A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[UtahSox]

23 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Very true, and many of our solutions have not proven to be good choices either.

Perhaps the best or top 3 offensive add of the off season by any team was Contreras. Not one of us called for that get.

Almost all of us wanted at least one more big bat. Most here wanted Breggie or Bichette after the Contreras deal was made. A few wanted Schwarber. Some wanted Alosno and an OF trade (usually Duran was mentioned) to make room for Alonso at DH. Some wanted KMarte, including me. Only Schwarber and a Duran trade made sense, from yhis boards most discussed wish list.

Okay, Murkami, BLowe or Donovan might have worked, but let's be honest- hardly anyone screamed for them.

This is no apology, but almost all of us sucked with our "better ideas."

I'd still rather have Contreras than Alonso.

I'd rather have Suarez than Bregman.

Hell, Durbin over Bichette looks okay, too.

Sonny Gray over most top FA pitchers looks good, too.

Even Coulombe has done okay.

We needed to thread the needle with some moves that look more like Sunday morning QB'ing than realistic offseason planning. Not trying for another big bat was a horrible mistake, but signing Bregman or Bichette would have been worse, especially when you figure JH would limit future spending had he signed either one.

The reality is that Bregman/ Marte/ Alonso results would not be identical to their current results on different teams. And there is actually no way to delineate their #’s on different teams, as to what they would have done/what impact they would have made on younger hitters. IF they were in Boston Uniforms this year.
 

All we can see is the reality of what THIS lineup has become, and the composition looks like an absolute nightmare. And MANY were worried about the lack of firepower in February. 

[notin]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

There were many MANY on here, and podcasters and pundits, who were questioning the offensive composition in Dec- February. Yes he’s paid to look around corners. This lineup this year has been hardest thing for me to watch in 25+ years of following the team closely. 

So… you’re saying the Sox should have signed Pete Alonso for the bench? 

[UtahSox]

1 minute ago, notin said:

So… you’re saying the Sox should have signed Pete Alonso for the bench? 

Look it up I was very VERY frustrated when Alonso signed with Orioles. Not for bench for 1st and DH.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

The reality is that Bregman/ Marte/ Alonso results would not be identical to their current results on different teams. 

True, and they could be worse, especially on a team in the gutter and with little line-ip protection and rbi opportunities.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

Look it up I was very VERY frustrated when Alonso signed with Orioles. Not for bench for 1st and DH.

Perhaps the best part of an Alonso signing would have been the push to trade Duran while his stock was better than now.

Bregman or Bichette would have been disasters, so far.

[notin]

5 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

Look it up I was very VERY frustrated when Alonso signed with Orioles. Not for bench for 1st and DH.

Again, the Sox had Contreras at 1b and expected Duran and Anthony to be LF/DH.   Where would Alonso have played?  
 

They needed INF, and preferably not sophomore infielders.  What good is benching, say, Duran but still starting Durbin, Mayer and Story?

[UtahSox]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Perhaps the best part of an Alonso signing would have been the push to trade Duran while his stock was better than now.

Bregman or Bichette would have been disasters, so far.

Or with Alonso and Contreras protecting them MAYBE they’d be batting .300 with 15 HR’s. We will never know.

[UtahSox]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

Again, the Sox had Contreras at 1b and expected Duran and Anthony to be LF/DH.   Where would Alonso have played?  
 

They needed INF, and preferably not sophomore infielders.  What good is benching, say, Duran but still starting Durbin, Mayer and Story?

They could have traded him for WAY more than we are gonna get at trade deadline for him. Maybe Harrison would be killing it here as well. All we actually know is this Sh** lineup isn’t working and many around here aren’t shocked. 

[moonslav59]

This season reminds me of 2022.

In '21 we added Richards, Ottavino, Renfroe, Marwin & Sawamura.

In '22 we added Wacha, Hill, Story, Strahm & Diekman.

I have to say the winter before '22 looked better, at the times.

_________________________________________

In '25 we added Bregman, Crochet, Buehler, Chapman, Sandoval, Wilson & Toro

In '26 we added Contreras, Suarez, Gray, Durbin, Coulombe, Oviedo & IKF

I have to say, at the time these seasons started, they looked pretty similar to me.

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

Or with Alonso and Contreras protecting them MAYBE they’d be batting .300 with 15 HR’s. We will never know.

Maybe, and we'd have  Bennett & Bello in the rotation.

BTW, the Cubs have 3 guys with a 128+ OPS+ and Conforto at 122 & Suzuki at 119 to protect Breggie.

BAL protects Alonso with Ruts at 130, Henderson at 126, Basallo at 120 and Ward at 117 Alexander is at 119.

Granted, the Mets have just Soto to protect Bichette.

The Sox have 171 Contreras, but not much else: 123 Rafaela (who thought of him as protection in March 2026?) and Abreu at 117. Nobody else is even near 100. (Yoshida is 4th at 91.)

I'm not thinking these guys would do better with BOS, except for park factors. Of course they could and might have. We just don't know.

We coulda had Devers and Ref, too.... LOL

[Hitch]

I haven't checked but that's bizarre if true. This feels like the worst Sox team I've watched, and yet, oddly, it also feels not a million miles away from being a contender. Some of the players are playing way below their level, and some are just not good enough, but a smart deadline and summer, and I really believe that we will be a contender next year.

The problem is, I hold no hope we'll have a smart deadline (or summer if Bres is still there). 

[cp176]

What’s frustrating for me is that sadly there is no quick fix for this team.  It’s going to take a massive change of sorts to right this ship today and going forward.  I think that everything has backfired beginning with a much over rated farm system.  Some pitching talent for sure but what else?  I’m going with very little.  

[Old Red]

2 hours ago, cp176 said:

What’s frustrating for me is that sadly there is no quick fix for this team.  It’s going to take a massive change of sorts to right this ship today and going forward.  I think that everything has backfired beginning with a much over rated farm system.  Some pitching talent for sure but what else?  I’m going with very little.  

Oh no! Not an overrated farm system? Everyone in the Nation was told this was going to be a bumper crop, and everything was going to be AWESOME. What happened with Casas, RAF Man, Teel, KC, Mayer, and little Anthony? They were all supposed to win Blue Ribbons at the fair.

[notin]

8 hours ago, UtahSox said:

They could have traded him for WAY more than we are gonna get at trade deadline for him. Maybe Harrison would be killing it here as well. All we actually know is this Sh** lineup isn’t working and many around here aren’t shocked. 

But it’s getting more hypothetical as we speak.  Not even sure how signing Alonso alleviates the need for a 3b here.

The Sox are struggling because all of their sophomore players (Antjony, Durbin, Mayer, Narvaez) are struggling along with two other veteran starters (Duran and the currently injured Story).  Thats really it.  Thats 2/3 of their lineup producing minimal results.  Bringing in someone like Alonso doesn’t change this beyond maybe replacing one hitter and tacking on some “what if” ********.  

What also doesn’t help is injuries have pressed Yoshida and IKF into larger roles than anticipated.  IKF has probably exceeded his low expectations; Yoshida has been another disappointment.  But we’re into bench players at this point.

The good news is - Antjony has been hitting the ball well, and tjis usually translates into production at some point.  We know Duran really isn’t this bad.  And even Durbin has gotten better of late.   But thats probably too little too late. ..
 

 

[drewski6]

3 hours ago, cp176 said:

What’s frustrating for me is that sadly there is no quick fix for this team.  It’s going to take a massive change of sorts to right this ship today and going forward.  I think that everything has backfired beginning with a much over rated farm system.  Some pitching talent for sure but what else?  I’m going with very little.  

the else is cedanne, a streaky abreu, and old man contreras

[drewski6]

ive decided this week to fall in love with cedanne.

[drewski6]

if cedanne can play cf and 2b at the same time, can we bat him twice in the lineup?

[drewski6]

13 hours ago, notin said:

Actually I briefly suggested pursuing Miguel Vargas (.860 OPS, 16 HRs), but was quickly told by someone who shall remain nameless (see, drewski? I’m protecting your identity 😉.) that cheap solutions were not acceptable….

im not against cheap solutions , im against more glove first players.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Oh no! Not an overrated farm system? Everyone in the Nation was told this was going to be a bumper crop, and everything was going to be AWESOME. What happened with Casas, RAF Man, Teel, KC, Mayer, and little Anthony? They were all supposed to win Blue Ribbons at the fair.

Wow, slow down Veryca.  Only two players you call out has as many as 500 career plate appearances.  And one of them has been injured for the past year.

MLB is difficult.  Not every top prospect is a superstar in his first season. There’s a reason only 5 players in MLB  have a ROY and an MVP in their first 2 years…

 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

2 hours ago, cp176 said:

What’s frustrating for me is that sadly there is no quick fix for this team.  It’s going to take a massive change of sorts to right this ship today and going forward.  I think that everything has backfired beginning with a much over rated farm system.  Some pitching talent for sure but what else?  I’m going with very little.  

Hard for anyone to argue that recent top-rated prospects like The Big Three of the Boston farm system have been overrated -- so far... but overrated by whom?

Posters on fan forums? The Fenway PR department? Absolutely; we all live for next homegrown hero to lead us to the promised land. And Red Sox Nation has been blessed for decades with young players bursting from the minors into almost instant MLB All-Stars: Fisk, Lynn, Rice, Clemens, Boggs, Mo, Nomar, Bogey, Mookie and Raffy to name a few.

But it's not our fault professional evaluators and pundits named Kristian Campbell Minor League Player of the Year, or Roman Anthony the #1 Prospect in baseball, or rated Marcelo Mayer with the best defense and hit tool in the draft.

Maybe the hype got to them all too fast and they've struggled with adjustments. Guys that good have little experience ever failing at baseball in their entire young lives. The Sox are just unlucky right now, but there's plenty of time for good careers (as long as a people person and not a robot doesn't bat them leadoff and clean-up right away).

[notin]

9 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

im not against cheap solutions , im against more glove first players.

Well, I believe you called him cheap and bad after I called him a potentially more available Paredes.

But see what happens to my recommendations  that the Sox ignore.  Andrew Vaughn, now Miguel Vargas.  Maked you maybe think twice about Matt Shaw.

(Shaw actually might be mistimed; the Sox dont necessarily need even more sophomore players.  Plus, honestly, Shaw is probably already earmarked for Detroit next month.)

 

[notin]

12 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Hard for anyone to argue that recent top-rated prospects like The Big Three of the Boston farm system have been overrated -- so far... but overrated by whom?

Posters on fan forums? The Fenway PR department? Absolutely; we all live for next homegrown hero to lead us to the promised land. And Red Sox Nation has been blessed for decades with young players bursting from the minors into almost instant MLB All-Stars: Fisk, Lynn, Rice, Clemens, Boggs, Mo, Nomar, Bogey, Mookie and Raffy to name a few.

But it's not our fault professional evaluators and pundits named Kristian Campbell Minor League Player of the Year, or Roman Anthony the #1 Prospect in baseball, or rated Marcelo Mayer with the best defense and hit tool in the draft.

Maybe the hype got to them all too fast and they've struggled with adjustments. Guys that good have little experience ever failing at baseball in their entire young lives. The Sox are just unlucky right now, but there's plenty of time for good careers (as long as a people person and not a robot doesn't bat them leadoff and clean-up right away).

I dunno.  Old Red is pretty convinced was us folks here on Talk Sox.  We’re far more influential than those hillbillies  on Sons of Sam Horn…

[Bellhorn04]

21 minutes ago, notin said:

But it’s getting more hypothetical as we speak.  Not even sure how signing Alonso alleviates the need for a 3b here.

The Sox are struggling because all of their sophomore players (Antjony, Durbin, Mayer, Narvaez) are struggling along with two other veteran starters (Duran and the currently injured Story).  Thats really it.  Thats 2/3 of their lineup producing minimal results.  Bringing in someone like Alonso doesn’t change this beyond maybe replacing one hitter and tacking on some “what if” ********.  

What also doesn’t help is injuries have pressed Yoshida and IKF into larger roles than anticipated.  IKF has probably exceeded his low expectations; Yoshida has been another disappointment.  But we’re into bench players at this point.

The good news is - Antjony has been hitting the ball well, and tjis usually translates into production at some point.  We know Duran really isn’t this bad.  And even Durbin has gotten better of late.   But thats probably too little too late. ..
 

 

Durbin is 0 for 14 in the last 4 games.  OPS at .557.

[Bellhorn04]

17 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

The new spending was seriously curtailed from Bogey/Sale to the Devers extension in 2024. He was quickly traded, so even that one could not be counted, and the Bregman signing was one year, so one could argue 2020 to 2026 (Suarez) with just 2 semi-major signings and no major extensions. Those are facts not apologies.

I find it funny that I am accused of apologizing for JH, when I am highlighting his massive cutbacks to new spending. I can see how this can be viewed as an apology for the GM, as I am arguing their spending levels were vastly different from Theo, Ben & DD's, but it can't also be apologizing for JH, too.

To me, it's not impossible to build a winner withing the new spending budgets the Sox had from 2019 to 2024 (Devers) 2025 (Bregman) or 2026 (Suarez). Bloom failed, and Brez looked like he was turning it around and made 3 good major additions last winter, but the results are what they are, and there is no apology that can cover this mess.

Do you really think had DD stayed at the helm and extended Betts, we'd have had significantly more success under the same budgets?

Remember, had we extended Betts, we'd have spent less on "new spending" by $30M a year, which in some early years would have meant needing to trade some salaries to meet the budgets. It's easy to pick and choose, in hindsight, who we could have traded and added, and I don't doubt some GM or DD could/might have done better, but it's a stretch to think we'd win a ring from 2020-2026.

As I said, if they kept Betts and didn't keep Sale and Bogaerts.  That would have reduced the payroll AAV.

Here is what you said that sounded to me like being an apologist:

It's hard for any GM to make up for all the players lost and aging stars with big contracts to rebuild when spending less and less each winter.

Maybe deadline moves could have swung some seasons, but the "new GM" would have had to have great winters, year after year. Hard to do on peanuts.

It sounds like Bloom and Breslow couldn't have been expected to do much better than they did.

[moonslav59]

54 minutes ago, notin said:

Wow, slow down Veryca.  Only two players you call out has as many as 500 career plate appearances.  And one of them has been injured for the past year.

MLB is difficult.  Not every top prospect is a superstar in his first season. There’s a reason only 5 players in MLB  have a ROY and an MVP in their first 2 years…

 

,,,and it wasn't close to "everyone"- maybe closer to half.

...and I'm not sure one person said the rookies would be "awesome" day one.

Some things never change here at Talksox.

[notin]

5 hours ago, Hitch said:

I haven't checked but that's bizarre if true. This feels like the worst Sox team I've watched, and yet, oddly, it also feels not a million miles away from being a contender. Some of the players are playing way below their level, and some are just not good enough, but a smart deadline and summer, and I really believe that we will be a contender next year.

The problem is, I hold no hope we'll have a smart deadline (or summer if Bres is still there). 

The teams are similar in terms of runs scored, runs allowed, earned runs allowed, RBI, K/BB, team ERA, and, well, just about very team stat I looked at.  
 

San Diego does have 14 more home runs as a team, but also 5 fewer runs scored.  And they’ve played 2 more games (so technically Boston’s offense is better with 5 more RS in 2 fewer games). 
 

So this is actually a pretty weird discovery…

[notin]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

,,,and it wasn't close to "everyone"- maybe closer to half.

...and I'm not sure one person said the rookies would be "awesome" day one.

Some things never change here at Talksox.

And no one said they’d all be immediate impact players on the level of Fred Lynn and Dustin Pedroia….

[moonslav59]

56 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Hard for anyone to argue that recent top-rated prospects like The Big Three of the Boston farm system have been overrated -- so far... but overrated by whom?

Posters on fan forums? The Fenway PR department? Absolutely; we all live for next homegrown hero to lead us to the promised land. And Red Sox Nation has been blessed for decades with young players bursting from the minors into almost instant MLB All-Stars: Fisk, Lynn, Rice, Clemens, Boggs, Mo, Nomar, Bogey, Mookie and Raffy to name a few.

But it's not our fault professional evaluators and pundits named Kristian Campbell Minor League Player of the Year, or Roman Anthony the #1 Prospect in baseball, or rated Marcelo Mayer with the best defense and hit tool in the draft.

Maybe the hype got to them all too fast and they've struggled with adjustments. Guys that good have little experience ever failing at baseball in their entire young lives. The Sox are just unlucky right now, but there's plenty of time for good careers (as long as a people person and not a robot doesn't bat them leadoff and clean-up right away).

While many of us hoped the big 3 would hit the ground running, nobody said they would with certainty. The club had a back-up plan for all 3.

Anthony: we kept 5 OF/DHs through the winter- perhaps the second most questionable call made (to not adding another big bat or two.)

Mayer: We signed IKF and traded DHam while adding Durbin, Monasterio & Siegler to go with Romy.

KC: was not counted on for 2026 by a single poster.

The other thing to mention is two rookies are doing good to great: Early & Tolle. No mention of them, when we speak of unmet expectations by our rookies/sec ond year men.

(Narvaez is anso a sophomore in a slump.)

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, notin said:

And no one said they’d all be immediate impact players on the level of Fred Lynn and Dustin Pedroia….

And Pedey started his career with...

.561 in 2006 (98 PAs)

.535 first 72 PAs of 2007

That's 170 PAs of yuckiness.

KC is at .664 after 263 PAs. The big stink is over his 130 PAs in 2026 at .675. He has sucked on theh farm after his demotion- the exact opposite of Pedey's turn-around, though.

Mayer is at .827 aft6er 340.

Anthony is at .804 after 433.

Pedey was still at .625 after his first 221 PAs. He jumped to .739 after 240! That's how fast small sample sizes can jump.

[Old Red]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

While many of us hoped the big 3 would hit the ground running, nobody said they would with certainty. The club had a back-up plan for all 3.

Anthony: we kept 5 OF/DHs through the winter- perhaps the second most questionable call made (to not adding another big bat or two.)

Mayer: We signed IKF and traded DHam while adding Durbin, Monasterio & Siegler to go with Romy.

KC: was not counted on for 2026 by a single poster.

The other thing to mention is two rookies are doing good to great: Early & Tolle. No mention of them, when we speak of unmet expectations by our rookies/sec ond year men.

(Narvaez is anso a sophomore in a slump.)

The Red Sox had a backup plan for all three??? The Red Sox didn’t keep 5 OF/DHs, because they thought little Anthony wouldn’t produce much of anything before he got hurt they just did know what to do with all of them. 
IKF was signed more so as a backup to Story than to Mayer’s IMO.

The Red Sox had a backup plan.🙈🤭..