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Red Sox starting pitcher Lucas Giolito delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Athletics, Sept. 17, 2025.
AP
It’s less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers report, and enough viable or better big league starters to fill four rotations still don’t know where they’re going.
Starting pitching is baseball’s most valuable commodity. Yet inexplicably, 20-plus real rotation pieces remain unemployed.
Longtime Astros ace Framber Valdez, fairly comped to Max Fried, Corbin Burnes and Dylan Cease, is the big name still out there. He’s joined in unemployment by enough accomplished starters to form a pennant-contending rotation — plus many more serviceable starters, enough to fill out several lacking rotations.
Zac Gallen, who like Valdez is good enough to have the draft-pick attachment via a qualifying offer, plus capable veterans Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt and Nick Martinez, 40-something legends Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and many more should be readying for camps.
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