Well, at least it’s not the Mets. Ranger Suarez is now officially a former Philadelphia Phillie after putting his signature on a five-year, $130-million contract. John Heyman of the New York Post was the first to report the signing and Bob Nightengale of USA Today had the financial numbers and also reported that the deal does not include any contract deferrals or opt-out clauses.
The Red Sox have Garrett Crochet at the top of their rotation and acquired Sonny Gray from the Cardinals earlier in the offseason. Suarez will likely slot into the rotation behind those two starters for Boston.
The Phillies never made a serious attempt to re-sign Suarez. One of the concerns was the fact that he has missed time during his career with back issues that limited his ability to pitch a lot of innings in a season. Since becoming a member of the Phillies starting rotation in 2022, Suarez has not been able to stay healthy enough to reach 30 starts or 160 innings pitched in a season. With the Phillies, Suarez averaged 147 innings per season as a starter with a 21.9% strikeout rate, a 7.5% walk rate, and a 50.8% ground ball rate. The strikeout number is around league average but both the walk and ground ball rates are impressive.
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The Phillies were also concerned about Ranger’s falling velocity with his four-seam fastball which went from just over 93 mph in 2022 and ticked downward to 91.3 mph in 2025. Suarez’ best pitch is his sinker, which averaged 90.1 mph in 2025.
The fact that Suarez signed with Boston can be taken as a good sign by the Phillies that the Red Sox are now turning their attention away from Bo Bichette. After losing free agent third baseman Alex Bregman to the Cubs, Boston jumped in heavily on Bichette, who the Phillies are also pursuing. This signing could take them away from Bichette and push them into looking to trade for help at third base. That would also open another door for the Phillies by giving them a potential trading destination for Alec Bohm and his $10.2-million contract for 2026.
The Phillies met with Bichette on a Zoom call on Monday and baseball reporters such as Heyman and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic have labeled the Phillies as the front-runner to get Bichette.
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