Red Sox 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[moonslav59]

PHI gives Brad Keller $22M/2. Kinda exposes the value or marginal pitchers, these days.

[JoeBrady]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

The two times I've been most annoyed at the FO: trading Mookie, throwing Theo/Tito under the bus on the way out the door. 

1-A first-ballot HOF manager.

2-Arguably the best GM in history.

No matter what Fred and Pumpsie think.

[a700hitter]

6 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

His problem wasn't destroying the farm through trades. He destroyed the farm through horrible drafting.

He left us with Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck, Casas and Crawford.  That's not an empty farm.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, a700hitter said:

He left us with Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck, Casas and Crawford.  That's not an empty farm.

It was a very nice departing gift from the wise one.

He also left us Aldo Ramirez who netted us Schwarber, Beeks who netted us Nate, Buttrey for Kinsler and Scherff for Robles.

[FredLynn]

4 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

1-A first-ballot HOF manager.

2-Arguably the best GM in history.

No matter what Fred and Pumpsie think.

Fred and Pumpsie….while two of me would be much better for everyone you need to choose one. 
meanwhile King just signed with the Padres. Not much left out there. I am more concerned about how bad we will be in 2026 than Francona’s or Epstein s resume.

I guess this is the 2026 Red FLOPS. 
What a disgusting franchise….,

[Sofia3672]

19.12.2025 о 08:28, FredLynn сказав:

Фред і Пампсі... хоча двоє мене було б набагато краще для всіх, потрібно вибрати одного. 
Тим часом Кінг щойно підписав контракт з Падрес. Там небагато чого залишилося. Мене більше хвилює те, наскільки поганими ми будемо у 2026 році, ніж резюме Франкони чи Епштейна.

Гадаю, це Червоний провал 2026 року. 
Яка огидна франшиза…

Здається, що керівництво застрягло в минулому, поки решта ліги рухається далі. 2026 рік зараз виглядає важким, важко залишатися оптимістом.
If you want something quick and fun to take your mind off things, you can try this unvanl.ca

[mvp 78]

9 hours ago, a700hitter said:

He left us with Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck, Casas and Crawford.  That's not an empty farm.

Crawford was ranked where in 2019? Being 30th in the league means the farm is pretty baren. That the Sox couldn't fill holes from within means the farm was empty. 🤔

[moonslav59]

King re-signs with Padres at $75M/3 with opt outs after year 1 and 2.

[Bellhorn04]

16 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

They've added $100M+ in payroll since DD joined them.  If JH added another $100M to what our payroll was in 2019, we'd be above the LAD.

They didn't have to add $100M to pay Betts.

[moonslav59]

50 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Crawford was ranked where in 2019? Being 30th in the league means the farm is pretty baren. That the Sox couldn't fill holes from within means the farm was empty. 🤔

The point was that these guys did better than their rankings, and the farm was not as "bare" as many, including myself, thought it would be.

Yes, the lack of more and better prospects being called up from 2017 to 2023is was a major reason the team model for continued success was not a success.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

They didn't have to add $100M to pay Betts.

They had already let Kimbrell & Kelly go after 2018, and they did not replace them.

They traded Betts and Price and did not replace them. They never replaced the $21M spent on Porcello, either (after 2020). JBJ, Moreland, Pearce & Brock were moderate/minor losses.

We lost ERod & Ottavino after 2021. (Added Story)

Bogey, JD & Nate after 2022- also Wacha, Hill & Strahm. (Added Masa.)

We did not lose these guys all at once, but when you look at all together and try to offset them with Story & Masa, you have to think that even if Story & masa did great, we fell way short of replacing what we lost and let go.

We'd have had to stay close to the LAD to keep a similar team as what we lost.

[Brock Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, Sofia3672 said:

Feels like the front office is stuck in the past while the rest of the league moves on. 2026 looks rough right now, hard to stay optimistic.

Welcome to Talk Sox!

[Bellhorn04]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

They had already let Kimbrell & Kelly go after 2018, and they did not replace them.

They traded Betts and Price and did not replace them. They never replaced the $21M spent on Porcello, either (after 2020). JBJ, Moreland, Pearce & Brock were moderate/minor losses.

We lost ERod & Ottavino after 2021. (Added Story)

Bogey, JD & Nate after 2022- also Wacha, Hill & Strahm. (Added Masa.)

We did not lose these guys all at once, but when you look at all together and try to offset them with Story & Masa, you have to think that even if Story & masa did great, we fell way short of replacing what we lost and let go.

We'd have had to stay close to the LAD to keep a similar team as what we lost.

We could have made the playoffs every year from 2021 to 2025 with better moves and a bit more spending.  It's not like we were that far away in any year.  And having Betts would have been a massive improvement in itself. 

[mvp 78]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

We could have made the playoffs every year from 2021 to 2025 with better moves and a bit more spending.  It's not like we were that far away in any year.  And having Betts would have been a massive improvement in itself. 

A superstar that is willing to play any position on the field.

[Hugh2]

11 hours ago, a700hitter said:

He left us with Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck, Casas and Crawford.  That's not an empty farm.

Every team, even the ones who don't draft and develop well are going to have a handful of MLBers on their team over the course of a 5 years.  It's not like any of those guys are needle movers (Durans 2024 different story).  But besides Tanner Houck & Tristan Casas, I bet DD didn't know any of those guys names until after they were signed.  But 6 guys in 4 years of which only one has been an All star one time isn't exactly a huge flex.  

I do agree that "he emptied the farm" was way overblown.  He was doing what he was hired to do, in his younger days he did a phenomenal job building up the Expos farm system. 

[Bellhorn04]

Trading Betts was like telling the fans:

"We're more about finances than we are about baseball from here on."

[Hugh2]

5 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

Every team, even the ones who don't draft and develop well are going to have a handful of MLBers on their team over the course of a 5 years.  It's not like any of those guys are needle movers (Durans 2024 different story).  But besides Tanner Houck & Tristan Casas, I bet DD didn't know any of those guys names until after they were signed.  But 6 guys in 4 years of which only one has been an All star one time isn't exactly a huge flex.  

I do agree that "he emptied the farm" was way overblown.  He was doing what he was hired to do, in his younger days he did a phenomenal job building up the Expos farm system. 

Correction, I believe Tanner Houck also had one all star game

[JoeBrady]

11 hours ago, a700hitter said:

He left us with Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck, Casas and Crawford.  That's not an empty farm.

Just a couple of things that I found of interest.

The first is that, if you are thinking about a rebuild after 2019, you can only base that decision on the ranking of the farm as of that date.  And that was mostly ranked around #30.

But even in retrospect, a rebuild was in order.  Below are the bWAR totals of the players you mentioned, by year:

• 2020  1.3
• 2021  0.6
• 2022  2.0
• 2023  11.3
• 2024  18.9
• 2025  10.0

So even if we knew then, what we know now, we'd have still rebuilt.

[moonslav59]

35 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

We could have made the playoffs every year from 2021 to 2025 with better moves and a bit more spending.  It's not like we were that far away in any year.  And having Betts would have been a massive improvement in itself. 

I disagree, except for 2021.

We actually made good moves before 2022- perhaps better than before '21. even. We added Wacha, Hill and Strahm. We did not have major injuries, except for Sale. Yes, the JBJ reunion wads a head-scratcher, but Kike sucked and we had Dalbec/Franchy/Hosmer muffing up 1B and our 4th and 5th best batters were Vaz and Dugo. That's not a winning team. as Schreiber was the best of the lot The pen sucked. Brasier and Davis had 117 IP and 5.50+ ERA combined. Pivetta led the team in IP. Wink, Crawford and Bello had 37 GS and a combined ERA above 5.40.

2023 was more than 3-4 major additions away from serious contention. Wong .673, Arroyo .638, Kike .599 and Dugo .745 led the team in innings at 4 positions. Duvall was a nice addition but played just 92 games. Sale started 20 games (4.30) and was not in winning form. We had 7 SP'ers with 10+ GS and none were below a 4.04 ERA. No way was this team close to winning. Jansen and Martin were great adds, but the rest of the pen was not very good.

By 20254, we were a .500 team. Maybe we were 2-3 big additions from contention, but still 3-4 from serious contention. IMO. Our middle infield was a joke: EValdez .633 led in PAs at 2B and Ceddanne .664 led at SS. DHam .697 and Grissom .465 did not help. 1B was a joke, again .706 Smith, .410 Dalbec & .455 G Cooper could not fill the Casas shoes. Houck pitched well, but fell off at the end. The other 4 starters had ERAs over 4.08, and for the love of God, Criswell had the second best starter season! That's a joke. Jansen & Martin did okay, and the rest of the pen overperformed enough to get us to .500.

Contrary to many posters' beliefs, we were not a couple good deadline moves away from competing, seriously.

Maybe the term "cliff" is a bit overblown, but we finished last in 3 of 4 years, so it can't be that far off.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Just a couple of things that I found of interest.

The first is that, if you are thinking about a rebuild after 2019, you can only base that decision on the ranking of the farm as of that date.  And that was mostly ranked around #30.

But even in retrospect, a rebuild was in order.  Below are the bWAR totals of the players you mentioned, by year:

• 2020  1.3
• 2021  0.6
• 2022  2.0
• 2023  11.3
• 2024  18.9
• 2025  10.0

So even if we knew then, what we know now, we'd have still rebuilt.

But we were on the cusp of the playoffs at the deadlines in 2022, 2023 and 2024.  It wasn't a rebuild from scratch situation like Theo with the Cubs.       

 

[mvp 78]

32 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Trading Betts was like telling the fans:

"We're more about finances than we are about baseball from here on."

They changed tack at that moment and haven't course corrected since then. 

[Old Red]

22 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

If JH spent, there was no need, yes, but some of knew he would not become the LAD East.

To keep Betts, Bogey and replac4e others who left, he'd have had an enormous budget. Some of us saw that coming and knew he would not do that. We predicted it, and it happened.

You can say all the "ifs" in the world, but it happened. We had a cliff.

Obviously it makes you feel better to call it a cliff well so be it, but I’m not going to. Last Cliff I knew was Huxtable.😉😉

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Just a couple of things that I found of interest.

The first is that, if you are thinking about a rebuild after 2019, you can only base that decision on the ranking of the farm as of that date.  And that was mostly ranked around #30.

But even in retrospect, a rebuild was in order.  Below are the bWAR totals of the players you mentioned, by year:

• 2020  1.3
• 2021  0.6
• 2022  2.0
• 2023  11.3
• 2024  18.9
• 2025  10.0

So even if we knew then, what we know now, we'd have still rebuilt.

When prospects are called up, they rarely hit the ground running. There is a lag before top production with the good. The lack of farm infusion actually started under DD as Betts, Bogey, ERod, beni & JBJ were just getting into form.

Devers first full season was 2018, and he was pretty much it, until Duran, Crawford & Houck started playing a lot in 2023-2024. The only other meaningful player was Dalbec, and he was up and down before being just down. (Whitlock was a Bloom guy.)

The farm did better than expected and was not a complete bust, but key prospects were few and far between. That was certainly part of the reason for the team's decline.

 

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Contrary to many posters' beliefs, we were not a couple good deadline moves away from competing, seriously.

2.5 GB of the WC on 7/31/23

2.5 GB of the WC on 7/31/24

🫠

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I disagree, except for 2021.

We actually made good moves before 2022- perhaps better than before '21. even. We added Wacha, Hill and Strahm. We did not have major injuries, except for Sale. Yes, the JBJ reunion wads a head-scratcher, but Kike sucked and we had Dalbec/Franchy/Hosmer muffing up 1B and our 4th and 5th best batters were Vaz and Dugo. That's not a winning team. as Schreiber was the best of the lot The pen sucked. Brasier and Davis had 117 IP and 5.50+ ERA combined. Pivetta led the team in IP. Wink, Crawford and Bello had 37 GS and a combined ERA above 5.40.

2023 was more than 3-4 major additions away from serious contention. Wong .673, Arroyo .638, Kike .599 and Dugo .745 led the team in innings at 4 positions. Duvall was a nice addition but played just 92 games. Sale started 20 games (4.30) and was not in winning form. We had 7 SP'ers with 10+ GS and none were below a 4.04 ERA. No way was this team close to winning. Jansen and Martin were great adds, but the rest of the pen was not very good.

By 20254, we were a .500 team. Maybe we were 2-3 big additions from contention, but still 3-4 from serious contention. IMO. Our middle infield was a joke: EValdez .633 led in PAs at 2B and Ceddanne .664 led at SS. DHam .697 and Grissom .465 did not help. 1B was a joke, again .706 Smith, .410 Dalbec & .455 G Cooper could not fill the Casas shoes. Houck pitched well, but fell off at the end. The other 4 starters had ERAs over 4.08, and for the love of God, Criswell had the second best starter season! That's a joke. Jansen & Martin did okay, and the rest of the pen overperformed enough to get us to .500.

Contrary to many posters' beliefs, we were not a couple good deadline moves away from competing, seriously.

Maybe the term "cliff" is a bit overblown, but we finished last in 3 of 4 years, so it can't be that far off.

Finishing last is not the critical measure though IMHO.  78-84 stinks but it's more like mediocre than bad.  And those 2022-2024 teams all finished badly of course. 

[Old Red]

29 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

2.5 GB of the WC on 7/31/23

2.5 GB of the WC on 7/31/24

🫠

Exactly! The Red Sox were right there knocking on the door that a move, or two might have got them in. Instead the third option at the fork in the road was used. Brez thought he had improved the BP in 2024, but it didn’t work out.

[Larry Cook]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Finishing last is not the critical measure though IMHO.  78-84 stinks but it's more like mediocre than bad.  And those 2022-2024 teams all finished badly of course. 

Interesting that the pitching fell apart in August and September for 2022 to 2025. 
say what you will about the various GM’s but maybe quick hook Cora stole some wins in each of those years early in the season, with bullpen over usage, but we paid the price in the back half of the year! 
I think bres-slow realized this and I cannot blame bres-slow at all for having 10 starters on the 40 man roster to start the 2026 season!!! 
 

ps: I still hope we get a quality number 2 starter before spring training starts. 
 

[drewski6]

14 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

1-A first-ballot HOF manager.

2-Arguably the best GM in history.

No matter what Fred and Pumpsie think.

With you on this.

[drewski6]

9 hours ago, FredLynn said:

Fred and Pumpsie….while two of me would be much better for everyone you need to choose one. 
meanwhile King just signed with the Padres. Not much left out there. I am more concerned about how bad we will be in 2026 than Francona’s or Epstein s resume.

I guess this is the 2026 Red FLOPS. 
What a disgusting franchise….,

he meant seabeachfred

[drewski6]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

We could have made the playoffs every year from 2021 to 2025 with better moves and a bit more spending.  It's not like we were that far away in any year.  And having Betts would have been a massive improvement in itself. 

This guy is nothing if not reasonable.