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2026 Red Sox preview: 4 questions facing Alex Cora’s club
The Red Sox face questions about their lineup, bullpen, and more entering a promising new season.
The Boston Red Sox punched their ticket back to the postseason for the first time in four years last October.
But manager Alex Cora couldn’t mask his disappointment after Boston’s impressive 2025 campaign came to an end after just three postseason games at Yankee Stadium.
“Obviously, we should feel the way we feel right now — because we had bigger goals,” Cora said after Boston’s season-ending defeat in Game 3 of the Wild Card round.
Optimism is abundant once again at Fenway Park this spring as the mounds of snow piled up around the city melt away.
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The 2026 Red Sox should take another step forward this summer, given both an elite starting rotation and a young core of talent — led by Roman Anthony — poised to take another step forward.
Still, there are several hurdles that Cora’s club will need to clear if they want to build off of last season’s breakthrough effort.
As the Red Sox get ready for their season opener on Thursday in Cincinnati, here are four questions facing the 2026 Red Sox:
Will they score enough runs?
After whiffing on free-agent targets like Pete Alonso and failing to retain Alex Bregman this winter, Craig Breslow and Boston’s top brass shifted their approach to rework an already solid roster.
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Boston bolstered its starting rotation behind the AL Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet — dealing for Sonny Gray and signing Ranger Suarez to a five-year, $130 million contract.
If Bryan Bello — who has been dealing this spring — takes another step forward, Boston might roll out the deepest rotation in baseball.
But will Boston’s bats do enough to capitalize on the team’s shift toward being a run-prevention juggernaut?
Last season, the Red Sox did rank seventh in the majors in runs scored. But there were some flaws in Boston’s approach at the plate.
They were largely pedestrian in the power department, ranking 15th in the majors with 186 home runs on the season.
Boston’s propensity for swatting dingers decreased as the summer carried on, with the Red Sox hitting the third-fewest homers in baseball (49 total) over the final two months of the season.
They weren’t disciplined at the plate, ranking 10th in the majors in strikeout percentage (22.9) and seventh in whiff percentage (26.2).
Those concerns weren’t exactly remedied over the offseason, especially after losing out on bats like Alonso, Bregman, Bo Bichette, and others.
Yes, Willson Contreras should provide value as Boston’s clean-up hitter in 2026 – with the veteran’s swing seemingly built for Fenway Park. But his career high in home runs is just 24, set in 2019.
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Rafael Devers isn’t walking through that door. And while it’s not out of the question that budding superstar Roman Anthony clubs 30+ home runs in his first full season in the big leagues, that’s still a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a 21-year-old.
FanGraphs’ 2026 ZiPs projections don’t have any Red Sox hitters slated to surpass 20 home runs on the season. That seems rather pessimistic, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that Boston will need several key cogs in its lineup to take major steps forward and keep this offense rolling.
Can the bullpen repeat last year’s success?
Boston’s relief corps was a pillar of the Red Sox’ success last season — headlined by the 1-2 punch of Aroldis Chapman and Garrett Whitlock.
Chapman put together the best season of his career in 2025 with Boston, sporting a 1.17 ERA and recording 32 saves. But can he repeat that production this season at 38 years old, especially with several of his stats due for some regression?
Even if his blistering fastball hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, his 6.6 percent walk rate last summer was a stark dip from his career average of 12.2 percent.
Whitlock — who posted a 2.25 ERA and struck out 91 over 82 innings of work last summer — has all the makings of an elite set-up man. But the 6-foot-5 righty will need to avoid injury, which has derailed several promising seasons.
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Boston also needs to identify arms that can bridge the gap from starters to the back end of the bullpen, with relievers like Danny Coulombe, Tommy Kahnle, Justin Slaten, and Greg Weissert all in the mix.
Will the infield defense improve?
The Red Sox should have no worries over the state of their outfield defense — especially with a pair of Gold Glove winners in Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu patrolling center and right field, respectively.
The infield, however, stands as a different story.
Boston’s defensive woes have been a thorn in the side of Alex Cora’s club in recent years, with the Red Sox leading the majors last season with 116 errors.
As noted by Alex Speier of The Boston Globe, Boston has trotted out the worst infield defense in the big leagues since 2020 — with StatCast data noting that Boston “been graded as converting 141 fewer infield outs than an average defensive team over that six-year run.”
Some overhauled personnel in the infield should help fix some of Boston’s defensive deficiencies.
Willson Contreras ranked in the 90th percentile of first basemen last season with six outs above average, while new third baseman Caleb Durbin should be steady at the hot corner.
Marcelo Mayer will need to avoid the injury bug after having multiple seasons cut short in his pro career. But the 23-year-old rookie is a fleet-footed defender who should provide plenty of stability at second base.
Trevor Story stands as a wild card. Even though he’s been a plus-defender for most of his career, his range and especially his throws over to first took a hit as the 2025 season dragged on. More regression on defense for Story could lead to some uncomfortable discussions about him switching spots with Mayer moving forward.
Will Boston alleviate its outfield/DH logjam?
It felt as though something had to give this past offseason when it came to the abundance of riches Boston had in its outfield.
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The Red Sox entered the winter with four quality outfielders — Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran, and Ceddanne Rafaela — and only three starting spots.
For all the talk of Craig Breslow leveraging a player like Duran or Abreu in a trade to shore up another area of the roster, all four outfielders are still in Boston — and will be in the lineup on Thursday for the Sox’ season opener in Cincinnati.
For now, Duran will serve as Boston’s DH — with the 29-year-old looking to bounce back after his OPS dipped from .834 to .774 this past season. How Duran handles that switch and whether he can bounce back to his 2024 level of offensive production will be worth watching.
Beyond Duran and how Alex Cora juggles the rest of his outfield, it remains to be seen how often Boston will cycle other players through that DH spot as the year progresses.
For now, it looks as though Masataka Yoshida will be the most-expensive pinch hitter in the big leagues — especially if Duran remains fixed to that DH role.
If Triston Casas gets healthy and finds his form after a few lost seasons, that would create another headache for Cora when it comes to allocating at-bats for several impact hitters, with only so many spots in the lineup to go around.
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