Wilyer Abreu Can't Carry the Red Sox Alone, But He's Sure Trying To

Before ANYONE gets excited about the highly over-rated Abreu's early season heroics, look back just one year and see what he did in April and then after April.  He hit .295 with an OPS of .965 through April.  He finished the year hitting .247 by hitting .219 after April 30th.  His OPS finished at a weak .786 almost .200 points below his first month of the season.  In 2024, he hit .316 in April and .233 in May.  He finished with a .253 average and .781 OPS.  Remember, these numbers are primarily against right-handed pitchers because his career against left-handed pitchers is .216 with a .616 OPS!!  

So, slow the jets on Abreu being an all-star this season.  Be happy with him simply not sucking after April like both other years.  His sample size is two full seasons because he came up late in 2023 and didn't have to maintain his fast start because the season was over before his annual dip after his annual quick start occurred.  

Without Bregman this year, the offense should be significantly less effective at scoring and preventing scoring.  Story had a career year last year for him based on age, Duran flourishes as a hitter in CF and is playing left due to a pathetic manager not realizing what makes each player excel,  Mayer is and has been a disappointment at hitting and fielding most of his career in the minors and has only played defense well since making the MLB.  Anthony is ONE guy and can't carry the team.  He misses Bregman's bat behind him in the order.  Contreras is on a four-year decline so counting on him is pure optimism and Narvaez needs to hit for the season not just the start of the season to be a legit catcher.

So why are we so far behind expectations?  ONE - Cora is still mismanaging the team and has cost us half our loses with bad pitching decisions.  TWO - Other than Crochet and Early, the rest of the pitchers are incredibly inconsistent.  Tolle needs to get an off-speed pitch and join the rotation.  Gray and Suarez were supposed to be much better than they have shown, hopefully, that's only a temporary issue but many pitchers simply can't join the AL East and succeed after pitching in lesser divisions.  Bello is like Mayers, he's simply over-rated and expecting anything more than a journeyman's performance is extremely optimistic.  

Compare the strengths vs the weaknesses of this team:

WEAKNESSES

1 - Manager

2 - Catcher

3 - 3rd base

4 - 2nd base

5 - 1st base

6 - Right Field

7 - DH

8 - SP 3, SP 4 and SP 5 (Crochet and Early only two not a weakness as of today)

9 - All relievers not named Chapman and Whitlock

STRENGTHS

Crochet, Early, Chapman, Whitlock, Story, Rafaela, Duran

How many wins should that translate to?  81?  Losing Bregman doubles the negative impact by exposing Cora's daily mistakes even more.  Bad pitching choices in relief kills the team, bad positioning of players like Duran in LF hurts the team along with Rafaela not playing RF.  Adding a bad 3B, a weak 1B and using a returning early round draft pick that has done nothing but disappoint the organization over the years all contribute to a big step down from 2025.  This will be very hard on the fans, and I sure hope the call for Cora's head is loud and effective.  He should be gone before May to fix the chemistry on this team.

I guess what the Sox need for success is for TYPM's mancrush to play all 10 positions simultaneously ala the old Bugs Bunny cartoon.