A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[mvp 78]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

10 games into the season and 3 games behind the last playoff slot.

152 to go!

It's early, but the way this team is playing, there doesn't appear to be much life in this team. Bad coaching. Bad pitching. Bad defense. Poorly put together offense. 

This team feels 2012ish: a lot of good players that aren't moving forward together, underachieving pitching staff. 

[mvp 78]

8 hours ago, harmony said:

The Red Sox might be in contention come September.

2028? 

[mvp 78]

8 hours ago, iortiz said:

The “problem” if you want to call it that way, we are playing with so many inexperienced players AND we don’t have a single proven allstar bat. We are basically a AAA team.

Anthony

Durbin

Mayer

Narvaez

 Rafaela

Abreu

Then you have two average experienced bats

Story

Yoshida

The only good but not elite are:

Contreras and Duran

The bench is even more horrendous. IKF, Wong and Monasterio

This won’t end up well and could be epic and not in a good way.

 

Rafaela and Abreu aren't inexperienced. Narvaez is 27! Don't need to find excuses for these guys anymore.

[mvp 78]

7 hours ago, jdc69 said:

Yes, its all very communist. No accountability. Having mathematicians tell athletes how to play baseball must make baseball just super fun.

🤨

[mvp 78]

6 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

Why not try Mayer at SS? Story right now is the worst starting SS in all of baseball. Kick Story over to 2B where he can do less harm and see if you can harness some upside from Mayer. At least he has talent that can grow in skill level and a ceiling that he hasn't reached yet.

The further they fall under .500, the more reason to just make the switch to Mayer at SS. Unless they really don't see Mayer as the future SS and believe it's Arias.

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, Old Red said:

152 games to go,  and the Red Flops as Fred calls them on on pace for 120+ losses, and since the Red Flops has the worst record in all of baseball that means EVERY TEAM in the league is ahead of them in any standings you want to look at. Come on man!🤮

A flop would be an improvement for this team. Fred said they'd be no worse than 4th place. 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Old Red said:

It seems once again the Little League kids that Cora does commercials with snuck on the field to play D for the Red SOx. Bad throws, pitches not backing up bases again and just bad fundamental baseball, which we’ve seen many times before. That’s on Cora.🙈

They've been bad at the fundamentals for years and years. They give Cora a pass and blame the players or the farm instruction. Half the team are from other orgs. It's on Cora at some point.

[Old Red]

29 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

It's early, but the way this team is playing, there doesn't appear to be much life in this team. Bad coaching. Bad pitching. Bad defense. Poorly put together offense. 

This team feels 2012ish: a lot of good players that aren't moving forward together, underachieving pitching staff. 

Agree. The record at 2-8 is bad enough, but how they’ve looked doing it looks even worse.

[notin]

9 hours ago, iortiz said:

The “problem” if you want to call it that way, we are playing with so many inexperienced players AND we don’t have a single proven allstar bat. We are basically a AAA team.

Anthony

Durbin

Mayer

Narvaez

 Rafaela

Abreu

Then you have two average experienced bats

Story

Yoshida

The only good but not elite are:

Contreras and Duran

The bench is even more horrendous. IKF, Wong and Monasterio

This won’t end up well and could be epic and not in a good way.

 

I don’t agree with this assessment at all.  
 

First of all, there’s a big jump from “no All Star bats” to “AAA team.”  Second, Duran, for example, is certainly a proven All Star, as is Contreras.  Third, the Sox bench is probably better than any Sox bench of recent years.  Not sure why folks highlight IKF as a weak bench player when he’s spent nearly his entire career to date as a starter, including a stint as the starting SS for a 99 win ALCS runner up. 
 

The Sox lineup might be less than the Sox traditionally run out there, but it isn’t the worst lineup in MLB, or at least it shouldn’t be.  But it’s been performing like the worst one. 
 

The rotation was supposed to be among the best, but after Crochet and Early (who was not even in that rotation on paper) has been a massive disappointment.  And the bullpen, largely ignored all winter, has been even worse…
 

 

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Old Red said:

152 games to go,  and the Red Flops as Fred calls them on on pace for 120+ losses, and since the Red Flops has the worst record in all of baseball that means EVERY TEAM in the league is ahead of them in any standings you want to look at. Come on man!🤮

So, does this mean you have thrown in the towel?

Cause it ain't over till you say it is.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

It's early, but the way this team is playing, there doesn't appear to be much life in this team. Bad coaching. Bad pitching. Bad defense. Poorly put together offense. 

Name one time in human history, any 2-8 team looked like they had "life" in them.

Of course they look terrible, lifeless and worse. They are 2 and 8.

I'm not trying to predict some great surge, but the fact is we are 3.5 games behind looking okay.

Cue: "But if we keep playing like this, we have no hope." Well, duh.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

This being the REAListic thread -- it's all facets of the game.

You know it's bad when Cora pinch-ran Rafaela for Yoshida in the 9th the other day, and the first thing I thought of wasn't "Wheels on the bases" but "Don't Get Picked Off!"

Sure enough... Ceddanne was duped into being the last out.

If the Sox can just go 24 games over .500 the rest of the season, they can still win 90. 

I just have to remind myself I'm never as bad as my bad posts.

 

[oldtimer]

9 minutes ago, notin said:

I don’t agree with this assessment at all.  
 

First of all, there’s a big jump from “no All Star bats” to “AAA team.”  Second, Duran, for example, is certainly a proven All Star, as is Contreras.  Third, the Sox bench is probably better than any Sox bench of recent years.  Not sure why folks highlight IKF as a weak bench player when he’s spent nearly his entire career to date as a starter, including a stint as the starting SS for a 99 win ALCS runner up. 
 

The Sox lineup might be less than the Sox traditionally run out there, but it isn’t the worst lineup in MLB, or at least it shouldn’t be.  But it’s been performing like the worst one. 
 

The rotation was supposed to be among the best, but after Crochet and Early (who was not even in that rotation on paper) has been a massive disappointment.  And the bullpen, largely ignored all winter, has been even worse…
 

 

Maybe they  are missing that club house leadership guy. Big Papi was once that guy, we couldn't resign our 3rd baseman, who was that kind of guy. Who is the clubhouse leader on this team? It isn't apparent. 

[notin]

9 hours ago, jdc69 said:

Yes, its all very communist. No accountability. Having mathematicians tell athletes how to play baseball must make baseball just super fun.

Those “mathematicians” are lead by Alex Cora.  There’s a big reason things didn’t change during the last two regime changes.

Not to mention there are no teams left not using analytics to some degree.  Yes, the Dodgers do use them.
 

In fact, the Red Sox are arguably declining in their usage (or at least their execution) largely due to front office instability, expectations of immediate results, poor communication, mixed priorities, internal conflicts, and probably a mix of straight up organizational dysfunction.  

[mvp 78]

29 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Name one time in human history, any 2-8 team looked like they had "life" in them.

Of course they look terrible, lifeless and worse. They are 2 and 8.

I'm not trying to predict some great surge, but the fact is we are 3.5 games behind looking okay.

Cue: "But if we keep playing like this, we have no hope." Well, duh.

The "we are 3.5 games back" is the same argument you used in '22 and '23. It's why you said it was foolish to not tear down the '22 team and sell all the expiring contracts. In the long run, the Sox would have been better off if they had done so. 

Right now, the Sox are full of mismatched parts. They have too many OFers. They are playing IFers out of position. They are forcing their #2 starter to change his pitch mix and his arsenal is all messed up right now. Bello was a more promising pitcher BEFORE the pitching lab. 

Theo needs to step in and tell Breslow what's up. Right now, it's one big mess. Breslow has no clue. Cora isn't managing. Someone has to take charge. 

[mvp 78]

29 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

Maybe they  are missing that club house leadership guy. Big Papi was once that guy, we couldn't resign our 3rd baseman, who was that kind of guy. Who is the clubhouse leader on this team? It isn't apparent. 

Contreras is supposed to be that kind of guy? Story is too quiet of a guy for that. 

[mvp 78]

19 minutes ago, notin said:

Those “mathematicians” are lead by Alex Cora.  There’s a big reason things didn’t change during the last two regime changes.

Not to mention there are no teams left not using analytics to some degree.  Yes, the Dodgers do use them.

In fact, the Red Sox are arguably declining in their usage (or at least their execution) largely due to front office instability, expectations of immediate results, poor communication, mixed priorities, internal conflicts, and probably a mix of straight up organizational dysfunction.  

Cora isn't part of the solution, so he's part of the problem. I just can't give him a pass anymore. The 2018 WS is too far in the past at this point. 

[notin]

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The "we are 3.5 games back" is the same argument you used in '22 and '23. It's why you said it was foolish to not tear down the '22 team and sell all the expiring contracts. In the long run, the Sox would have been better off if they had done so. 

 

To be fair, he said “we are 3.5 games behind looking ok”.  I took that to mean the Sox are 3.5 games behind mediocrity, and just a different way of expressing how bad the team is.  
 

The only thing benefiting the Sox right now is the rest of the non-Yankee teams in the East are also all underperforming.  The Jays just came off a 1-5 stretch against the Rockies and White Sox. Baltimore is 4-6 against another soft schedule. Tampa’s bullpen has given up more runs than ExLax.  The only real bright spot for Boston is at least they’ve been playing badly against playoff teams from last year…

[moonslav59]

12 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The "we are 3.5 games back" is the same argument you used in '22 and '23. It's why you said it was foolish to not tear down the '22 team and sell all the expiring contracts. In the long run, the Sox would have been better off if they had done so. 

Right now, the Sox are full of mismatched parts. They have too many OFers. They are playing IFers out of position. They are forcing their #2 starter to change his pitch mix and his arsenal is all messed up right now. Bello was a more promising pitcher BEFORE the pitching lab. 

Theo needs to step in and tell Breslow what's up. Right now, it's one big mess. Breslow has no clue. Cora isn't managing. Someone has to take charge. 

I don't disagree, and I'm as frustrated, pissed and perplexed as everyone else.

Maybe some sort of shock to the system is  needed.

It is well documented how nearly all of us wished we had done more over the winter. Most of us spoke to the lack of offense added. That being said, I thought we got slightly better on paper, but that has not shown itself to be true, so far.

My hopes are not as high as they were before game 1 (or 2,) but I am not ready to call this team out of it or hopeless.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, notin said:

To be fair, he said “we are 3.5 games behind looking ok”.  I took that to mean the Sox are 3.5 games behind mediocrity, and just a different way of expressing how bad the team is.  

The context of "okay" was that we'd be in the playoff hunt, but not a cinch.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

The only thing benefiting the Sox right now is the rest of the non-Yankee teams in the East are also all underperforming.  

Yes, and this is why we may be able to sneak in to the playoffs, without looking great.

[notin]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

The further they fall under .500, the more reason to just make the switch to Mayer at SS. Unless they really don't see Mayer as the future SS and believe it's Arias.

Even that’s not a good reason…

[notin]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I don't disagree, and I'm as frustrated, pissed and perplexed as everyone else.

Maybe some sort of shock to the system is  needed.

It is well documented how nearly all of us wished we had done more over the winter. Most of us spoke to the lack of offense added. That being said, I thought we got slightly better on paper, but that has not shown itself to be true, so far.

My hopes are not as high as they were before game 1 (or 2,) but I am not ready to call this team out of it or hopeless.

I admit thr failure to add Alonso/Schwarber type didn’t bother me, although the addition of Durbin didn’t thrill me either.

But either way, the strength of this team was supposed to SP.  And especially Bello and Suarez have failed to deliver, wuth the only bright spot bring it’s only been 2 starts for each.  Also the neglected bullpen hasn’t done much either…

[Maxbialystock]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

The further they fall under .500, the more reason to just make the switch to Mayer at SS. Unless they really don't see Mayer as the future SS and believe it's Arias.

Been thinking the same thing.  Story is inexcusably lousy in the field and at bat.  

[notin]

29 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Cora isn't part of the solution, so he's part of the problem. I just can't give him a pass anymore. The 2018 WS is too far in the past at this point. 

Cora might be more than “part of” the problem. He seems to be a big part of the organizational dysfunction. But if he both he and Breslow get canned, i won’t mind.

Just firing Breslow does nothing but add to the continuing parade of GM/CBO types that distract from the fact that Cora has missed the playoffs more often than not, and quite often does so to teams with lesser rosters…

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, notin said:

I admit thr failure to add Alonso/Schwarber type didn’t bother me, although the addition of Durbin didn’t thrill me either.

But either way, the strength of this team was supposed to SP.  And especially Bello and Suarez have failed to deliver, wuth the only bright spot bring it’s only been 2 starts for each.  Also the neglected bullpen hasn’t done much either…

Overall, I felt the improvement of the rotation would outweigh the lack of a big boost on offense, but I really felt like we had enough money and trade resources to do both.

I actually liked the Durbin trade, but would have been happier had we traded an OF'er and gotten KMarte, Neto or Hoerner (with or without Durbin or IKF.) If this meant no Gray or Oviedo or Durbin, fine. If it meant trading my favorite player, Ceddanne, in order to not hurt the offense, fine.

I think we left a hole in the line-up. It didn't have to be Alonso. I'm fine with Contreras, instead. He's much cheaper, better on defense, and may hit as well as Alonso, anyway- or close enough. Schwarber would have meant dumping Masa, and in a sense, we'd be paying Schwarber plus most of Masa for a DH upgrade. I liked adding KMarte or Neto much more. Paredes would have been okay, too.

[moonslav59]

7 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

Been thinking the same thing.  Story is inexcusably lousy in the field and at bat.  

We can fix the defense part easily.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

Been thinking the same thing.  Story is inexcusably lousy in the field and at bat.  

Story was 4 for 37 before last night and was making a good argument to start IKF over him…

[Maxbialystock]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

I admit thr failure to add Alonso/Schwarber type didn’t bother me, although the addition of Durbin didn’t thrill me either.

But either way, the strength of this team was supposed to SP.  And especially Bello and Suarez have failed to deliver, wuth the only bright spot bring it’s only been 2 starts for each.  Also the neglected bullpen hasn’t done much either…

ESPN  team stats say the Sox have 2d most errors, 11, the 25th best ERA, 4.84, and the 23d most runs scored, 36.  

Bregman, FWIW, currently has a WAR of -0.2.  Devers WAR is -0.3.  

By comparison horrible, terrible Durbin's WAR is -0.1 and Anthony's is +0.3.  

So, yes, we needed bats, but the heart of the issue is the pitching because that is Breslow's presumed strong suit and where he spent the most money.  

 

[moonslav59]

We may never know what it might have taken to get Neto or KMarte or even Paredes or Hoerner, and if we insisted on Rafaela over Duran or Abreu, maybe the second and third pieces would have been too good to part with. I'm not saying it would have been easy. Rafaela plus Tolle and another decent prospect might have been too high a return.

I still probably would have done it.