A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[drewski6]

14 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

1. Anthony

2. Contreras

3. Duran

4. Abreu

5. Errr.... Durbin?

6. Double Errr... Narvaez?

7. Triple Errr... Story?

8. Platooned Romy

9. I can't go further, even with more Errrs.

Im not in a rush to trade our fifth best hitter on March 5th, regardless of who plays where / positionally.

Now if we get everybody back from WBC healthy, and stay healthy and our bench is Eaton, IKF,  Wong, Masa and Romy comes back...I may take action with Masa at that point, but it depends on things like is anyone in AAA screaming call me back (ward, monasterio, kc)....how is eaton doing?  How does the offense look overall.  If Story start the year on fire, im more willing to trade Masa for example. Because positions aside, im trying to avoid a situation where we get to the playoffs but have a couple injuries, and we're like ...we're gonna have to hit masa clean up again like we did last year....oh shoot we sold him  for 4m salary relief and now we have to hit a lower ops+ bat fourth.

Its not all about position to me , its about getting enough runs from somewhere.  This is why I always say the value of a great DH is underrated and improves your defense.  Becuase having a stud DH allows you to play more glove first players at other positions.  For exmple, in a hypothetical world where we have prime manny, ortiz, story, ikf (on bench) - then story gets hurt.....because of manny/ortiz , im more fine with plugging in ikf because we'll get our runs elsewhere.

So im not really looking at our outfield rotation and our infield rotation and dh options completely separate from each other.

[drewski6]

13 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Speaking of SP'er depth, I agree it is very important, and for once we seem to have top quality SP'ers and depth. Quality AND Quantity!

It's interesting to note that our ring seasons were often led by just 5-6 key SP'ers, where very little injuries occurred and the need for depth, especially extended depth was simply not present.

2004: Amazingly, we only needed 5 GS outside our starting 5: 33 Pedro & Lowe, 32 Schilling, 30 Wake & 29 Arroyo.

2007: There were only 11 GS outside the top 6 SP'ers. 32 Dice-K, 31 Wake, 30 Beckett, 24 Schilling, 23 Tavarez, 11 Lester.

2013: A little more depth was needed, and even a trade for Peavy: 33 Lester, 29 Lackey, 29 Dempster, 27 Doubront, 16 Buchholz, 10 Peavy and 17 GS by 5 others. Those 17 GS were all pitchers who added zero value as starters.

2018: Kinda breaks the mold, as the depth helped, and the trade for Nate might have won us that 4th ring: 33 Porcello, 30 Price, 27 Sale, 23 ERod, 13 Johnson (4.17) 11 (3.33) 11 Pomeranz (sucked) 8 Velazquez (3.18) 4 Wright (2.68). Still we probably win without Johnson & Pomeranz and just needed the Nate trade to give us 5 SP'ers.

Other seasons that seemed like near misses:

2003:  4 starters over 29 GS w Fossum & Suppan going for 24.

1986: 4 starters over 25 GS and 16 from Seaver, 13 Sellers and 10 Brown.

1978: 102 GS from 3 guys, 24 from Lee and 27 from Jim Wright + Ripley

1975: 114 GS from 3 guys, 20 from Cleveland, 16 Moret & 11 from Pole.

 

This is a good post, but this year feels different because it feels like our starting 5 is a starting 6 in crochet, ranger, gray, bello, early, oviedo....and then you have like 2-3 more guys that could be most teams #5 starter.  So its not as black/white to me in 2026 who you are talking about when you say starting 5.  

I guess we'll know by game 6 who started the first 5, but Im not sure its a settled "this our 5" (being the 5 pitchers who start each of the first 5 games).  I think that the battles for #4 and 5 can continue into the season.  For example, right now, I think that Bello may not be a top 5 SP on this team ,but he might start game 4 due to not willing to make the swap yet (bello out, early in).  You can send Early down and have him make a couple starts in AAA just to buy you time.  ANd its not necessarily an ominous sign if he ends up getting 20 starts despite not getting one of our first five spots.

[Old Red]

7 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

An injury or two changes things for any ballclub. An injury to Aaron Judge and the Yankees are a below .500 team.

I get that, but I was just saying that an injury, or two could change the need for another IF that isn’t there now.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Im not in a rush to trade our fifth best hitter on March 5th, regardless of who plays where / positionally.

Now if we get everybody back from WBC healthy, and stay healthy and our bench is Eaton, IKF,  Wong, Masa and Romy comes back...I may take action with Masa at that point, but it depends on things like is anyone in AAA screaming call me back (ward, monasterio, kc)....how is eaton doing?

Masa backup DH

Wong 2nd C

IKF backup IF

Eaton/Monasterio

What a great bench! Really helpful in a late inning scenario. 

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

This is a good post, but this year feels different because it feels like our starting 5 is a starting 6 in crochet, ranger, gray, bello, early, oviedo....and then you have like 2-3 more guys that could be most teams #5 starter. 

They are going to keep Early and Tolle down in AAA until they earn the extra year of control. 

[drewski6]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Since Masa can't play CF, IF or C, you can just subtract 8 from 13 and see if there are 5 hitters better than him. If they have a punch and judy hitter at SS, Masa isn't taking his spot.

Thats fair.  My real point is that if Masa can be sent down or agrees, great.  If not, any decision on him cannot be undone. Like if we trade him for 4m of salary relief.  And we ended up kind of needing him last year.  So Im not in a rush to send him out, but I may depending on the twists / turns of the season.  I dont like making decisions that cant be undone when I dont have to make those decisions as a general rule.  But that doesnt men there arent exceptions.  But even once the games start counting, the auditioning and jiggsaw pieces falling into place continue.  The guys will find their roles, and if Masa is outside of the top 26 and wont get sent down, and it makes sense lets say in mid-may or something to ship him out based on so many variables , then do it then.

The rush isnt right now.  Maybe a couple months ago because there was opportunity cost (not signing Ozuna for example).  So in free agency you kind of have to project ahead a bit to know who to sign. But right now, Im not seeing a huge rush to project ahead.

[drewski6]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Abreu

Duran

Anthony

Romy - IL

Casas - IL

If Romy and Casas get healthy, there's no room for him. 

Casas will have to do more than get healthy enough to play a game.  But I more-or-less agree.  Theres also other dudes who can emerge and challenge his spot on the 26.

[drewski6]

2 hours ago, Old Red said:

Even if Masa is on the team as it stands now with one of the outfielders being the DH I don’t see where he would get AB.

In the WBC

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

Casas will have to do more than get healthy enough to play a game.  But I more-or-less agree.  Theres also other dudes who can emerge and challenge his spot on the 26.

If he's healthy, he's better than Masa without question.

[drewski6]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I'd go so far as to say, if just one from Romy or Casas are healthy and looking fine, there is no room for Masa.

Where would he play? Who would sit?

The other way to make the roster work would be to trade someone ahead of him on the depth chart.

Im not in a rush to trade our fifth best bat (per you) because he doesnt have a spot right now.  If Masa accepts a AAA role, there is no reason to trade him at all.  But if he doenst accept that, and we have 4 obvious bettter bench players, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

[drewski6]

25 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The back half of the bullpen. 

WE have two elite bullpen pitchers and 9 good starters.  SOme of them will become good bullpen pitchers.  We could use maybe one more established pen arm, but I wouldnt call it a glaring weakness that went unadressed. We resigned Chapman.  Signing one of hte best closers isnt exaclty not addressing a glaring weakness if that weakness is back half of bullpen.

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Thats fair.  My real point is that if Masa can be sent down or agrees, great.  If not, any decision on him cannot be undone. Like if we trade him for 4m of salary relief.  And we ended up kind of needing him last year.  So Im not in a rush to send him out, but I may depending on the twists / turns of the season.  I dont like making decisions that cant be undone when I dont have to make those decisions as a general rule.  But that doesnt men there arent exceptions.  But even once the games start counting, the auditioning and jiggsaw pieces falling into place continue.  The guys will find their roles, and if Masa is outside of the top 26 and wont get sent down, and it makes sense lets say in mid-may or something to ship him out based on so many variables , then do it then.

The rush isnt right now.  Maybe a couple months ago because there was opportunity cost (not signing Ozuna for example).  So in free agency you kind of have to project ahead a bit to know who to sign. But right now, Im not seeing a huge rush to project ahead.

The rush is right now. Where is Masa going to get AB if he’s on the roster as it stands now? There are only 2 bench spots open, and someone who as it stands now being only a Backup DH shouldn’t get one of them IMO. Eaton can play multiple positions, which  Masa can’t do, and especially if Romy is out most likely would get more chances than Masa will get. Not being able to undue the loss of Masa is not even a minor concern to me.

 

[drewski6]

54 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Wishing/thinking the results are both the same, so continuing to differentiate doesn’t change a thing. You trade an outfielder, and then are left with 3, and if one goes down what have you got as a replacement the highly suspect KC? Like I keep saying Abreu hasn’t proven he can hit LHP yet, and prove he’s a full time player as it is, so I don’t see the outfield as being so deep that it’s roster problem.

I think this is a good point.  I want to go back to soemthing I jsut said because i think it adds to your point here, that being that maybe 2 months ago, it was decision time, but right now, its "no rush"

We made the decision, to let Refsnyder walk.  That alone might save Masas bacon (for now).  Because to your point, our OF starts looking more complete with Ref, and its one less spot for masa and one more person in front of masa.

[drewski6]

32 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If they wanted that, they should have done a deal before the Sox started speaking with the Brewers. 🫠

Sox don't really need to be in a hurry now. They have a full IF. They could carry Jarren/Anthony as LF/DH. HOU needs this trade more than the Sox do. 

I agree 100%.

[drewski6]

35 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I think the Sox are confident in Mayer. They are just trying to really PUSH him this spring. 

Mayer is helping his case.  They told him to bulk up, he did.  Mayer did not come to spring looking like a guy who nursed a wrist injury all winter. He looks like a guy who got in better shape and worked hard.  Hes looked good to me.  Better than I thought he would.

The truth is: we're looking pretty strong right now..  

[drewski6]

28 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Especially if Chapman doesn’t come close to what he was last year, and, or Whit, or Slaten goes down.

I feel like right now, Tolle could be the third best closer in MLB.

[drewski6]

37 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I think the Sox are confident in Mayer. They are just trying to really PUSH him this spring. 

You strike me as someone who has been in management.  Have you ever pushed your staff and then they responded well to it?  You dont stop pushing them.  YOu keep doing whats getting you (the manager) results.

Management 101: you manage everyone differently , customized to how/what they respond to.  Some people do best with the stick and some people do best with the carrot.

Mayer got some stick/tough love, and he seems like a much better player for it. 

[drewski6]

22 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Masa backup DH

Wong 2nd C

IKF backup IF

Eaton/Monasterio

What a great bench! Really helpful in a late inning scenario. 

The bench doesnt need to be ideal on March 5th, or even April 5th.  

[drewski6]

22 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They are going to keep Early and Tolle down in AAA until they earn the extra year of control. 

That makes sense.  But to moon/Joes point, we have great years when we get starts from our regular rotation....If Early has been anointed one of our best starting 5 but hes held back to gain an extra year of control.....it starts becoming murky to me which 5 are our "regular rotation" and if one is early.

[Old Red]

Just now, drewski6 said:

The bench doesnt need to be ideal on March 5th, or even April 5th.  

Every game counts once the season starts whether it’s in March, April, or any other time.

[drewski6]

2 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Every game counts once the season starts whether it’s in March, April, or any other time.

Yes, the pressure starts building once the games start counting agreed.  But you dont go all in to win game 1 at the cost of the other 161.  Roster battles usually continue into the season and guys get sent down for extra year of team control games and also due to who has options vs who doesnt....And then after you send these guys down who were sent down for unfair reasons, the roster battles still continue.  Assessment continues.

[Old Red]

3 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Yes, the pressure starts building once the games start counting agreed.  But you dont go all in to win game 1 at the cost of the other 161.  Roster battles usually continue into the season and guys get sent down for extra year of team control games and also due to who has options vs who doesnt....And then after you send these guys down who were sent down for unfair reasons, the roster battles still continue.  Assessment continues.

Either way having Masa on the roster, or not is not going to make, or break the Red Sox season. If he was going to get regular AB I’d agree with you about keeping him, but I don’t see it, and if not he’s just clogging up a roster spot, and I mean clogging up.

[mvp 78]

34 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

WE have two elite bullpen pitchers and 9 good starters.  SOme of them will become good bullpen pitchers.  We could use maybe one more established pen arm, but I wouldnt call it a glaring weakness that went unadressed. We resigned Chapman.  Signing one of hte best closers isnt exaclty not addressing a glaring weakness if that weakness is back half of bullpen.

It went unaddressed as they added nothing to the bullpen except an underperforming Ryan Watson who may be sent back to whatever team they Rule 5 picked him from. 

[mvp 78]

33 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Mayer is helping his case.  They told him to bulk up, he did.  Mayer did not come to spring looking like a guy who nursed a wrist injury all winter. He looks like a guy who got in better shape and worked hard.  Hes looked good to me.  Better than I thought he would.

The truth is: we're looking pretty strong right now..  

If the Sox were really concerned about Mayer and thought he needed to spend the year in AAA, they would have traded him for Marte. 

[mvp 78]

32 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

That makes sense.  But to moon/Joes point, we have great years when we get starts from our regular rotation....If Early has been anointed one of our best starting 5 but hes held back to gain an extra year of control.....it starts becoming murky to me which 5 are our "regular rotation" and if one is early.

But what if there are injuries!!!

That's what I'm hearing about the reason for keeping Masa. Why worry about the other 5 if one could go down? 

[mvp 78]

30 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Yes, the pressure starts building once the games start counting agreed.  But you dont go all in to win game 1 at the cost of the other 161.  

Taking it easy in April really worked out for them in 2019! 

[drewski6]

17 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

But what if there are injuries!!!

That's what I'm hearing about the reason for keeping Masa. Why worry about the other 5 if one could go down? 

Right, Moon and Joe (and I guess Schilling) have said or implied that the teams that get the most starts out of their regular rotation will be the most successful ..... My point is that the construction of the team and the depth kind of matter and these high level nuggets of wisdom, while cute, generally overlook some nuance, such as:

If you build a strong starting 5 and assume no injuries and then get hit with 2 big ones and now you have like unready prospects or career 5ERA journeyman off the scrap heap making a ton of starts - yeah, trouble. For sure.

But in our case, Im not even sure who our top 5 SP even are. And Im not sure that the starters who start each of the first 5 games are our top 5 sp.  Early may not be there for extra year of control games, but that doesnt necessarily mean that he isnt one of the top 5. That expression that Schilling said and Joe said was 100% true doesnt feel extremely true in our case, this year.  

Not every team is equally equipped to handle a SP injury. It effects some more than others. Im happy for our depth. 

But these high level nuggets of wisdom can be wise and cute and generally true - but they are also usually overly simplistic.  If the team that got the most starts out of its sp rotation always won the most games, I woudl start the year with a 17 man SP rotation.  Because even if i have 12 SP injuries, I still got 162 games started by guys who were included in my regular (out of the gate) rotation.  So is that the cheat code or do these super high level "truisms" break down?

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Rosenthal said the Astros could try to spring up the Paredes negotiations again. At this point, I'm not sure how far it would go. Sox already have Durbin, Story and Mayer. Are they willing to sit Mayer for the full year? Make Durbin a part time player? 

I think our team is complete now.  If Paredes came cheap, he'd be worth looking at.  But I see no way of us constructing a Duran or Abreu for Paredes+ trade.

[Old Red]

26 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If the Sox were really concerned about Mayer and thought he needed to spend the year in AAA, they would have traded him for Marte. 

I not so sure about that. The Red Sox might of wanted Marte, but the price in terms of pieces, or money was out from what they wanted to pay, and that’s why the Red Sox Settled on the Much cheaper option In Durbin.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

What I'm hearing here in HOU is that HOU is demanding Duran or Abreu for Paredes and maybe one other piece-

They wouldn't get either guy straight-up, let alone another prospect.  They might've overplayed their hand.