A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

4 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.)

I didn't mention the rookie pitchers because we all know why the Sux sock this year.

And the weak back-up plan is also part of the problem, because none of those listed additions was expected to provide the All-Star quality punch the line-up needed. 

But let's not pretend for a second that the Red Sox weren't counting big time on the bats of the Big Three the past year, based on their longterm investments in KC and Ant, while ignoring spending on legitimate support for them in the heart of the batting order.

[Old Red]

1 hour 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…

 

I along with everyone else knows how many AB all the suspects have, but in the  meantime while you, and others are hoping, and. Waiting for them to get better the all important here, and now isn’t looking so good, and that’s one of the reasons the Red Sox have the embarrassing record they do even in a weak watered down league.

[Old Red]

4 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I didn't mention the rookie pitchers because we all know why the Sux sock this year.

And the weak back-up plan is also part of the problem, because none of those listed additions was expected to provide the All-Star quality punch the line-up needed. 

But let's not pretend for a second that the Red Sox weren't counting big time on the bats of the Big Three the past year, based on their longterm investments in KC and Ant, while ignoring spending on legitimate support for them in the heart of the batting order.

Agree let’s NOT PRETEND like some are trying to do on here. You’ve been uncovered from the sand.😜

[moonslav59]

53 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

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.

Bloom and Brez were not part of the choice of keeping Betts over Sale & Bogey.

It would have been hard for any GM- not impossible- to have the same budget B & B had and the roster handed to Bloom to create a winner. I don't see how that's an apology. I have talked about Bloom's mistakes endlessly, especially his two largest signings, which amounted to peanuts when compared to all the contracts we dumped or let go without replacing in kind.

BTW, the "not replacing in kind" actually began under DD in 2019, when we did not replace Kimbrell & Kelly in kind, and the losing began under DD. DD also came close to being forced to trade Betts and was the GM who chose Sale & Bogey over Betts. (Not a knock on DD: I loved him as our GM.)

Do you doubt the difficulty of the task handed to Bloom? If no, are you now an apologist?

Bloom failed to do what the Rays did and are still doing. He deserved to be fired. He failed. My point was that other GM might have done better, but it would be very difficult for any GM to get us another ring or even close to one. We got pretty close in 2021 with the remnants of the DD era, but how much new spending happened after 2021? I actually thought the 2021-2022 additions did pretty well for the money. (Wacha, Hill, Strahm) Story did not (.737 in a half season)

I often offer counterviews to claims made. If anyone said Bloom and Brez did great, I''d offer evidence to the contrary, too.

I don't think Bloom did good, despite the context.

I think the jury is still out on Brez, but the recent results (2026 W-L) look horrific. I don't think I'm apologizing by saying my winter picks and most other poster's picks appear to be doing worse than Brez's additions, last winter. I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do. It seems kinda hypocritical, to me, so I refrain from Brez-bashing. I'm not saying it's wrong to bash him: we suck, now, but I'm going to continue to offer contrary viewpoints, especially when poster make absolute claims like "everyone" thought the farm would do "awesome" out of the gate.

[moonslav59]

12 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I didn't mention the rookie pitchers because we all know why the Sux sock this year.

And the weak back-up plan is also part of the problem, because none of those listed additions was expected to provide the All-Star quality punch the line-up needed. 

But let's not pretend for a second that the Red Sox weren't counting big time on the bats of the Big Three the past year, based on their longterm investments in KC and Ant, while ignoring spending on legitimate support for them in the heart of the batting order.

The plan turned out weak, but we wanted weaker. We wanted an OF'er traded, so Anthony could play FT.

We thought $6M was too much to spend on a back-up for Mayer. (It was a lot for his projected offense, but the fact was, we tried to have a stronger back-up plan than we had in 2025 at 2B/3B/1B....)

Obviously, the Sox counted on Anthony and Mayer to do better than this. I'm not sure how great they thought they'd be due to their costly back-up plans for a limited budget.

They failed with the back-up plans, but they had some.

I don't think anyone expected Duran to suck this badly. Many had serious doubts about Durbin, IKF and the IF depth, but they have done worse than most expectations, too. Narvaez has done worse, too.

No doubt, we needed another bat- maybe two. Brez dropped the ball.

[drewski6]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

The plan turned out weak, but we wanted weaker. We wanted an OF'er traded, so Anthony could play FT.

We thought $6M was too much to spend on a back-up for Mayer. (It was a lot for his projected offense, but the fact was, we tried to have a stronger back-up plan than we had in 2025 at 2B/3B/1B....)

Obviously, the Sox counted on Anthony and Mayer to do better than this. I'm not sure how great they thought they'd be due to their costly back-up plans for a limited budget.

They failed with the back-up plans, but they had some.

I don't think anyone expected Duran to suck this badly. Many had serious doubts about Durbin, IKF and the IF depth, but they have done worse than most expectations, too. Narvaez has done worse, too.

No doubt, we needed another bat- maybe two. Brez dropped the ball.

Brez de-prioritization of offense started even before this offseason.  For example, last trade deadline, he allowed us to go into the playoffs with a lineup of Lowe, Sogard, Eaton, Yoshida (cleanup) and one hot hitter (story) - who (was it you?) who referred to as another noodle bat.  Not getting like Josh Naylor at the deadline, for example, was pretty bad.

He also gets some fault for Devers because of the pattern of behavior.  Every time Brez gets involved in some kind of situation requiring the need to communicate like a human being, that conversation gets worse (and no, thats not limited to interactions with the media).  

Then yes, everyone knew we needed more offense, and I agree with you he dropped the ball on adding 2 more bats. Even Breslow knew the offense was dicey (at best), and he dealt with this by gleefully proclaiming that we are a pitching and defense team now.  And this pitching and defense team cant get to within 10 games of .500 in one of the weakest AL's Ive seen in the last 40 years.

Its not hard for me ask to ask for Brez to be sacked.  Now Ive carefully considered your defense, well, a lot of random fans on a message board screamed for moves that Breslow didnt make, and many of those moves wouldnt have saved us.  And its not enough for me.  Varitek, Cora, Devers, Bregman, the beloved scout who didnt realize he was on mute when he called Brez a stiff.  Looking like an absolute clown at last years trade deadline and in the bregman negotiations. Losing the support of theo.  Taking us straight to last (and not even like .500 in a great division last) in a terrible AL.......

Its past time to remove Breslow.  And I saw how well it went for the Celtics when they moved Brad Stevens from coach to president, and i bet breslow saw that too and wanted to remove the possibility.  Why are we letting Breslow run things in a self serving manner?  

[Bellhorn04]

32 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Bloom and Brez were not part of the choice of keeping Betts over Sale & Bogey.

It would have been hard for any GM- not impossible- to have the same budget B & B had and the roster handed to Bloom to create a winner. I don't see how that's an apology. I have talked about Bloom's mistakes endlessly, especially his two largest signings, which amounted to peanuts when compared to all the contracts we dumped or let go without replacing in kind.

BTW, the "not replacing in kind" actually began under DD in 2019, when we did not replace Kimbrell & Kelly in kind, and the losing began under DD. DD also came close to being forced to trade Betts and was the GM who chose Sale & Bogey over Betts. (Not a knock on DD: I loved him as our GM.)

Do you doubt the difficulty of the task handed to Bloom? If no, are you now an apologist?

Bloom failed to do what the Rays did and are still doing. He deserved to be fired. He failed. My point was that other GM might have done better, but it would be very difficult for any GM to get us another ring or even close to one. We got pretty close in 2021 with the remnants of the DD era, but how much new spending happened after 2021? I actually thought the 2021-2022 additions did pretty well for the money. (Wacha, Hill, Strahm) Story did not (.737 in a half season)

I often offer counterviews to claims made. If anyone said Bloom and Brez did great, I''d offer evidence to the contrary, too.

I don't think Bloom did good, despite the context.

I think the jury is still out on Brez, but the recent results (2026 W-L) look horrific. I don't think I'm apologizing by saying my winter picks and most other poster's picks appear to be doing worse than Brez's additions, last winter. I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do. It seems kinda hypocritical, to me, so I refrain from Brez-bashing. I'm not saying it's wrong to bash him: we suck, now, but I'm going to continue to offer contrary viewpoints, especially when poster make absolute claims like "everyone" thought the farm would do "awesome" out of the gate.

I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do.

Personally I don't measure the performance of the CBO against what any of us said they should have done.  I find that pretty silly, actually.  They are the ones who are paid to do that job, they are the ones with all the supposed expertise and inside info, they are the ones with the power to make the moves. 

(Note: I don't mean to come off as sounding harshly critical of you personally.  I guess I'm looking for reactions more than anything.  I respect your takes, you're very consistent with them.) 

 

[Duran Is The Man]

1 hour ago, notin said:

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…

they are currently 29-41, yet their Pythagorean W/L is 34-36

[Bellhorn04]

The rumblings and grumblings from places like Sons of Sam Horn are that Breslow's organizational approach to hitting is extremely analytics-driven and "one-size-fits-all" and that this is adversely affecting the younger guys especially.  No idea if this is correct, but something sure seems wrong with the approach.

[Old Red]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The rumblings and grumblings from places like Sons of Sam Horn are that Breslow's organizational approach to hitting is extremely analytics-driven and "one-size-fits-all" and that this is adversely affecting the younger guys especially.  No idea if this is correct, but something sure seems wrong with the approach.

Just look at KC before he got to Boston, and how he’s done since he went back down from Boston especially this year.

[Old Red]

12 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do.

Personally I don't measure the performance of the CBO against what any of us said they should have done.  I find that pretty silly, actually.  They are the ones who are paid to do that job, they are the ones with all the supposed expertise and inside info, they are the ones with the power to make the moves. 

(Note: I don't mean to come off as sounding harshly critical of you personally.  I guess I'm looking for reactions more than anything.  I respect your takes, you're very consistent with them.) 

 

You NEVER think, or have thought you are defending, or apologizing for JH, Bloom, or Brez. That would be like me saying I’ve NEVER criticized any of them.🙈

[notin]

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The rumblings and grumblings from places like Sons of Sam Horn are that Breslow's organizational approach to hitting is extremely analytics-driven and "one-size-fits-all" and that this is adversely affecting the younger guys especially.  No idea if this is correct, but something sure seems wrong with the approach.

I think it’s time the Sox used the Notin Approach to Analytical Hitting.  It starts with a simple Q-A format.consisting of 3 simple questions 

Q1: Do you own a torpedo bat?

Q2:  Why not?

Q3:  Go buy a torpedo bat.  Now.

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do.

Personally I don't measure the performance of the CBO against what any of us said they should have done.  I find that pretty silly, actually.  They are the ones who are paid to do that job, they are the ones with all the supposed expertise and inside info, they are the ones with the power to make the moves. 

(Note: I don't mean to come off as sounding harshly critical of you personally.  I guess I'm looking for reactions more than anything.  I respect your takes, you're very consistent with them.) 

 

It's not the only way I measure a GM, but one thing I look at is that I felt Brez was doing a good to great job building up the 26 and 40 man roster with better players while also building up the farm. The focus on improving the pitching pipeline has been needed for decades. Then, I look at the winter moves and see he made a major mistake in not adding another big bat, but most of the best choices have been underwhelming. I find it hard to hyper-blame a GM for not signing Murakami and trading for BLowe, as that is clear hindsighting.

Ultimately, GM are judged in hindsight- fairly or unfairly. I get that. I do it, too, but I also try to look hard at the context.

I respect your criticism and points made. I have never taken anything you have said as a personal affront. I enjoy your input and comments.

I think many of us overestimated the skillsets of our returning players. Many of us complained about the fangraph's projections being conservative,  but even they had us as serious playoff contenders. I see how blaming the GM for believing this too is logical. I suppose he should have known many of our players would not meet expectations or fall way below them.

I like rotation and SP'er depth he assembled. I love our pitching depth on the farm, but the pen was neglected and the big bat issue is a big reason we suck. Being 5 games below our Pythagorean win total is puzzling and is not out of the realm of blaming the GM for as well.

[moonslav59]

17 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

they are currently 29-41, yet their Pythagorean W/L is 34-36

Yes, and the Padres are 37-35 with a Pythagorean of 34-38.

Most commonly, this is blamed on bad luck or a bad manager- not the GM and owner.

With Cora gone, the blame ship is rudderless.

[moonslav59]

16 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The rumblings and grumblings from places like Sons of Sam Horn are that Breslow's organizational approach to hitting is extremely analytics-driven and "one-size-fits-all" and that this is adversely affecting the younger guys especially.  No idea if this is correct, but something sure seems wrong with the approach.

Great point.

[UtahSox]

1 hour ago, notin said:

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…

Doesn’t surprise me, I’m not sure in the splits where I could quantify this but I’d imagine the Padres win more games 4- 3 or 3-2 than the Red Sox. It seems like we lose a lot of close ones, and until it feels like the pressure is off we can’t hit, then trailing 4-0 going into the ninth inning we score 2 runs to lose 2-4 or if we win it’s 6-1 or more. 

[mvp 78]

31 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do.

Personally I don't measure the performance of the CBO against what any of us said they should have done.  I find that pretty silly, actually.  They are the ones who are paid to do that job, they are the ones with all the supposed expertise and inside info, they are the ones with the power to make the moves. 

(Note: I don't mean to come off as sounding harshly critical of you personally.  I guess I'm looking for reactions more than anything.  I respect your takes, you're very consistent with them.) 

The way to measure Craig Breslow is by the Red Sox winning % and lesser by how the farm is doing. Not so great this year! 

[mvp 78]

24 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The rumblings and grumblings from places like Sons of Sam Horn are that Breslow's organizational approach to hitting is extremely analytics-driven and "one-size-fits-all" and that this is adversely affecting the younger guys especially.  No idea if this is correct, but something sure seems wrong with the approach.

It's not just SOSH, even Theo has alluded to it. Several former players, other executives and scouts have outright said it. It's pretty obvious when it's written on the wall. 

 

[mvp 78]

30 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

they are currently 29-41, yet their Pythagorean W/L is 34-36

A lot of late comebacks that fall short. Their largest comeback win was only 2 runs! 

41 runs scored in the 9th inning and 793 OPS, their highest for any inning (10 HR).

[Old Red]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The way to measure Craig Breslow is by the Red Sox winning % and lesser by how the farm is doing. Not so great this year! 

Isn’t that kind of what Cora said? It doesn’t matter what the farm rankings is, but what you do in October.

[Bellhorn04]

Pythagorean records are interesting but ultimately meaningless.  We have seen teams with massive discrepancies over entire seasons.  

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Pythagorean records are interesting but ultimately meaningless.  We have seen teams with massive discrepancies over entire seasons.  

I'm more of a Hippasus guy anyway.

Hippasus is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers, following which he was drowned at sea.

[UtahSox]

3 hours 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. ..
 

 

Brother I have news for you, It’s all hypothetical: everything on here is hypothetical. whether it’s moves RS should have made, or ones they shouldn’t have made. 

Youre applying it while looking at Alex Bregman stats in Chicago and saying see “good glad we didn’t sign him.”Or looking at Adames metrics and saying “he won’t be a good signing.” All of this is applying the hypothetical that their stats would be the same in Boston as they are in Chicago or SF. And the reality is will never know.

What we do know is this team came in with a clear message, that we were in a window to fight for a championship. Yet halfway through June RS are 12 games below .500. The only reality is this is the worst RS team in relation to expectations in my lifetime. You’re right that I think it gets murky on whether RS would have traded for WC40 if they had signed Alonso. But the argument could be made Alonso vs Duran is a more relevant argument at DH. Hindsight I certainly wish we traded Duran and signed Alonso. 

[notin]

10 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

Brother I have news for you, It’s all hypothetical: everything on here is hypothetical. whether it’s moves RS should have made, or ones they shouldn’t have made. 

Youre applying it while looking at Alex Bregman stats in Chicago and saying see “good glad we didn’t sign him.”Or looking at Adames metrics and saying “he won’t be a good signing.” All of this is applying the hypothetical that their stats would be the same in Boston as they are in Chicago or SF. And the reality is will never know.

What we do know is this team came in with a clear message, that we were in a window to fight for a championship. Yet halfway through June RS are 12 games below .500. The only reality is this is the worst RS team in relation to expectations in my lifetime. You’re right that I think it gets murky on whether RS would have traded for WC40 if they had signed Alonso. But the argument could be made Alonso vs Duran is a more relevant argument at DH. Hindsight I certainly wish we traded Duran and signed Alonso. 

Some stats are less open to variations than other.  Would Bregman have more home runs because of Fenway than Wrigley? Fair question.  Impossible to answer.

But StatCast data is a little less open.  Stuff like exit velocity, hard hit rate, strikeout rate, walk rate, barrel %.  You might argue it varies due to facing a different set of pitchers, but how much does that matter? The collective talent level of the pitchers multiple players face pribably evens out to some degree, and this becomes more true with each passing game.  OTOH, ballpark and league are not really factors in exit velocity or hard hit rate.  A 97mph line drive at Fenway travels the same speed as a 97mph line drive at Oracle.  But after that, the variation kicks in…

[Old Red]

46 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

Brother I have news for you, It’s all hypothetical: everything on here is hypothetical. whether it’s moves RS should have made, or ones they shouldn’t have made. 

Youre applying it while looking at Alex Bregman stats in Chicago and saying see “good glad we didn’t sign him.”Or looking at Adames metrics and saying “he won’t be a good signing.” All of this is applying the hypothetical that their stats would be the same in Boston as they are in Chicago or SF. And the reality is will never know.

What we do know is this team came in with a clear message, that we were in a window to fight for a championship. Yet halfway through June RS are 12 games below .500. The only reality is this is the worst RS team in relation to expectations in my lifetime. You’re right that I think it gets murky on whether RS would have traded for WC40 if they had signed Alonso. But the argument could be made Alonso vs Duran is a more relevant argument at DH. Hindsight I certainly wish we traded Duran and signed Alonso. 

Well said, and spot on.

[Old Red]

40 minutes ago, notin said:

Some stats are less open to variations than other.  Would Bregman have more home runs because of Fenway than Wrigley? Fair question.  Impossible to answer.

But StatCast data is a little less open.  Stuff like exit velocity, hard hit rate, strikeout rate, walk rate, barrel %.  You might argue it varies due to facing a different set of pitchers, but how much does that matter? The collective talent level of the pitchers multiple players face pribably evens out to some degree, and this becomes more true with each passing game.  OTOH, ballpark and league are not really factors in exit velocity or hard hit rate.  A 97mph line drive at Fenway travels the same speed as a 97mph line drive at Oracle.  But after that, the variation kicks in…

To me it’s the variations that’s not a physical act that sometimes matters most, and that can’t be measured.