Good reader, you might remember that last season I was unwilling to write a preview post because the ownership group that brought us so much joy, that broke the curse and then won three more World Series, decided not to retain the services of one Mookie Betts (still bitter), and then decided it was okay to run a payroll 60 million below the luxury tax (completely unacceptable when you charge $50 for a bleacher seat).
And here we are one mere year later, with the Sox sporting a $210 million dollar payroll. Still about 30 million below the luxury tax. But they did have an off-season that resembles what a major league team with significant capital would do if they were actually trying to compete. And so here I am writing a preseason preview. I don’t know how I feel about it, but here I am.
Let’s Start with the Rotation
I opened last year’s tirade screaming about how a team so far under the luxury cap didn’t pay for starting pitching, when a very good, Cy Young award winning pitcher, Blake Snell, was sitting there waiting to be paid. Well, this year we acquired a very good starting pitcher in Garrett Crochet. The prospect capital we gave up to acquire said pitcher is quite reasonable–while Teel and Meirdroth might become useful MLB players, neither are likely to shape the future of their franchises. Last year’s first round pick Braden Montgomery might be that guy, but he has yet to take a professional at-bat. And you risk that to get a pitcher of Crochet’s talent. He is a guy who can change the future of your franchise. He is a strikeout machine, with five pitches–one of which is one of the most devastating sliders in baseball. He also comes with a devastating injury history, one which led the White Sox to use him extraordinarily carefully last year. Essentially, they managed his innings as cautiously as possible to make sure he made it through the season and could be traded this offseason. So, yes, the Red Sox acquired two years of a phenomenal, top-of-the-rotation starter, but they shouldn’t have stopped there. [Sidenote: they still haven’t extended him, so let’s see if they are willing to pay 200 or so million that a pitcher of his value–injury history be damned–will command. Otherwise, it might be back to the boycott].
This season, 4 incredible pitchers were on the free agent market. Two of them went to the Dodgers, the aforementioned Snell and Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. One–Max Fried–went to the Yankees. That left Corbin Burnes, who has one of the *best* health grades Baseball Prospectus writer Jeff Zimmerman has given in recent memory. Burnes isn’t Crochet–he doesn’t have that ceiling. But he has thrown more innings than anyone else in baseball over the past 3 seasons. And they have been really good innings. Burnes went to Arizona on a 6 year, $210 million contract that will pay him from his age 30 to age 35 seasons. Very reasonable–33 million a year for one of the (at worst) 7 best pitchers in baseball.
Ahem. Why were the Red Sox reasonable about this? This was not the time to be reasonable. As I wrote last year, the Red Sox have a number of high level prospects entering the major leagues this year–this warrants real excitement! But their minor league system does not contain a single pitching prospect of note. Fangraphs has not released their 2025 top organization prospects list for Boston yet, last year’s list only had two pitching prospects in the organization’s top ten, and one of them is now property of the New York Yankees. The remaining one, ranked #9 in the organization last year, Jedixson Paez (yes that is his name, I did not misspell that), is a good prospect, but isn’t the type of prospect that makes you giddy with anticipation.
My point is that Corbin Burnes was sitting there, waiting to be paid, and we had A LOT of money to spend. Before signing the zombie corpse of Walker Buehler, who I will discuss briefly below, we were about 55 million below the luxury tax threshold. Now, rumors are that Burnes took less money so that he could opt out in two years (and still have the remaining 6 years if some traumatic injury should find his right arm). YO. RED SOX OFFER THIS GUY MORE MONEY. That’s how this works. You don’t have to pay Walker Buehler’s zombie corpse 22 million dollars. Pay Corbin Burnes’ very healthy body 35 or even 40 million dollars. Especially if what he wants is an opt-out. Here’s a 7 year, 240 million dollar contract that pays you 40 million in each of the first two years, and then 32 million in the rest of the years. And, see, 40 is bigger than 33, and 240 is bigger than 210. Slight unreasonable? Maybe. But then we have a great, healthy pitcher at the top of the rotation and not a one-year deal with a zombie corpse.
And the reason, dear reader, this is so important is that 1) the rest of the Red Sox rotation is probably not good and 2) the AL East is in reach. Point 1: Bello, Crawford, Houck–these guys might be good. But they might not. They played well last year, but each has some kind of limitation that means that you really can’t count on them. Bello has one of the worst fastballs in baseball. See–that’s bad. He got by last year living off his breaking stuff, which doesn’t grade out as amazing but is deceptive enough to get by. But not having a fastball is bad. Crawford has a fastball, but that’s all he has. And that’s not good. It is bad actually, to only have a fastball. Houck also has a fastball so bad that he had to stop throwing it. Last year he lived of a sinker (a two-seam fastball), but that can be a fickle existence in the majors. His slider was okay (4% better than league average). His other pitchers were about 15% below league average. See-that’s bad too. Lucas Giolito, once a rising star, missed all of last season with an injury and was living off a junk ball repertoire before he got hurt (in both 2022 and 2023, 3 of his 4 pitches graded out below league average). That’s bad. Walker Buehler, who I perhaps unfairly referred to as a zombie corpse above, looked really mediocre last season returning from injury, aside from a few decent playoff starts. And Buehler wasn’t great in 2022 before his injury that cost him to miss all of 2023. At least his name will be fun to say with a Boston accent. That’s good. But his pitching? That will probably be mediocre or maybe even bad. And, oh, Bello, Crawford, and Giolito are all hurt to start the season. So enter Richard Fitts (who is actually a kind of fun prospect but also might give up so many home runs that he rides a ball back to Worcester). But, then, also enter a thing called “Sean Newcomb” who last had an effective major league season in 2018 and whose scattered statistics since 2021 are so bad as to make children weep. That’s your opening day #5 starter.
See what I am saying is that the Red Sox rotation is probably bad. And that, if it were good, we might win an AL East that should be really competitive this year, especially after the Yankees lost their ace in spring training. But, to *really* compete, we would have had to spend significant money on a long-term deal for a great player. And this fucking ownership group–this collection of assholes who let Mookie Betts leave–they don’t want to do that.
Moving onto the bullpen–it isn’t good. One guy, Liam Hendricks, is a guy for whom we should all root. Hendriks missed most of 2023 battling cancer, and returned to finish out the season. Amazing. Shortly after his return, he blew out his arm and needed Tommy John surgery. Tragic. The Red Sox signed him to a two-year deal, ostensibly paying for his rehab year and then getting the following year at a discount. I’m rooting for the guy. I am. But I am not sure how much will be in the tank. But signing him–that was a class move. It buys good will.
And how do the Red Sox spend that will, you ask? By signing Aroldis Chapman. Why does signing him squander good will? Because he was suspended for domestic violence, and was rather unapologetic about that fact. Fuck that guy. Why are we paying him? There were other younger and better relief options on the market. And they didn’t choke their girlfriends or “accidentally” fire a bullet while threatening them with the weapon. Sigh. SIGH. S-I-G-H.
The rest of the bullpen has some interesting/capable arms. Justin Slaten is the most talented of the bunch–he has a good fastball and some decent to good secondary pitches, but he isn’t an elite reliever. Hopefully old friend Garret Whitlock can be effective again after a few rough, injury-laden years. Beyond those two, there’s a lot of mediocrity, and if I am somewhat skeptical of this team reaching their Vegas over/under of 86.5 wins, the bullpen has a lot to do with it. Bullpens can be fickle–and so it is possible that these guys all overperform a bit and my concerns are exaggerated. But I don’t think that’s the most probably outcome, and neither does any projection system or baseball analyst you could find.
Hey, These Guys Can Hit!
Talking about the Sox’s offense is a lot more fun. This offense was good last year, and it figures to be much better this year. And not just because they signed Alex Bregman. Let’s start there–Bregman is a very good player who is being paid A LOT of money. He signed what is on the surface a 3 year, 120 million dollar contract. No one thought Bregman would get a $40 million AAV entering free agency. But the contract is only 3 years, and he has an opt-out after every year. So who knows how long he stays in Boston. While he is here, he gives us a desperately needed right-handed. And he gives us a potential defensive upgrade at 3B–though that has come with some bit of controversy, as incumbent third baseman, Rafael Devers, he who has a nice $313 million dollar contract (look, I know above I said the Red Sox won’t make long-term investments and you were probably thinking what about that Devers contract and thinking about the circumstances that led to that contract, like the way the team didn’t learn a thing from *not* extending Betts earlier in his career, led them to wait until the last possible moment to sign Devers after ownership was publicly booed at an event makes me very angry so I am not going to write about that any more). Okay, so, yes, your incumbent third baseman has a $313 million dollar contract and really wants to be your third baseman even if statistics and the ole “eye test” suggest he should not play third base. [EDIT: Almost immediately after posting this, Alex Cora announced that Bregman would be the starting 3B for the 2025 season, and Devers would start the year at DH]. So, I don’t know how the Bregman at third base thing will work out. It may be that Bregman moves to second. It may be that Devers moves to first. I don’t think moving Devers to first is a good idea, because his struggles at thirdbase are glove related more than they are arm related. This will be something to track early in the season as Devers works his way back from a spring training injury.
Let’s talk Bregman for a quick minute. Bregman has been a very good and consistent hitter. His “back of the baseball card” numbers are solid. He’s projected to hit .260 / .320 / .424 by OOSPY next year. It is that last number–the slugging number that OOPSY thinks will drop compared to his career slugging of .483. Why? Because Bregman played in a very hitter friendly park in Houston. Now, Fenway is also a hitter friendly park, but not for home runs. And especially not for the kind of home runs Bregman has hit. He isn’t a max exit velocity smasher. He’s a solid contact guy. Solid enough contact, clean enough barrels to get 23, 25, and 26 home runs to leave the park the last three years. But I’m not sure we should expect that in Fenway, it is likely that a lot of those home runs become doubles. And it is likely, as he ages into his 30’s that he loses a bit of power. Projection systems aren’t sure he can afford to lose much and still be a 20+ HR guy. But he is still a great teammate and defender, and the team is a lot better with him than without him.
What makes the “will Bregman play third” conversation a bit more spicy is that the Red Sox seemingly have their second baseman of the future, and his name is Kristian Campbell. In a way Campbell came out of nowhere last season to emerge as Kieth Law’s #6 prospect in all of baseball. Fangraphs has him at #7. He’s a bat-first prospect who has enough athleticism to spend time at CF and SS while in the minors (though you probably don’t want him playing either in MLB). Last year, he put up an amazing season across A+ (40 games), AA (56 games), and AAA (19 games) in his age 22 season: a .330 / .439 / .558 line with 20 home runs and 24 steals. He’ll be starting the season at second base and is expected to hit 6th. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him leading off or hitting 2nd by mid-season. Or, perhaps, I’m really hoping he plays well enough to earn that opportunity. And–again–if he does, it means that it is unlikely Bregman would get moved over to second base.
The other Red Sox uber prospect, Ramon Anthony, didn’t make the team out of spring training. That surprised me a bit–Anthony was incredible at AA and AAA last year–a .291 / .396 / .498 line. That’s lower than Campbell’s, but Anthony did it with a lower BABIP (less luck on balls in play) and a better BB rate. I am not sure what else he can learn/prove in the minors. I don’t want to think the Sox demoted him to manipulate his contract and playing time, so I’ll argue that they moved him down to showcase Wilyer Abreu, the staring LF, in preparation for a trade. Abreu himself is only 26 years old, and had a productive rookie season last year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Red Sox package him with Tristan Casas to acquire a starting pitcher. It was leaked that the Sox were close to trading Casas to Seattle for Luis Castillo, but the trade fell apart because the Sox wanted the Mariners to take on Yoshida’s contract, which they refused. Abreu could be on the roster all year, and I’d be fine with that. But eventually Roman Anthony is coming. Incumbent CF Ceddanne Rafaela is an excellent defender but comes with a lot of offensive questions, so Anthony might end up there. RF is claimed–I cannot see Duran playing anywhere else. So, it feels like LF is where Anthony will break in.
There’s another Red Sox prospect to discuss here–former #4 over all pick Marcelo Mayer. After a poor 2023 season that saw him struggle in AA, Mayer wrecked AA in 2024. In 77 games he hit .307 / .370 / .480. He only hit 8 home runs, but had 28 doubles, signaling that he has real line drive power. His defense at shortstop is questionable, and so it is uncertain where he might play when he does reach the league, but that will be a nice problem for the Sox to have.
Season Projection
Well. There’s other things to write, but I believe I this has gone long enough this year. I am back listening to spring training games and looking forward to opening day. There’s enough talent on this roster, or on its way, to be excited about their chances to compete for a playoff spot in 2025 (although the rotation depth and the bullpen give reason to temper the enthusiasm). This is a weird season for team projections. Fangraphs has the Red Sox, after the Bregman signing, as the 7th best team in baseball, projecting 85 wins. That should raise an eyebrow–the 7th best team in baseball only 4 games above .500? Weird. But they have 15 teams–half the league–winning between 86 and 82 games. Wild. That means the projection system sees a lot of parity, which is another way of saying has little idea who is actually good this year. Or, maybe, that we have a lot of good teams and baseball is too unpredictable to say who might be great. If you want to believe the Sox are great, then you don’t think about the bullpen, and you do look at all the good, shiny, young hitters who are about to join this team. I can’t overlook that bullpen, nor the question marks in the rotation, so I will say 84 wins. But this year, unlike last year, I’ll actually be happy if they over perform my projection. Maybe.
