A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[mvp 78]

12 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Also, hard hit balls is kind of subjective.

No it isn't. 

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

No it isn't. 

Over 90 MPH exit?

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Confession: I call him "son" -- with American Legion stats from an app last summer... and no, I wasn't the official scorer. 

I'm not sure how it calculates "hard hit" but suspect the input is "line drive" or "liner" -- though I dunno how a hard one-hop grounder or deep flyout that is crushed factors in.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Confession: I call him "son" -- with American Legion stats from an app last summer... and no, I wasn't the official scorer. 

I'm not sure how it calculates "hard hit" but suspect the input is "line drive" or "liner" -- though I dunno how a hard one-hop grounder or deep flyout that is crushed factors in.

From the frontpage of Statcast:

[drewski6]

7 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Confession: I call him "son" -- with American Legion stats from an app last summer... and no, I wasn't the official scorer. 

I'm not sure how it calculates "hard hit" but suspect the input is "line drive" or "liner" -- though I dunno how a hard one-hop grounder or deep flyout that is crushed factors in.

Nice!  Sounds like hes making the all star team.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, notin said:

If the Sox had Eaton instead of Yoshida, Cora would have a set starting lineup and work Eaton in occasionally to keep him active.  Now he has a player better than Eaton, and he has an option to do the same thing.  This is on Cora for overcomplicating it…

Doesn't Brez choose the 26 man roster?

[Hugh2]

4 hours ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

True, but I'll take a .769 OPS while he is slumping!

Yeah but is that a slump? it's only been a few games.  I wouldn't call that a slump i'd call it a small sample size. 

[notin]

46 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Doesn't Brez choose the 26 man roster?

On his own?  Doubtful.  I’m sure Cora has input.

But Cora owns the lineup…

[notin]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

2021. The very next year, he had to throw Arroyo out in RF. It's been a struggle ever since. 

He didn’t have to throw Arroyo into the OF in 2022.  Cora made that choice.

Cora did have other options, like leave Bradley out there vs LHP and at least know he’d have defense.  Or Refsnyder, who was on the roster in April while Arroyo was still playing RF.

Arroyo was 100% on Cora, who does have a clear addiction to platoons and probably wanted a way to get Arroyo into the lineup vs LHP…

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, notin said:

On his own?  Doubtful.  I’m sure Cora has input.

But Cora owns the lineup…

I do think Brez listens to Cora, but the choice of Eaton going to AAA was ultimately Brez's to make.

I think both Cora and Brez prefered to have Yoshida's bat on the bench over Eaton. We already have 4 OF'ers and not enough slots, so Eaton was not needed for the OF.

[MADSTORK]

Beer Leaguers and Breezelow off and running.. 

Again no Soto (years) No Bichette (cash) No Campbell (cold feet) Ranger Rick over Tolle, No SP after GC and let’s not forget QPriester hey Brez…

78 84 and that’s a gift

I’ll quote the great Tito Francona “good luck with that”…

[Yaz Fan Since 67]

22 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

They needed one more hitter. Trying to win every game 3-2 is easier said than done. 

You mean like that guy in San Francisco?  

[Hugh2]

The Madstork has arrived, the season has officially begun. 

[mvp 78]

15 hours ago, notin said:

He didn’t have to throw Arroyo into the OF in 2022.  Cora made that choice.

Cora did have other options, like leave Bradley out there vs LHP and at least know he’d have defense.  Or Refsnyder, who was on the roster in April while Arroyo was still playing RF.

Arroyo was 100% on Cora, who does have a clear addiction to platoons and probably wanted a way to get Arroyo into the lineup vs LHP…

 

C'mon. Refsnyder was in POR/WOO to start the year. I don't think anyone on here considered him for the OF rotation at that point. The year before in MIN he hit 663. The year before that in TEX he hit 498. He hadn't been a productive MLBer to that point in his career. 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Yaz Fan Since 67 said:

You mean like that guy in San Francisco?  

At least our manager isn't listening to the new Kanye. 

[mvp 78]

43 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

The Madstork has arrived, the season has officially begun. 

[notin]

24 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

C'mon. Refsnyder was in POR/WOO to start the year. I don't think anyone on here considered him for the OF rotation at that point. The year before in MIN he hit 663. The year before that in TEX he hit 498. He hadn't been a productive MLBer to that point in his career. 

1. Refsnyder did play games in Boston in late April. Arroyo continued his RF debut until July.

2. Who cares if anyone on here considered him?  Cora and Bloom could and should have.  Are you really saying “we didn’t mention him on this forum, so Cora was forced to stick Arroyo in RF.”

3.  I don’t know why they signed Refsnyder, but if it was for his performance vs LHP then it makes much, much less sense to put Arroyo out in RF.

4. Or Bradley could have just played.

Cora made that choice himself.  He wasn’t stuck with a bad roster and no other options…

[mvp 78]

14 minutes ago, notin said:

1. Refsnyder did play games in Boston in late April. Arroyo continued his RF debut until July.

2. Who cares if anyone on here considered him?  Cora and Bloom could and should have.  Are you really saying “we didn’t mention him on this forum, so Cora was forced to stick Arroyo in RF.”

3.  I don’t know why they signed Refsnyder, but if it was for his performance vs LHP then it makes much, much less sense to put Arroyo out in RF.

4. Or Bradley could have just played.

Cora made that choice himself.  He wasn’t stuck with a bad roster and no other options…

Why should they have seriously considered Rob Refsnyder at the start of '22? He hadn't done anything in MLB for years and years before then. He was a depth guy who took a spot from Arauz who got COVID. Later he was sent down for Franchy. That's how little they thought of him at the time. 

[Maxbialystock]

On 3/30/2026 at 6:10 PM, moonslav59 said:

Why is it not surprising we are one of two teams who have outscored their opponents but lost more games that we won?

The Rays and Sox are both +1 and 1-2.

That Ms ar +9 and 2-2.

Sox are now -7.  But the Jays, 3-1, are -4.  Cleveland, 3-2, is -7.  Miami is 3-1 at -2.  

Rockies are 1-3 and +6.  

Early season anomalies.  

 

[Maxbialystock]

As everyone knows, I always defend Cora, but I have to say right now that's the easiest thing in the world when--

The Sox are -13 after 5 games,

"Superstar" Anthony has 4 hits and 11 freaking K's with an OPS of .482,

The team OPS is .630,

The team ERA is 4.78, 

And they have 4 errors in 5 games.

I do recognize that ultimately the only guy you can fire is the manager--and managers are hired to be fired. 

On the other hand, I thought Cora was brilliant last year after losing Devers and Bregman going on the IL after which he wasn't the same hitter.  And don't forget a red hot Anthony going on the IL on Sep 3.  

 

 

 

 

[notin]

57 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Why should they have seriously considered Rob Refsnyder at the start of '22? He hadn't done anything in MLB for years and years before then. He was a depth guy who took a spot from Arauz who got COVID. Later he was sent down for Franchy. That's how little they thought of him at the time. 

Because he had played OF and could hit LHP?  Why was Arroyo the only other choice?

[vjcsmoke]

Going into the offseason the concern is we needed to replace the bat of either Bregman or Devers.

Our cheap-ass owners and front office did neither of the above.

 

So far our offense is :

22nd in batting average .208

21st in OBP .296

21st in SLG .333

22nd in OPS .629

26th in Runs scored 13

20th in Homeruns 4

 

Oh and we're last place in the division at 1-4.

 

I realize 5 games in can be considered a small sample size.

But the Red Sox start to the season just continues to emphasize that we never fixed our weaknesses.

This is a pathetic on field product and the owners and front office who put together this roster deserve to be roasted for it.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, vjcsmoke said:

Going into the offseason the concern is we needed to replace the bat of either Bregman or Devers.

Our cheap-ass owners and front office did neither of the above.

 

So far our offense is :

22nd in batting average .208

21st in OBP .296

21st in SLG .333

22nd in OPS .629

26th in Runs scored 13

20th in Homeruns 4

 

Oh and we're last place in the division at 1-4.

 

I realize 5 games in can be considered a small sample size.

But the Red Sox start to the season just continues to emphasize that we never fixed our weaknesses.

This is a pathetic on field product and the owners and front office who put together this roster deserve to be roasted for it.

My only thoughts are - isn’t this exactly what we all thought last year?

A year ago, this offense looked questionable even with Devers, who got off to a phenomenally slow start going 0 for his first 19 with 15 strikeouts while the Sox started out 1-4 with 16 runs scored.  And very few were saying “I have faith in Devers; he’ll come around.”  Instead there was all this talk about Devers opening up his already unorthodox stance too much.

It did play out well for Boston.  The Sox did eventually score runs and make the postseason.  Can they do it again?  Not sure but I’m certainly not throwing in the towel after 5 games…

[vjcsmoke]

Quote

My only thoughts are - isn’t this exactly what we all thought last year?

A year ago, this offense looked questionable even with Devers, who got off to a phenomenally slow start going 0 for his first 19 with 15 strikeouts while the Sox started out 1-4 with 16 runs scored.  And very few were saying “I have faith in Devers; he’ll come around.”  Instead there was all this talk about Devers opening up his already unorthodox stance too much.

It did play out well for Boston.  The Sox did eventually score runs and make the postseason.  Can they do it again?  Not sure but I’m certainly not throwing in the towel after 5 games…

Big difference in circumstance. Last year we STARTED with Devers on the roster and added Bregman via free agency. We anticipated going into the season with 2 big bats secured.

It wasn't until the Red Sox front office destroyed the trust and relationship with Devers that they later dumped his salary for a bag of peanuts and replaced him with nothing.

We all agreed after the season that Bregman was a must re-sign considering his importance to the offense but our cheap-ass front office didn't do that either.

Nobody is throwing in the towel after 5 games. It's a LONG 162 game season. But the front office absolutely deserves criticism for the product they have put on the field thus far. They need to fix this because finishing last in the AL East after the team was competitive enough to make the playoffs the previous year is not acceptable.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Because he had played OF and could hit LHP?  Why was Arroyo the only other choice?

MiLB '21:

LHP 815 OPS

RHP 772 OPS

Refsnyder becoming a platoon guy didn't happen until later in '22. You are retroactively making Rob Refsnyder a known commodity when he was a nobody.

[mvp 78]

36 minutes ago, notin said:

My only thoughts are - isn’t this exactly what we all thought last year?

Let's see if they win the next 5 straight like '25 did. 

[harmony]

Last year en route to 97 regular-season wins, a division title and a postseason series victory, the Milwaukee Brewers opened the season 0-4, being outscored 47-15 in those four games.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/2025-schedule-scores.shtml

Despite the slow start, FanGraphs still gives the Red Sox a 47.8 percent chance of advancing to the postseason.

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds/fg/div

It's early.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

57 minutes ago, notin said:

The Sox did eventually score runs and make the postseason.  Can they do it again?  Not sure but I’m certainly not throwing in the towel after 5 games…

Kudos to your optimism -- I implicitly invited the forum to respond about losing to star power and road crowds, and you're the only one to reply.

Sox have their brightest star starting on the mound today and have their home crowd on Friday. Early will be pitching in the weekend series, too, so momentum could turn.

Maybe even Sam Kennedy will be there (if he really wanted to be there, he'd be there).

But kudos also to drewski for calling out Breslow for managing to not re-sign Boston's one All-Star position player and team leader when the guy clearly wanted to be a Red Sox the rest of his career. We don't have to be April Fools to note we're already feeling the impact.

 

[mvp 78]

Casas has sore ribs and is shut down for a while per Cora.

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Casas has sore ribs and is shut down for a while per Cora.

From real swings, or imaginary ones?🤔