A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

Well, it didn’t work out so well last time Boston did that…

Anyone who thinks that trade was all Wong realizes that even though it gave us Fitts, the forecast remains cloudy and Gray. And it's always ok to just ask: Weissert?

[Old Red]

26 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

The same reason the NYY are under .500 w/o Judge.

Unforeseen drops by vets and players in or approaching prime.

How about blaming the players, for once?

So, when we get to 1 game over .500, you will move the goalposts, right?

Wha, wha, wha. Story didn’t get blamed? DUBin didn’t get blamed. Duran didn’t get blamed. little Anthony didn’t get the blame he should have before his pinky swear injury, but even after all that happened, or didn’t happen bresLOW didn’t get enough bats, which would have made a difference in all the early season struggles.😂😭

[Old Red]

37 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Just took them a while to jell.

Sometimes it’s playing teams at the right time when teams like the Yankees were struggling. On the Red Sox side they started to hit home runs, which has made the Biggest difference in winning. Call it jelling if you like.

[moonslav59]

38 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Anyone who thinks that trade was all Wong realizes that even though it gave us Fitts, the forecast remains cloudy and Gray. And it's always ok to just ask: Weissert?

Where did Verdu go? 

Did that trade do Judice for Bloom?

[Bellhorn04]

Tracy's in-game management seems fine to me. I haven't seen much howling about it in game threads. 

Maybe the one complaint was when he had Bello try starting again and it blew up. 

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Tracy's in-game management seems fine to me. I haven't seen much howling about it in game threads. 

Winning quiets the masses, except Fred, of course.

[JoeBrady]

4 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Winning quiets the masses, except Fred, of course.

Which makes sense since Fred hates when we win.

[a700hitter]

5 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Tracy's in-game management seems fine to me. I haven't seen much howling about it in game threads. 

Maybe the one complaint was when he had Bello try starting again and it blew up. 

In Fort Myers, S5Dewey told me that he was concerned about Bello and wasn’t counting on him for much. I was surprised, because I thought he had turned a corner in ‘25.

[moonslav59]

Big win tonight.

I'm resisting getting too excited.

CWS & CLE are tied. Either could be the WC.

TEX passed SEA in the ALW. Either could drop out of the WC race with a bad stretch.

WC Standings

52-42 NYY

49-46 CLE or 48-45 CWS

47-48 SEA (losing record is the WC team)

-1.0 MIN 46-49

-1.5 HOU 46-50 (including 5-1 v BOS!)

-1.5 BOS 44-48 

-2.0 TOR 44-49 (Sox passed tonight)

-2.5 DET 44-50 (Back in the race)

-3.0 BAL 44-51 (may be sellers)

-5.5 ATH 41-53 (great O/ no D)

Run Differential

+87 NYY (WC team)

+33 TBR

+31 DET (behind BOS)

+26 CWS 

+22 BOS

+15 SEA

-8 CLE (tied for 1st ALC)

-10 TEX (1st in ALW)

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, a700hitter said:

In Fort Myers, S5Dewey told me that he was concerned about Bello and wasn’t counting on him for much. I was surprised, because I thought he had turned a corner in ‘25.

You weren't the only one.

This type of thing makes it tough on a team, and the GM often bears the brunt of it for now seeing it coming.

[moonslav59]

See a pattern here...

Some small sample sizes here, and these are before tonight's game:

(I did not leave anyone off the list)

OPS Against Leaders

.200 Rivera 10 PAs (Brez last winter) 

.550 Bennett 182 (Brez last winter)

***.562 Whitlock 120 (Bloom)

.566 Moran 147 (Brez last winter)

.583 Guerrero 72 (Brez last winter)

.594 Sandoval 19 (Brez year before)

.607 Chapman 104 (Brez year before & extended)

.613 Tolle 326 (Brez drafted years before)

***.614 Kelly 71 (Bloom)

.621 Suarez 376 (Brez last winter)

.646 Coulombe (Brez last winter)

.661 Gray (Brez last winter)

.670 Weissert (Brez 2 winters ago)

.713 Anderson (Brez Rule 5 winter before)

.714 Samaniego (Brez last winter)

***.720 Early (Bloom draftee)

.752 Watson (Brez last winter)

.771 Gamboa (Brez last winter)

.818 Crochet (Brez from winter before)

.847 Slaten (Brez 2 winters ago)

***.851 Bello (Bloom)

Kahnle, Uberstine, Oviedo & La Sorsa 74 PAs (all Brez)

 

Who do we hear about?

Sale, Harrison, Priester & Drohan.

 

[moonslav59]

How many teams have 4 SP'ers (not counting Sandoval) under 3.15 and 3 RP'ers under 2.35?

SP: 

2.54 Gray

2.64 Bennett

3.14 Tolle

3.15 Suarez (Sandoval at 2.08 filling in)

RP:

2.25 Whitlock

2.28 Chapman

2.33 Guerrero

[Old Red]

Start spreading the news.

The Red Sox can’t lose.

Who wants no part of it?

New York New York.
 

[notin]

10 hours ago, a700hitter said:

In Fort Myers, S5Dewey told me that he was concerned about Bello and wasn’t counting on him for much. I was surprised, because I thought he had turned a corner in ‘25.

Cora certainly wasn’t too thrilled with him in the postseason…

[a700hitter]

Is Bello’s problem mechanical or between his ears?

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, a700hitter said:

Is Bello’s problem mechanical or between his ears?

Riddles of the game.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, notin said:

Cora certainly wasn’t too thrilled with him in the postseason…

There certainly was something Cora and Co. was not happy about. Did anyone ever find out the specifics? Something about not following their approach or winter workout plan?

It's hard to pinpoint, but the SP'er vs coming in after an opener disparity hints at between the ears issues.

[notin]

28 minutes ago, a700hitter said:

Is Bello’s problem mechanical or between his ears?

Can’t it be both?

[Bellhorn04]

44 minutes ago, notin said:

Can’t it be both?

Sure.  But it is at least interesting that he did radically better in the games he came in after an opener.

[notin]

I was watching the White Sox series with my daughter, and she made the interesting observation that the Red Sox might be the shortest team in MLB and probably the shortest team MLB  has seen in a while.  I don’t care about those fictional height listings, there is no way the following Red Sox players are 5’10” (which in itself s small by MLB standards):

Ceddane Rafaela

Caleb Durbin

Sonny Gray

Tsu-Che Cheng

Masataka Yoshida

Anthony Seigler

Isaih Kiner-Falefa

And I’m on the fence with Danny Coulombe and Connor Wong.  They might actually both be towering figures looming over the masses at all of 5’10” tall.

Thats a lot of bloody short kings on one team.

Is this a coincidence? Or done on purpose for a reason, like the Sox clubhouse has low ceilings or the showers are only six feet up?  A shortage of uniform pants so they encourage sharing?

 

 

 

[moonslav59]

With all the injuries we've seen, not just on the Sox, but MLB in general, the bench seems to be as valuable as ever, and it got me thinking about how well ours has been doing.

Much talk has been focused on trading away pitching depth like Harrison, Drohan and Priester the year before and Sale the year before that, but a lot more players were traded away that are not talked about as much.

On the pitching: IMO, our starting 5 and depth going 5-6 deep looked as good as any other team in MLB. We were likely ranked top 3-5 in both categories. One could argue we lost our #1 Crochet, our #4 Houck, our #5/6 Crawford, #6/7 Sandoval and #7/8 Oviedo. On top of that our #5/6 Bello imploded. Despite missing the aforementioned starters, our rotation depth has carried us to having a shot at the playoffs. 

Last year, we looked pretty deep, too, but ended up needing to trade for DMay. We are seeing Rivera pitch today, too. There never seems to be enough.

Let's look at the everyday depth. It sure looks like Brez chose a good time to not bring Refsnyder, DHam and others back. The one guy doing well, Nate Lowe was replaced by Contreras, so it's hard to look at that swap out in a bad light.

2025 Depth listed in order of most PAs

.726 Narvaez 446 PAs (most saw Wong as the #1 2 winters ago)

.826 Romy 341 PAs (was expected to be a platoon and played v RHPs a lot.)

.859 Anthony 303 (was expected to be called up at some point- maybe 2026?)

.659 Toro 284 (started out okay then faded fast)

.838 Refsnyder 209 (was big help for a few years)

.590 DHam 194 (can't believe some cried about losing him)

.674 Mayer 136 (Many felt was rushed up to the bigs)

.790 N Lowe 119 (Mid season addition)

.661 Sogard 104 (did okay)

.731 Eaton 90 (did fine)

29 PAs from Sabol, Ali Sanchez and JH Garcia 

The 2024 bench was highlighted by the circus carrousel at 2B (317 PAs DHam, 223 EValdez, 216 Romy, 114 Grissom) and the awful back-up 1B plan that Dom Smith (.706) sort of rescued as a late season add on. Dalbec and Cooper- oh my! McGuire struggled as the back-up catcher and we added Danny Jansen late.

How about the 2026 bench?

.710 Yoshida 196 PAs (has been improving over the season)

.629 Monasterio 161 (steady on D)

.705 IKF 132 (great on D but on IL, now)

.775 Wong 130 (rescued the Narvaez disaster season)

.613 Gasper 119 (had a nice first 8 games then kaput)

.855 Seigler 75 (a big reason we are winning, now.)

.721 Sogard 41 (on the IL)

.721 Romy 37 (welcome back)

.766 Eaton 36 (nice)

.616 Cheng 29 (plus SS defense)

Brett Harris has 3 PAs

[moonslav59]

20 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Sure.  But it is at least interesting that he did radically better in the games he came in after an opener.

That hints at mental/emotional issues.

He looked nasty after an opener.

[Bellhorn04]

21 minutes ago, notin said:

I was watching the White Sox series with my daughter, and she made the interesting observation that the Red Sox might be the shortest team in MLB and probably the shortest team MLB  has seen in a while.  I don’t care about those fictional height listings, there is no way the following Red Sox players are 5’10” (which in itself s small by MLB standards):

Ceddane Rafaela

Caleb Durbin

Sonny Gray

Tsu-Che Cheng

Masataka Yoshida

Anthony Seigler

Isaih Kiner-Falefa

And I’m on the fence with Danny Coulombe and Connor Wong.  They might actually both be towering figures looming over the masses at all of 5’10” tall.

Thats a lot of bloody short kings on one team.

Is this a coincidence? Or done on purpose for a reason, like the Sox clubhouse has low ceilings or the showers are only six feet up?  A shortage of uniform pants so they encourage sharing?

 

 

 

Hmmm, maybe it's a trend.  The Knicks were just led to a title by one of the shortest players in the league.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That hints at mental/emotional issues.

He looked nasty after an opener.

Take a look at his starter/reliever splits, they are nuts!

[notin]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

Hmmm, maybe it's a trend.  The Knicks were just led to a title by one of the shortest players in the league.

Actually Brunson is fairly normal sized for the NBA.  He’s just always really far away…

[moonslav59]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

Take a look at his starter/reliever splits, they are nuts!

Yes. I know!

They should just rolled with it, instead of making him start again.

[notin]

43 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Sure.  But it is at least interesting that he did radically better in the games he came in after an opener.

Is it?

It looked to me like he simply needed an inning to get going and bring himself up to speed, as it were.  In games he started, he spent those early pitches on the better hitters on the opponents, who took full advantage.  In games he relieved, he bypassed the better parts of the opponents batting order.  And since the openers in front of him were all completely ineffective and usually gave up multiple runs in the first inning themselves, Bello was able to get his s*** together against the 7-8-9 hitters for that first inning.  Or the 8-9-1 hitters, you get the idea. 
 

Maybe he needs to prepare better before the game…

[moonslav59]

Since June 24th, the Sxo are 11th in Runs scored (4th in AL), 18th in HRs (7th in AL) and 13th in OPS (5th in AL.) 11th in fWAR (4th in AL.)

Pitching fWAR: 1st at 3.5 - a full 0.8 ahead of TEX!

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, notin said:

Is it?

It looked to me like he simply needed an inning to get going and bring himself up to speed, as it were.

When he started a game in the second inning, he did not need an inning to get up to speed.

[JoeBrady]

57 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Sure.  But it is at least interesting that he did radically better in the games he came in after an opener.

It's between the ears.  BB players are creatures of habit and superstition.  Changes to their routine spooks them.  Not all of them, but not a small amount.  Just for fun, take a look at the discrepancy of closers in non-closing situations.