A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, Old Red said:

From real swings, or imaginary ones?🤔

Yes

[Duran Is The Man]

16 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

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

 dude is soft as a f***ing marshmellow.

[Old Red]

Just now, Duran Is The Man said:

 dude is soft as a f***ing marshmellow.

Sale definitely passed the injury baton to Casas.

[notin]

2 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

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.

I could point out they did replace Bregman, who came to Boston with a 121 OPS+ over the previous 3 seasons, with Willson Contreras, who came to Boston with a 127 OPS+ over the previous 3 seasons. Of course, Contreras is also 2 years older as he is in his age 34 season.  But I also wanted them to deal Bello for an infielder capable of more offense than Durbin.

But either way, the Sox and especially Devers got off to an abysmal start last season, too.  And did so with those big bats you mentioned, one of whom was Problem #1 with the offense over his first 5 games.

But it was early then, just as it is now. I’m not expecting anyone to go on the tear Devers eventually did go on.  But I do expect more from most of them, and I will probably see that happen.  How much more? TBD…

[notin]

1 hour ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

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.

 

Do not confuse patience with optimism.  I am preaching patience and history…

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

Do not confuse patience with optimism.  I am preaching patience and history…

History? More last place finishes than playoff appearances since our last WS title. That's our shared history right now. 

[notin]

4 hours 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. 

Why Refsnyder? Well, as Ive said he was another option over Arroyo.  My point is Cora was not victimized by having no other options instead of Arroyo in RF.  That was a choice, not an inevitability.   He also could have just played Bradley, accepted the lesser offense, and knew the defense would work out.  It’s not a great option, but neither was Arroyo…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

3 minutes ago, notin said:

Do not confuse patience with optimism.  I am preaching patience and history…

We're all patients of history.

I swear I read posts on some forums recently where typists gave the CBO a grade A and predicted 95 wins. 

But we'll never know if those anonymous posters were Brez loyalists planted there to deceive the base.

[notin]

Just now, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

We're all patients of history.

I swear I read posts on some forums recently where typists gave the CBO a grade A and predicted 95 wins. 

But we'll never know if those anonymous posters were Brez loyalists planted there to deceive the base.

I don’t recall if I went that high with either, but if I didn’t, i wasn’t far below…

[notin]

7 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

History? More last place finishes than playoff appearances since our last WS title. That's our shared history right now. 

Yeah but the 2020 Red Sox have very little impact on this team.  The only survivors are Houck and Wong…

[drewski6]

3 hours ago, notin said:

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…

Made the playoffs in a hilariously weak AL on the strength of pitching and then were hopeless at the plate in the playoffs when anyone other than Story was at the plate.  

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

I don’t recall if I went that high with either, but if I didn’t, i wasn’t far below…

I was all over the under of 87.5 and C- because Brez never replaced Bregman in the batting order.

He finally replaced Devers with Contreras, and I don't accept that Anthony was a replacement last summer because Roman deserved to make the team right alongside Raffy last spring.

[drewski6]

2 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

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.

Noting to do with being cheap.  Everything to do with not knowing how to communicate.

[mvp 78]

Pete Fatse

[mvp 78]

 

[jdc69]

3 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Made the playoffs in a hilariously weak AL on the strength of pitching and then were hopeless at the plate in the playoffs when anyone other than Story was at the plate.  

Wasnt Masa decent?

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Pete Fatse

"Who needs pitches down the middle -- it's all about Do Damage -- we're looking for sweepers that break outside the zone that can do damage to us."

[moonslav59]

Surprise, surprise: Casas hitting is shut down over new injury: "strained left intercoastal muscle."

2025 Rule 5 pick, Angel Bastardo returned to Red Sox.

2026 Rule 5 pick, Jedixson Paez was just DFA'd, so he may be coming back to the Sox, if nobody selects him.

Sandoval will pitch a rehab game on Sunday.

Monasterio has been working out in the OF, recently.

[notin]

4 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Made the playoffs in a hilariously weak AL on the strength of pitching and then were hopeless at the plate in the playoffs when anyone other than Story was at the plate.  

Hilariously weak AL?  Did you see the NL last year?  The best team was Milwaukee, who had one hitter in the Top 50 for OPS - Yelich at 49.  And the worst team was Colorado, who made a solid run at dethroning the 2024 White Sox as the worst team of all time.

The Sox post season had too much Eaton/Romy/Sogard bench players.  This team has a little more depth than last season’s, which is a good thing despite that it angers some fans…

[Randy Red Sox]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Surprise, surprise: Casas hitting is shut down over new injury: "strained left intercoastal muscle."

2025 Rule 5 pick, Angel Bastardo returned to Red Sox.

2026 Rule 5 pick, Jedixson Paez was just DFA'd, so he may be coming back to the Sox, if nobody selects him.

Sandoval will pitch a rehab game on Sunday.

Monasterio has been working out in the OF, recently.

didnt you say Sandal would be in our rotation to start the year??  So far looks like another one of the Sox "low-risk-high reward" busts to me.

[moonslav59]

Just now, Randy Red Sox said:

didnt you say Sandal would be in our rotation to start the year??  So far looks like another one of the Sox "low-risk-high reward" busts to me.

I thought he might be the #5, if healthy. He had a nice run a few years ago, but many pitchers can say that, including guys like McCullers.

[Randy Red Sox]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

I thought he might be the #5, if healthy. He had a nice run a few years ago, but many pitchers can say that, including guys like McCullers.

well it's early of course but so far none of the offseason additions look all that great. Kinda what happens when you go the lower cost options.

[moonslav59]

14 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

well it's early of course but so far none of the offseason additions look all that great. Kinda what happens when you go the lower cost options.

Pretty accurate.

Suarez was not really lower cost, and Gray is making $31M ($10M paid by STL.)

Contreras was cheaper than Alonso, but he's still making $18M.

Durbin, Kiner-Falefa, Oviedo and others were much lower cost options than others, for sure.

[UtahSox]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Pretty accurate.

Suarez was not really lower cost, and Gray is making $31M ($10M paid by STL.)

Contreras was cheaper than Alonso, but he's still making $18M.

Durbin, Kiner-Falefa, Oviedo and others were much lower cost options than others, for sure.

Suarez=30m

contreras= 18m

gray=21m

iKF=6m 

——————-

For 75m a non Beta Breslow could have resigned Bregman + Pete Alonso for that. 
 
Traded Bello+ Campbell+ Harrison+ jhostynixon for Alcantara + E Cabrera AKA SP2/SP3. 
 

good hell Craig it’s not that hard. 

 

 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

Suarez=30m

contreras= 18m

gray=21m

iKF=6m 

——————-

For 75m a non Beta Breslow could have resigned Bregman + Pete Alonso for that. 
 
Traded Bello+ Campbell+ Harrison+ jhostynixon for Alcantara + E Cabrera AKA SP2/SP3. 
 

good hell Craig it’s not that hard. 

Lets see how Alonso compares to Contreras.

To me, the big mistake was keeping 4 OF'ers and going cheap on Durbin/IKF rather than KMarte/Neto/Paredes

[Randy Red Sox]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Pretty accurate.

Suarez was not really lower cost, and Gray is making $31M ($10M paid by STL.)

Contreras was cheaper than Alonso, but he's still making $18M.

Durbin, Kiner-Falefa, Oviedo and others were much lower cost options tC

conteras is basically the replacement for Bregman- much cheaper. Gray is another 1 year 21 million contract for a SP we signed last year for pretty much the same $$- given inflation cheaper or at least a saw off.  Suarez IMO was a reaction to losing out on Bregman and was not a good signing. The other 3 as you mentioned were all cheaper deals hence our 1-5 record. 

[jdc69]

12 hours ago, Duran Is The Man said:

 dude is soft as a f***ing marshmellow.

Should have traded him two off-season ago.

[Yaz Fan Since 67]

I never counted on Casas.  I'm so done with Story. Now we can't even get a solid performance from our ace.

 

I'm so sick of my teams sucking. All of them have sucked for years and this looks like another lost summer.  

F You John Henry.  So much for "this offseason will be different".  

[Old Red]

6 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

conteras is basically the replacement for Bregman- much cheaper. Gray is another 1 year 21 million contract for a SP we signed last year for pretty much the same $$- given inflation cheaper or at least a saw off.  Suarez IMO was a reaction to losing out on Bregman and was not a good signing. The other 3 as you mentioned were all cheaper deals hence our 1-5 record. 

Con Man was supposed to be an addition to Bregman, which didn’t come together as planned. Durbin was a CHEAP option to Bregman, or all the other 2B/3B that was rumored about like Marte, or Paredes, and a few others. Yes Ranger was a reaction to losing Bregman, and it remains to be seen if he’s the right pitcher to go long on.

[Old Red]

4 minutes ago, Yaz Fan Since 67 said:

I never counted on Casas.  I'm so done with Story. Now we can't even get a solid performance from our ace.

 

I'm so sick of my teams sucking. All of them have sucked for years and this looks like another lost summer.  

F You John Henry.  So much for "this offseason will be different".  

I know lots of Red Sox fans are out on a ledge after just 6 games, and that’s fine if you want to go there. Crochet didn’t pitch good in Houston last year either, so that’s not a biggie to me. Starting 1-5 is not a good start, but too soon to jump IMO.