DALLAS — The Boston Red Sox still have work to do putting together their bullpen for the 2025 season. And even if Boston isn’t exactly sure how their late-inning mix will look on Opening Day, it sure sounds like Garrett Whitlock will be part of it.

Speaking on Day 1 of the Winter Meetings on Monday, both Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow and Manager Alex Cora hinted that Whitlock, who underwent internal brace surgery on his pitching elbow in late May after beginning the season in the rotation, will likely be used as a high-leverage, multi-inning reliever in 2025. That decision is not final and will likely depend on how the rest of the pitching staff looks. But the Red Sox seem to be banking on Whitlock returning to the back end of a bullpen that will include Liam Hendriks, Justin Slaten and recently signed lefty Aroldis Chapman.

“The conversations now are not about developing him or ‘Is he a starter or reliever?’ ” said Cora. “We’ll use him the way we see it, and he was a very successful reliever in ’21. He’s been an OK starter for us.

“Obviously, injuries have been part of his path, but I think, to be honest with you, we’ll use him the right way and the right way will be kind of like high-leverage innings. If it’s early or late, we don’t know yet.”

Whitlock has a career 2.65 ERA and 10.2 K/9 rate in 132 2/3 innings as a reliever and a 4.29 ERA and 8.4 K/9 rate in 109 innings starting. After breaking in as a dominant, multi-inning reliever in 2021, he has made starts for the Red Sox in the last three years, but has been limited to just 168 1/3 innings due to injuries in that span. Boston has long wanted Whitlock to become a rotation force but that hasn’t panned out. At this point, keeping him in the bullpen likely makes more sense. The Sox are expected to make a major addition or two to a rotation group that’s slated to include Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito and depth options Richard Fitts, Quinn Priester and Cooper Criswell.

Whitlock has nine saves in his career, but probably won’t be Cora’s closer. Chapman likely won’t be either. Hendriks, who has 116 career saves, is an obvious candidate, but comes with uncertainty after missing all of 2024 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Slaten, who had a 2.93 ERA in 55 1/3 innings as a rookie, is thought to have the makeup and pitch mix to close, but has little experience doing so in the majors. Without Kenley Jansen in the mix, the Sox likely will enter 2025 with some uncertainty in the ninth.

“I think right now it’s too early to be talking about the ninth inning, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “The offseason is halfway, and there’s a lot of ways that we can improve the team. So let’s see where we’re at when we get to Fort Myers. Let’s see where we’re at after the Mexico series and when we get to Texas. Hopefully somebody closes that game and we win it. We have to wait.”

Breslow added: “If we were talking about a Rule 5 pick potentially closing games in a year, I think we’d all look at each other kind of funny. There’s plenty of time for someone to emerge. There’s plenty of time for us to make an addition that would make sense. We’re fortunate in that we have Liam who should be fully healthy and comes with a pretty impressive track record of closing games.”

Breslow has not ruled out further relief additions. The quintet of Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Chapman and fellow newcomer Justin Wilson project as locks and there are plenty of other options both on the 40-man roster (Brennan Bernardino, Cam Booser, Luis Guerrero, Zack Kelly, Zach Penrod, Greg Weissert and Josh Winckowski) and off it (Bryan Mata, Isaiah Campbell and Michael Fulmer).

“I think we’ll still look to add to the bullpen mix,” Breslow said. “That could come in the form of a leverage reliever. It could come as more multi-inning depth. Fortunately, in December we don’t have to make that decision.

“We all recognize the need for the ability to recognize more swing-and-miss coming out of our ‘pen. We didn’t have premium velocity and premium stuff. We’ve been very open about trying to bring that in.”