Red Sox Pre-Offseason Mega Thread

[notin]

1 hour ago, Old Red said:

ONE year rental.

Forty million for that one year.  With two equally-priced options…

[Hugh2]

On 10/22/2026 at 9:29 AM, drewski6 said:

My uncle in SF named his cat Freddy Sanchez.

My is named Theo : ) 

[drewski6]

18 hours ago, Old Red said:

And yet it took a magic carpet ride, which included a once in a lifetime 15 game winning streak to win less games than the year before scoring 97 less runs, and hitting 23 less homes, and concluded with a shorter cameo appearance in the postseason than the year before. WOW!🤔

yup

[mvp 78]

Brewers are going to lose tonight because of the Selig stink!

[moonslav59]

4 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

November 2003 to November 2004:

Schilling, Foulke, Timlin, Bellhorn, Reese, AROD (briefly), Cabrera, Mientkiewicz, Roberts...

Theo Epstein did better, because the Red Sox won the AL pennant and World Series championship.

That was really good, but in terms of total production (not rings) Brez's is better.

It wasn't guy on the addition list that let the team down, except for maybe just Mead & Oviedo.

Some of the single most productive players were Schilling before 2004, Beckett before 2007, Lackey before 2013, and Sale before 2028- who all led to rings. JD was big. Manny was big, but years before 2004. Papi was a huge add. Victorino for that one year.

[JoeBrady]

13 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Keeping Duran was IMO a hedge against Anthony failing or getting hurt, and it turned out we needed a good back-up for Roman. Just too bad Duran couldn't even decline to .725 w 25 Hrs.

I go back to that all the time.  I wouldn't have cared much if they had traded Duran, and I offered several suggestions.  But the idea of keeping him was perfectly logical.

Except for the half of the fans that knew he'd go from a 4.9 bWAR to a 0.4.

[JoeBrady]

10 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

we paid Bregman 40 million for 1 year.  do you call that stealing him.

No one will admit it, but between his salary and the draft pick, imho, it was an overpay.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

10 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

No one will admit it, but between his salary and the draft pick, imho, it was an overpay.

No one will admit it, but paying Bregman $40 mil to get out of Devers' contract of $300 mil was worth it to the front office.

[Hugh2]

4 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

My is named Theo : ) 

My SON!, my son is named Theo. 

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

That was really good, but in terms of total production (not rings) Brez's is better.

It wasn't guy on the addition list that let the team down, except for maybe just Mead & Oviedo.

Some of the single most productive players were Schilling before 2004, Beckett before 2007, Lackey before 2013, and Sale before 2028- who all led to rings. JD was big. Manny was big, but years before 2004. Papi was a huge add. Victorino for that one year.

What Brez did was good , but he FAILED in filling the BIGGEST need.

[Hugh2]

38 minutes ago, Old Red said:

What Brez did was good , but he FAILED in filling the BIGGEST need.

I don't disagree, not one bit.  The number 1 Glaring weak spot on this team right now is a big HR middle of the order bat.  That's pretty much an objective truth at this point. 

Just a thought experiment here but what if we Did sign someone like Pete Alonso in the offseason and we ended the season with one more win and the same playoff outcome.  What would our main complain about this team be?

[drewski6]

7 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

I don't disagree, not one bit.  The number 1 Glaring weak spot on this team right now is a big HR middle of the order bat.  That's pretty much an objective truth at this point. 

Just a thought experiment here but what if we Did sign someone like Pete Alonso in the offseason and we ended the season with one more win and the same playoff outcome.  What would our main complain about this team be?

Probably Tracy pulling starters.  Because it would have mattered.  Ultimately , it didnt matter because double guessing Tracy is just crying that we should have lost 3-1 when we lost 9-1.  

[Old Red]

6 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

I don't disagree, not one bit.  The number 1 Glaring weak spot on this team right now is a big HR middle of the order bat.  That's pretty much an objective truth at this point. 

Just a thought experiment here but what if we Did sign someone like Pete Alonso in the offseason and we ended the season with one more win and the same playoff outcome.  What would our main complain about this team be?

It would all depend on the reason why. 23 less HR, and 97 less runs from one season to the next is glaring, and that was with the Con Man contribution. Cro Man was out most of the year, and the Red Sox still had a better rotation than the year before. Run production was the downfall this past year.

[Old Red]

7 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Probably Tracy pulling starters.  Because it would have mattered.  Ultimately , it didnt matter because double guessing Tracy is just crying that we should have lost 3-1 when we lost 9-1.  

That’s what I heard, but the game might have played out different if it had stayed a one run ballgame, and might have turned out different, but dick Tracy took that possibility away not once, but twice.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

I go back to that all the time.  I wouldn't have cared much if they had traded Duran, and I offered several suggestions.  But the idea of keeping him was perfectly logical.

Except for the half of the fans that knew he'd go from a 4.9 bWAR to a 0.4.

I expected a further decline, but wasn't sure of it, and I certainly did not expect 4.5 drop.

Not many expected the 4.1 drop from 2024 to 2025, either.

Other than by injury, how many MLB have seen 2 drops like that in back-to-back season?

We might have been able to absorb that drop by istelf, but we also saw...

4.1>0.2 Story

2.8>-0.3 Narvaez (-0.9 BOS+BAL)

These combined hurt, but the kicker was...

6.0> -0.5 Crochet