Here’s why you could — maybe even should! — be optimistic about the Red Sox
The Red Sox are putting their faith in Craig Breslow to turn around some of the talent already on the roster.
COMMENTARY
Happy Truck Day to those who celebrate. You inveterate sickos need a shoutout more than ever.
At its best, the Red Sox loading up the U-Haul for the trek to Florida is a pleasant moment to briefly ponder what could be when the February subsides. The beginning of the nine-month relationship that is a baseball season.
For most of the last 20 years, we’ve been collectively eager for that. This year, will anyone even muster a groan? And if they do, will it be for any reason other than to drop their banger joke about how the truck’s going to have a hard time on I-95 when it probably lacks a throttle?
The winter has been . . . well, you know. They’ve been throttling you with it, all right. Sox chairman Tom Werner really did respond to a question about high ticket prices by noting the affordable student rates and “the experience of going to Fenway.”
CEO Sam Kennedy really did get huffy — for him, anyway — about ownership’s commitment, then was part of the group who brought Theo Epstein into Fenway Sports Group because, reportedly, “there has been an internal realization that the club needs to be more of a priority for FSG.”
It’s exhausting. There is nothing this franchise has done since it finished celebrating the 2018 championship that dismisses all but the most harebrained talk-radio theory. “Two games from the World Series in 2021” didn’t have near the staying power of “four World Series in 15 years,” but they can both be at the bottom of the same trash bag. As irrelevant in 2024 as an iPhone 11.
Let’s leave it there. After all, I did write that optimism headline. (Which the commenters who haven’t read even half this far are enjoying, I’m sure.)
This isn’t going to be about selling this winter. I like Vaughn Grissom for Chris Sale. Tyler O’Neill and Lucas Giolito are scratch tickets like dozens before them. That said, the new-owner Orioles are ascendant — Corbin Burnes is a potential franchise changer — the Yankees are desperate, the Rays always figure it out, and the Blue Jays . . . there’s a non-zero chance Justin Turner’s influence helps break them from their Brooklyn Dodgers-like “wait ’til next year” rut.
And that’s all just in the division.
However, when the operative question for a large percentage of us is, “What are they doing?”, there’s a simple three-part reply.
1. They’re putting their faith in Craig Breslow.
The acquisition that mattered was the first one, with the follow-up of Andrew Bailey as pitching coach.
“If our industry doesn’t view our pitching staff individually at higher tiers [by the end of 2024 than entering the year], I just didn’t do my job,” Bailey told reporters at Winter Weekend. “There’s a lot of talent here already. You can set guys up in certain ways to succeed. [I’m] expecting the staff to take steps forward.”
Maybe it’s, as the kids say, a heavy dose of copium. Bailey, however, oversaw both Kevin Gausman’s 2021 breakout and Carlos Rodón’s strong 2022 in San Francisco. That, plus Breslow’s well-publicized pitching work in Chicago . . . of course they’re going to be about getting more with less.
Let’s presume a rotation of Brayan Bello, Giolito, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, and Tanner Houck. There’s no one in that quintet, given Giolito’s need for a bounceback, who doesn’t feel an attainable step away from something much better. Bello is the Pedro-pumped next homegrown ace. Pivetta showed all the moxie, and none of the quit, after his rotation demotion last season. Crawford finished strong, and Houck feels perenially close to . . . something.
The bullpen again sports Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, and Josh Winckowski at the back end. The infield is full of finger crosses: Triston Casas, one of the best hitters in baseball last season following an awful two months. Grissom, who was ready but blocked in the Atlanta system. Trevor Story, finally healthy for a winter of preparation. Rafael Devers, growing into his superstar, team-leader pants.
Wilyer Abreu’s going to get whatever he can handle in right field. Masataka Yoshida has an MLB season under his belt, and can get more designated hitter at-bats with no set player in that role. Plus O’Neill, Jarren Duran . . .
They’re hardly a playoff favorite, but at minimum, they’re something. Which matters because:
2. In Rob Manfred’s MLB, everyone’s closer than you think.
I get sick of saying it, only because it keeps reminding me of its truth.
Two 100-game losers from 2021 faced off in the 2023 World Series, and one of them (Arizona) won just 84 games, sneaking in the playoffs despite being outscored for the season.
The five best regular-season teams last season were Atlanta, Baltimore, the Dodgers, Tampa Bay, and Milwaukee. The latter two were swept in best-of-three series. The former three lost best-of-fives, and collectively won a single game.
One year can be an anomaly, of course — remember those 2021 Red Sox we were talking about? And there is nuance to this, given champion Texas was fourth in 2023 payroll and also two years removed from a half-billion dollar free-agency toy run.
But baseball has consistently moved toward dulling the benefits of regular-season excellence, and thus dulling the desire for owners to spend like maniacs in pursuit of it. The Dodgers, Yankees, or anyone else could drop $800 million on payroll this year and their best case come the morning of Sept. 30 is waiting a week for a best-of-five where three bad games invalidates all that came before.
When an 84-win team makes the World Series, a 78-win team — who was within touching distance of the bloated playoffs until the start of September, let’s not forget — looks and says, “We can do that!”
It’s maddening, but it’s also entirely reasonable. As is:
3. For all the anger, forgiveness isn’t far away.
When Reds president Phil Castellini responded to fan criticism of the team’s 2021-22 offseason with, “Well, where are you going to go? . . . Are you going to abandon being a Reds fan?“, it was righteously pilloried across the country.
Kennedy telling the story at Winter Weekend of a mother whispering in his ear, “Don’t worry, we don’t hate you as much as you think we do,” and jumping off it to note much of social media anger is performative and dishonest . . . the statements are miles apart.
But they do seem like they come from a similar place.
It doesn’t take much digging to see the Red Sox are doing some scrambling, scrounging to sell advance tickets coming off the third-worst attendance year of the John Henry era (after 2022 and 2002). Six of the 14 home games in April feature some sort of giveaway.
And that’s when they get home. They open the year on the West Coast, with the March 28 opener in Seattle a 10:10 p.m. first pitch and six of the next nine tabbed for 9:40 Eastern. Might be able to count those ratings on your fingers.
Yet for all of that, we were here when the 2021 team swept everyone up, as so many have before. For all their largesse, the Red Sox tried to sell a story this winter that they knew they had no intention of writing. There was no full throttle, there was “we’re waiting for the kids, and we’re trying to snipe a wild card.”
They’re counting on it all working. Another year on the fringes, improvements from within, and perhaps a hot streak to extend the dream into October. It’s a long shot, to be generous, but it’s not an entirely unreasonable one.
Optimism? Maybe I oversold it a little up there. But in my defense, it seemed pretty thematic given the subject matter.
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