{"id":78108,"date":"2025-08-18T06:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78108\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:44:07","slug":"red-sox-finalizing-deal-with-nathaniel-lowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78108\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Finalizing Deal With Nathaniel Lowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox and first baseman Nathaniel Lowe<\/a> are in the final stages of a contract, according to ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a>.\u00a0 MassLive\u2019s Chris Cotillo<\/a> reported earlier that Lowe and the Sox were in discussions and were \u201cworking on getting it done.\u201d\u00a0 Lowe is represented by SportsMeter.<\/p>\n

The signing comes at little surprise, as reports linking the Sox to Lowe have been swirling since May, soon after Triston Casas<\/a> was lost to what is likely to be a season-ending knee surgery.\u00a0 Boston continued to show interest in Lowe prior to the trade deadline but no deal was reached with the Nationals.\u00a0 After the Nats designated Lowe for assignment and placed him on waivers yesterday, Cotillo reported<\/a> that the Sox were likely to make a play for the former Gold Glover, so it would appear that Lowe is now officially a free agent after clearing waivers.<\/p>\n

Casas\u2019 injury sparked quite a chain reaction in Boston\u2019s season, as Rafael Devers<\/a>\u2019 subsequent refusal to play first base was one of the factors that led to Devers being traded to the Giants in June.\u00a0 While the Sox looked around the market at Lowe and other trade options, the fill-in platoon of Abraham Toro<\/a> and Romy Gonzalez<\/a> performed respectably well, with Gonzalez in particular crushing left-handed pitching.\u00a0 Since Lowe is a left-handed hitter, it stands to reason that Gonzalez will still get his share of at-bats when a southpaw is on the mound, and Toro could be the odd man out of the playing time equation.<\/p>\n

The question now facing the Sox is what version of Lowe are they getting \u2014 the solid veteran who was a fixture as the Rangers\u2019 first baseman from 2021-24, or the much-less productive Lowe who hit only .216\/.292\/.373 over 490 plate appearances with Washington.\u00a0 These underwhelming numbers included a decent but uninspiring .235\/.312\/.421 slash line in 337 PA against right-handed pitching.<\/p>\n

Even those splits represent an upgrade over Toro, plus there is more potential upside if the change of scenery returns Lowe to his past Rangers form.\u00a0 The Red Sox are one of baseball\u2019s better-hitting teams overall, though the club is more productive against left-handed pitching.\u00a0 Boston\u2019s collective 102 wRC+ against right-handers is tied for 15th among the 30 teams.<\/p>\n

There is no financial risk for the Red Sox in adding Lowe since they\u2019ll only be owing him the prorated portion of the MLB minimum salary.\u00a0 That total will be subtracted from the roughly $2.33MM remaining on Lowe\u2019s $10.3MM salary for the 2025 season, with the Nationals covering the remainder.\u00a0 Lowe also has one final year of arbitration control remaining, but unless he goes on an absolute tear in Boston over the remainder of the season, the Sox are likely to non-tender him this winter rather than give him a raise on that $10.3MM figure.<\/p>\n

It is safe to assume that the Red Sox probably just view Lowe as a stopgap for 2025, with Casas on the horizon for a return in 2026 and perhaps more of Boston\u2019s up-and-coming prospects (i.e. Kristian Campbell<\/a>, Jhostynxon Garcia<\/a>) perhaps being viewed as first base candidates down the road.\u00a0 Signing Lowe addresses one of the few weak links on a roster that shares the top AL wild card slot with the Mariners, and sits five games back of the Blue Jays for first place in the AL East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox and first baseman Nathaniel Lowe are in the final stages of a contract, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,46185,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-78108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-nathaniel-lowe","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}