Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been more confused trying to figure out what a baseball teams’ direction is than the Boston Red Sox. After a 92-win season in 2021, they faffed around ahead of 2022 despite a solid roster, and ate the downside of injury risk and performance variance. Then, ahead of 2023, they lost Xander Bogaerts but signed Rafael Devers to a mega-extension, while mostly just signing low-impact short deals, aside from a five-year contract with Japanese import Masataka Yoshida. In the end, though, they ended up in the exact same place — another 78-win season, this time good for last place in the AL East and 23 games back of the Orioles. The roster was confusing and inconsistent when players weren’t straight-up out of action with injury — for every good performance like Devers or a breakout like Jarren Duran, there was a major disappointment like Yoshida’s first MLB season or the horrorshow that was Corey Kluber’s time in Boston.
Red Sox brass had enough and fired Chaim Bloom in September, while also removing General Brian O’Halloran from his position. The question is, is that going to be enough to shunt the Sox back to relevance? On paper, it doesn’t look like it, at least not yet.
Where were they in 2023?
The Red Sox had a puncher’s chance of making the playoffs heading into last year, with preseason projections giving them around a 1-in-3 shot of doing so. They had a rough, 13-15 June, and a rebound with a 15-8 July, but generally remained mired in last place, or close to it. Things pretty much fell apart when their 16-5 run in late June and July transformed into a 1-7 stretch teed off by consecutive walkoff losses in San Francisco. They then faceplanted to the tune of 9-19 down the stretch, and that was that.
Though the team hit okay, their poor defensive showing dragged them down into the bottom ten of position player production. The pitching was similarly underwhelming. While the team had some nice breakouts (Duran, Kutter Crawford) and generally didn’t lack for decent production, what killed the Red Sox in 2023 was a lack of top-end play that cancelled out some of the horrible performances they endured. On the position player side, they gave Enrique Hernandez over 300 PAs, and he gave them -1.5 fWAR, one of the worst seasons in MLB. On the pitching side, Corey Kluber somehow managed -0.8 fWAR in just 55 innings; he and Jonny Cueto were a lonely duo among hurlers with 50-plus frames and that level of absolutely abominable performance.
What did they do in the offseason?
Ahead of 2024, the Red Sox continued to be confusing and full of mixed messages. While there were rumblings that they’d pursue big ticket free agents, they instead shed salary, got younger, and have mostly treaded water.
Their big signing of the offseason was Lucas Giolito at two years and $38 million, but is now down for the count with elbow troubles that have the potential to basically nuke his entire contract window. Their other adds (Vaughn Grissom from the Braves, Tyler O’Neill from the Cardinals, Liam Hendriks in free agency) have largely been upside plays, and they’ve dealt away guys like Alex Verdugo and Chris Sale in the process.
Where are they hoping to go?
The good news for the Red Sox is that the roster isn’t that bad, and the AL isn’t overpoweringly stacked. They have a median 80-win projection from FanGraphs, but that still amounts to about a 1-in-4 shot of making the now-very-expanded playoffs.
The bad news is that their division is overpoweringly stacked, and they look like the clear worst team. Triston Casas and Devers are a nice starting point, O’Neill could be huge if he bounces back, and maybe Yoshida is much better in his sophomore stateside effort. But the pitching looks limited in upside if not outright sickly, and is going to require a bunch of young guys to collectively avoid taking a step back to stay relevant. There are still some key free agents that could make a difference, but the Red Sox don’t appear to be trending in that direction at this point.
Braves 2023 Head to Head
The Braves played the Red Sox, their de facto “regional rival,” in two home-and-home two-game sets in 2023. They split the one in Atlanta, and got swept in Boston, which is kind of amusing to think about given where these two teams ended up on the season.
The Braves crushed Nick Pivetta in the first game of 2023 between these two teams back in May, but got shut down by Brayan Bello and lost the second game. Then, in July, Charlie Morton had one of the worst starts of his career while the Braves were manhandled by Pivetta-after-an-opener, and then were swept in the two-game set thanks to a bizarre play where Ozzie Albies had an inning-ending double play ball hit right to him but booted it, eventually setting up a game-winning two-run double by Justin Turner.
The Braves will again play two-game home-and-homes with the Red Sox in 2024. They’ll host Boston in May again, and then head up there in June.
