And maybe Andrew McCutchen maybe decides to go somewhere else even though he’s been extremely loyal to the Pittsburgh Pirates and it feels like he kind of always has a one-year deal kind of standing for him, but maybe he wants to go somewhere else and really try to kind of go win a ring. Marcelo Zunou is my guy. I played with him in Atlanta and he is one of the best teammates I’ve ever been around. One of the most professional hitters I’ve been around. kind of got squeezed out a little bit in Atlanta because of the emergence of uh Drake Baldwin there and kind of splitting the time uh at the catching DH position, but I know Marceluno has a ton in the tank. I know how hard he works. I know how professional of a hitter he is and I think he would be a great fit for a lot of the young guys they have there to kind of just be in their ecosystem, learn from Marcel, Marcel Ozuna on how he works, you know, how he can uh have a professional at bat. Um, I think he’d be a great fit there. And I think he’s probably a guy who is not going to necessarily require a long-term deal, maybe just a nice one-year deal where, you know, if the Pirates aren’t in it and he kind of has the type of year we feel like he can have, you know, you go and trade him and go get some pieces. Uh, next, the potatoes, which are obviously very important, but a little bit lower down on your plate. I like uh Sam Henches from uh Cleveland Guardians. missed the entire year. But what a physical presence this guy is if healthy. He is a nightmare to face out of the bullpin. You can slot him in as your left-handed leverage guy. You can slot him in as an eighth inning guy. I think it’s a guy who doesn’t get hurt. We’re talking a lot more about him as being one of the top left-handed relievers in the market right now. And I’m going to round out my plate with cranberries, which I don’t really even like. I don’t put on my plate. But in the case of this, this is kind of just like a little sprinkle of salt. Uh Wilmer Flores, I think he’d be a great addition to kind of mix in at first base. I know they went out and traded for Spencer Horwitz, who also missed some time with some some injury. Still a young guy, a little bit unproven. Uh you got to give him a little bit of runway to prove that he can be a major league player, that he can hold down the first base position. But a guy like Wilmer Flores, all he does is drive and runs. Gives you professional at bats. Maybe looking for an opportunity on one-year deal. I know he’s uh getting a little bit older there. But that’s kind of my dream scenario for the Pittsburgh Pirates to take all these guys on one-year deals and try to go out there and and do something special this year. Dream scenario, I would say, on the realistic end. That was really well done. KPRs. This guy’s different. That was good. But that was the realistic what the Pirates do dream scenario, right? That’s the waters they have to play in. They think Schwarber KP says you should be thinking Ozuna on a one-year contract. He’ll probably get my guess is 12 to 15 mil on a one-year deal. And that’s probably the highest paid player in that group that you just went over. Yeah. I mean, until they prove otherwise that they’re going to go out and and sign guys to multiple year uh uh deals and I I know it’s avona because I hear it over and over and I what was it 2019? 16 was 16. I mean we’re going up Yeah. So we’re going on almost 10 years here. So yeah, I found it kind of fun. Like yeah, not to take anything away from doing the Red Sox, but you know, obviously that would have been fun. you get to kind of you get to shop at Nean Marcus where I’m kind of, you know, shopping at Target or Macy’s a little bit more. But I if I I I enjoyed it this morning kind of getting in the depths of the free agent players out there and trying to figure out a realistic uh path forward for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I would say more of like a TJ Maxx or what’s the overseas one that is popular? Too many too many too many analogies. We’re sticking to the plate. Basically, the pirates are building their feast after everybody else has gone through. So, all they get left is the dry like is the white meat if you don’t like white meat, dark meat if you don’t like dark meat. They’re getting the like soggy they’re getting the soggy stuffing and not the crispy stuffing. So, you know what, KP? That was legendary. And I honestly think with the starting rotation, you might have a chance of competing in the NL Central with all those moves. Obviously, you have to hope that all those guys have career bounceback type of years, which is which is tough to it’s tough to do. You know, if you get one out of those guys to have a career bounceback year, to me, it’s successful. But you can’t just keep being the last person to the table to make a full beautiful plate of food at Thanksgiving. You got to kind of push. You got to push to go forward and get the best food. It might sound selfish, but we’re about the W here at Thanksgiving.

Eric Kratz and Kevin Pillar build out a full Free Agent “Thanksgiving plate” for the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates, using turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, and cranberry sauce to map out every major offseason need. The crew breaks down why the Red Sox should target stars like Alex Bregman and Zack Gallen, which one-year deals make sense for Pittsburgh, and how each move shapes the 2025 season. Smart fits, roster strategy, and realistic paths for two teams trying to climb in the standings.

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