The Boston Red Sox have several lines in the waters of the free-agent pitcher pool, but it appears one got away Wednesday.
The Red Sox were "a finalist" in the pursuit of veteran reliever Tommy Kahnle, FanSided's Robert Murray reports. Kahnle agreed to a two-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday worth $4.75 million plus incentives, according to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and MLB Network's Jon Heyman.
MassLive.com's Chris Cotillo adds that Boston pursued Kahnle "aggressively" and was in the running "until the end."
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The 31-year-old right-hander spent the previous four seasons with the Yankees and posted a 3.67 ERA in 2019 as a quality setup man for New York.
Kahnle underwent Tommy John surgery in July 2020 and is expected to miss most of the 2021 season, so he would have been more of a long-term solution for the Red Sox bullpen.
Boston needs pitching help of all varieties, however. Red Sox relievers posted a combined 5.79 ERA in 2020 (fourth-worst in MLB), while its starters ranked 25th in baseball with a 5.34 ERA.
Boston Red Sox
Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom appears committed to finding pitching solutions: The club reportedly has shown interest in starters Jake Odorizzi and Rich Hill as well as highly-touted Japanese star Tomoyuki Sugano, among others.
But Kahnle is another name to add the growing list of free-agent pitchers to sign with teams not named the Red Sox.