Red Sox 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Had a blow up start o 9/25 and lost Game 3 of the WC. I guess his velo is down. Cubs may know more than anybody else, but he was really good for him for the first 95% of the time he was there. 

Gotta think there is a health issue.

[notin]

23 hours ago, Hitch said:

Cubs have released Shota Imanaga 🤔

Tread lightly.

Imanaga collapsed badly in the second half of his second season.   Despite this, he was immensely popular among Cubs’ fans and was a face of the franchise.  The Marquee channel that broadcasts the Cubs’ most aired commercial for the team featured Imanaga in the shower singing “Go Cubs Go.”  Despite his popularity, thr Cubs - the team that knows him best  and knows how popular he is - still chose to release him.

Most likely they don’t think of him as worth a $19mil AAV over the next 3 years. And if he isn’t, does he really qualify as that missing “#2 starter”?

[Hitch]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

Tread lightly.

Imanaga collapsed badly in the second half of his second season.   Despite this, he was immensely popular among Cubs’ fans and was a face of the franchise.  The Marquee channel that broadcasts the Cubs’ most aired commercial for the team featured Imanaga in the shower singing “Go Cubs Go.”  Despite his popularity, thr Cubs - the team that knows him best  and knows how popular he is - still chose to release him.

Most likely they don’t think of him as worth a $19mil AAV over the next 3 years. And if he isn’t, does he really qualify as that missing “#2 starter”?

Oh, I'm not saying we should go for him, I was just a bit surprised/confused by the Cubs' decision. Maybe it is injury based as Moon suggested. 

To be honest, I can't stop dreaming of Skubal (and it is a dream, I know).

McCaffrey suggested a few days back it would need Early, Password and Arias*, to start the conversation. Adding Duran might be needed instead of the Password. If we can get Skubal to agree to an extension, I do it in a heartbeat. 

*she also said it might take Mayer in some configuration. 

That 1-2 punch would be disgusting, with still plenty of good pitching behind.

[notin]

25 minutes ago, Hitch said:

Oh, I'm not saying we should go for him, I was just a bit surprised/confused by the Cubs' decision. Maybe it is injury based as Moon suggested. 

To be honest, I can't stop dreaming of Skubal (and it is a dream, I know).

McCaffrey suggested a few days back it would need Early, Password and Arias*, to start the conversation. Adding Duran might be needed instead of the Password. If we can get Skubal to agree to an extension, I do it in a heartbeat. 

*she also said it might take Mayer in some configuration. 

That 1-2 punch would be disgusting, with still plenty of good pitching behind.

With Skubal, maybe McCaffrey has some inside track about who Detroit wants.  My only channel is making fair deals on BTV.  Skubal has a surplus value of $51.6mill.  A fair deal on BTV is Campbell, Arias and Paez.

But when it comes to acquiring players like Skubal, my logic is “if you’re fine giving it up, it isn’t enough.”  I’m very ok with that trade package.  So it probably isn’t enough.

One year of Skubal is almost an even swap for Mayer and far less than Duran.  But that doesn’t mean Detroit won’t insist on one or both and then some… 

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, notin said:

Tread lightly.

Imanaga collapsed badly in the second half of his second season.  

7/25 3 IP 7 ER

7/30 - 9/19 61 IP, 3.69 ERA (15 HR)

9/25 5.2 IP 8 ER

2nd in starters w/ 100 IP 1.93 HR/9

 

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

7/25 3 IP 7 ER

7/30 - 9/19 61 IP, 3.69 ERA (15 HR)

9/25 5.2 IP 8 ER

2nd in starters w/ 100 IP 1.93 HR/9

 

After missing most of May and June, Imanaga came back to start 17 games.

He allowed more than 3 runs, twice- the two games you mentioned.

To be fair, he did allow exactly 3 ERs in 8 of the 17 and many were in 5 IP, but still, hardly a melt down ending to 2025. Also, in more fairness, he never allowed less than 3 ERs in his last 6 starts (5.97 ERA and 6.51 FIP.)

[mvp 78]

20 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

After missing most of May and June, Imanaga came back to start 17 games.

He allowed more than 3 runs, twice- the two games you mentioned.

To be fair, he did allow exactly 3 ERs in 8 of the 17 and many were in 5 IP, but still, hardly a melt down ending to 2025. Also, in more fairness, he never allowed less than 3 ERs in his last 6 starts (5.97 ERA and 6.51 FIP.)

Shota's HR/9 went up, K/BB went down, his xSLG increased almost 100 points, his 4 seamer went from 4 RV to -10 RV and he lost about 1 mph on all his pitches. 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Shota's HR/9 went up, K/BB went down, his xSLG increased almost 100 points, his 4 seamer went from 4 RV to -10 RV and he lost about 1 mph on all his pitches. 

Something happened. I'm guessing it's medical related.

[Behindenemylines]

On 11/4/2025 at 2:48 PM, vegasbob said:

Duran's personal  and economic future may be best served by  getting traded.  If  Speier's report is correct, Jarren will not be getting an extended deal at premium pricing from the Red Sox.   A trade and sign deal with another team who actually needs an outfielder with some plus tools  will be his way to bigger money.

Otherwise, Duran's ship is leaving port without enough lifeboats.    As a guy who plays hard, he is one leg injury away from being made irrelevant.    

Like Duran a lot because of what he brings to the table, but has the skills that will help the Sox trade for a number 2 starter. Signing for next year makes it easier to trade him.

[moonslav59]

14 minutes ago, Behindenemylines said:

Like Duran a lot because of what he brings to the table, but has the skills that will help the Sox trade for a number 2 starter. Signing for next year makes it easier to trade him.

MN may prefer prospects to Duran.

[Nick]

I am 50/50 on what Bres will do this fall. I just don't want to hear "we tried but the numbers didn't work....."Lets not forget all of his failings with starting pitchers", saved by Crochet get. 

2023 Corey Kluber $10M

2024 Lucas Giolito $38.5M for one year's production

2024 Liam Hendricks $10M for nothing

2025 Walker Buehler $21.5M

2025 Yoshida $18M....he's really added a piece to our world series hopes....

JUST PAY WHATEVER IT TAKES TO ACQUIRE SKUBAL....QUIT BARGAIN HUNTING IN THE MASH UNIT

Right now, we're not good enough to beat the Dodgers. Isn't that the point?

 

[mvp 78]

16 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Something happened. I'm guessing it's medical related.

A lot of people expected his stuff to project as a back end guy before last season. Maybe he's just regressing to that? IDK. 

[mvp 78]

13 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

MN may prefer prospects to Duran.

Which may not make the Sox a good fit! 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Nick said:

Right now, we're not good enough to beat the Dodgers. Isn't that the point?

The pieces are good enough to get them to the playoffs if they bring everyone back (Breggie, Refsnyder, Matz). What are the next steps? They need a big RHB for 1B. They need better MIF defense (Mayer to SS, Story to 2B). Deal Abreu/Duran for a #2. Continued progression of Tolle and Early. Even with all of that, they still are behind the Dodgers. They don't have the generational talent the Dodgers have unless some of these guys take MASSIVE leaps next year. We know JH isn't going to shell out money to even compete with the likes of Toronto. 

The only other way to beat the Dodgers is to hope for poor injury luck out in LA. Sit here and root for Ohtani to blow out his elbow again? What fun is that? I'd rather Ohtani win 10 straight MVP's and then tell my grandkids what it was like watching the greatest player of all time. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

16 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The only other way to beat the Dodgers is to hope for poor injury luck out in LA. Sit here and root for Ohtani to blow out his elbow again? What fun is that? I'd rather Ohtani win 10 straight MVP's and then tell my grandkids what it was like watching the greatest player of all time. 

I'd rather tell them about the one time Boston beat him in the World Series, on a night he struck out 20, when a Red Sox popped up a bunt (because they can't do that, either) that fell in when Ohtani bulldozed Kike diving for the ball. Then Skubal in relief of Skenes whiffed Othani to end it.

[mvp 78]

14 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Then Skubal in relief of Skenes whiffed Othani to end it.

C'mon now...

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Nick said:

I am 50/50 on what Bres will do this fall. I just don't want to hear "we tried but the numbers didn't work....."Lets not forget all of his failings with starting pitchers", saved by Crochet get. 

2023 Corey Kluber $10M

2024 Lucas Giolito $38.5M for one year's production

2024 Liam Hendricks $10M for nothing

2025 Walker Buehler $21.5M

2025 Yoshida $18M....he's really added a piece to our world series hopes....

JUST PAY WHATEVER IT TAKES TO ACQUIRE SKUBAL....QUIT BARGAIN HUNTING IN THE MASH UNIT

Right now, we're not good enough to beat the Dodgers. Isn't that the point?

 

Unless we extend Skubal at a decent rate, why trade for him? He's a FA in a year.

Kluber and Masa were Bloon guys.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Which may not make the Sox a good fit! 

Agreed. A third team (PHI?) might be needed.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Unless we extend Skubal at a decent rate, why trade for him? He's a FA in a year.

Kluber and Masa were Bloon guys.

The Bloombino also said if he didn't trade Mookie, we'd never be able to recruit Garrett Richards!

[moonslav59]

Just now, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

The Bloombino also said if he didn't trade Mookie, we'd never be able to recruit Garrett Richards!

You mean Boobindo?

[Hitch]

On 11/5/2025 at 3:28 PM, notin said:

With Skubal, maybe McCaffrey has some inside track about who Detroit wants.  My only channel is making fair deals on BTV.  Skubal has a surplus value of $51.6mill.  A fair deal on BTV is Campbell, Arias and Paez.

But when it comes to acquiring players like Skubal, my logic is “if you’re fine giving it up, it isn’t enough.”  I’m very ok with that trade package.  So it probably isn’t enough.

One year of Skubal is almost an even swap for Mayer and far less than Duran.  But that doesn’t mean Detroit won’t insist on one or both and then some… 

Yeah that's fair. BTV is fairly useless in these scenarios. It would take something big, but it is the last year for them, so maybe not as big as we fear. Should it be bigger than the package for a younger and more controlled Crochet for example? 

He's clearly available, I just hope we are hunting him (assuming we can get the extension). There's not much I wouldn't pay for him if that extension is on the table.

[mvp 78]

44 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Unless we extend Skubal at a decent rate, why trade for him? He's a FA in a year.

Kluber and Masa were Bloon guys.

Decent? Overpay if you have to. 

[Kimmi]

On 11/4/2025 at 3:47 PM, drewski6 said:

we had an 8m option on him, we declined it prob because we wanted to pursue 7.6 in arb for him and he wanted to pursue 8m in arb , and so we figured just go through arb because worse case he gets the same. The risk is pissing him off, but we dont even have to worry about that because we avoided arb.

Ask the bruins about how touchy arb can be.  Sometimes relationships are forever damaged, but no arb here.

I really hate to see the team take any player to arb.  IMO, it can never be a good thing for a player to hear why he doesn't deserve the higher of the two salaries.  The kicker is that the difference between the two numbers is usually fairly small, and it's nothing for the team to cover the higher number.

Unless it's an outrageous ask, just pay the higher salary.

[Kimmi]

Just now, Kimmi said:

I really hate to see the team take any player to arb.  IMO, it can never be a good thing for a player to hear why he doesn't deserve the higher of the two salaries.  The kicker is that the difference between the two numbers is usually fairly small, and it's nothing for the team to cover the higher number.

Unless it's an outrageous ask, just pay the higher salary.

All that said, I'm glad to hear that the Red Sox and Duran were able to come to an agreement.  I would still really hate to see any of our outfielders traded, though I know it's probably going to be a necessary evil.

I can understand wanting to trade Rafaela to improve the offense, but personally, I am unwilling to sacrifice his defense.  He won the Fielding Bible Award (much more credible than the Gold Glove) for the best defensive centerfielder in baseball this year.  He's that good!

[moonslav59]

6 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Decent? Overpay if you have to. 

Just wait and sign him next winter. Save Mayer, Tolle and Arias for the future with Skubal.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Kimmi said:

All that said, I'm glad to hear that the Red Sox and Duran were able to come to an agreement.  I would still really hate to see any of our outfielders traded, though I know it's probably going to be a necessary evil.

I can understand wanting to trade Rafaela to improve the offense, but personally, I am unwilling to sacrifice his defense.  He won the Fielding Bible Award (much more credible than the Gold Glove) for the best defensive centerfielder in baseball this year.  He's that good!

I can't see getting full value from any of our 4 OF'ers by DH'ing them, or worse yet, playing the best defensive CF'er at 2B or SS. Each one would have much more value playing OF for another team. 

That is a foundation for a trade about to happen. Lot's of teams are drooling over our OF'ers.

[Nick]

The Bad

There was one sole thing that dampened Whitlock’s glorious season: If and when he went more than one inning, he usually had a harder time. This was unfortunately the most evident during the Wild Card series, when he was called on to pitch the most he had the entire season and wasn’t able to keep the Sox in a good spot to (try to) win. After getting tasked with pitching two innings for the first time in (what feels like) ages, and throwing more pitches in a relief outing than he ever has in his career, he couldn’t keep the game tied, gave up the go-ahead run on an RBI single, and nearly completely fell apart after that.

I'm not convinced. His best year was his freshman year.

[Randy Red Sox]

On 11/1/2025 at 9:41 AM, moonslav59 said:

I'm a big supporter on having depth in the rotation, and last year was a glowing example of the idea that you can never have "too much." We started 2025 having 12 or more possible rotation pieces and ended up needing to trade for a SP (D May) and using a rookie (Early) to start our final elimination game.

Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito

Crawford, Fitts, Newcomb, Criswell, Dobbins, Priester (traded)

Tolle & Early (late season options)

RP/SP: Winckowski, Whitlock, Fulmer

This winter, despite losing Giolito & May to free agency, along with Houck for the full 2026 season, we still look very deep, but it's mostly with capable 4/5 type SP'ers:

1. Crochet

3/4. Bello & Sandoval

4/5. Early, Tolle, Dobbins, Harrison & Crawford 

5/6. Fitts, Criswell, Perales, Uberstine, Anderson

RP/SP: Winckowski, Sandlin, Mullins & Drohan/Song

That's 16+ names, not counting later season possibilities from Holobetz, Clarke, Aita, Paez, Wehunt or E Rivera. We can maybe safely say it's more like 12-14 viable options- same as last winter.

One question might be do we trade from this area of depth? We traded Priester and immediately regretted it, but that should not mean the answer is a firm no. (We also traded Newcomb, who went on to have a great second half of the season as a RP'er. He had the third best ERA- among RP'ers after 6/21 at 27!)

My answer would be yes, and hopefully we don't trade the next Priester, but I am also thinking we should be trading for a solid #2 SP'er, so I'd be subtracting from mediocre depth and adding higher quality nearer the top of the rotation.

I'm thinking guys like Fitts & Crawford might be the most "expendable," but teams may insist on Harrison, Dobbins or Perales, instead. (I'm not parting with Early or Tolle and don't see the sense in trading Bello or Sandoval.)

We may have to involve a third team, but who can we get for Duran/Abreu plus Fitts, Crawford and Sandlin/Mullins?

 

wow you already have Sandoval as the #3 o4 SP next year. just WOW !!!

[Hitch]

2 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

wow you already have Sandoval as the #3 o4 SP next year. just WOW !!!

Hard to know what we've got with Sandoval right now. He could definitely be our 4 if he's healthy.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Trevor Story said he opted in because the Sox are about to become a rocketship. But right now, his 2025 Opening Day double play partner is one of those boosters that just fall off into oblivion after the launch.

Kristian Campbell. Has there ever been a Red Sox who in one year went from being Minor League Player of the Year to MLB starting line-up to completely dismissed as a viable option for the next big league roster?

At least publicly, no one in the org or media or fan forums is counting on Campbell to contribute in the majors in 2026. Presumably, the front office has learned its lesson... while the media and fanbase are more suspicious of PR personnel crying "star." 

Just as surprising as these revoltin' developments, would it really astonish if KC suddenly broke out and became Barry Bonds again sometime next summer?