TedYazPapiMookie

Take a hard look at this pitching staff. The two biggest issues are talent and a very bad Manager. TALENT There is Crochet, a top 2 AL SP to anchor the staff is great. Connelly Early the next ACE of the staff will keep the team in games and continue to improve. Has an outside chance of making the All-Star team with Crochet. Sonny Gray, a guy who flourishes with non-competitive teams. His time in NY was a disaster. Don't be shocked if the same happens in Boston. He's 36 and put up a 3.42 and 1.20 in Oakland through 2016 (10 years ago in a town with no pressure). He spent 3 years in CIN another town with no pressure and put up 3.49 and 1.15. 2 years in STL another low-pressure place and he put up 4.07 and 1.16. 2 years in MIN yet another low-pressure place with a 2.90 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. 2 years in NYY with high pressure and his numbers jump to 4.51 and 1.42 back in 2017 and 2018. Now, 8 years later he goes to his second high pressure town and team, and he begins with a 4-inning effort with a 6.75 ERA and 1.75 WHIP. Yes, it's a small sample. Yes, it resembles his downfall in NY the other high-pressure position he had in his career. I believe Early will have the far more effective season than Gray (our current #2 SP based on Cora's opinion). Ranger Suarez, coming from Philly he is used to pressure and has performed well in it. His first start was not good, but his upside seems higher than Gray's. He's 6 years younger and his 8 years with PHI led to a 3.38 ERA and 1.27 WHIP in a small ballpark. Those are great indicators of success for him in BOS. When things shake out, he will likely have better numbers than Gray and should be the #3 SP in the rotation. Brayan Bello, hyped as a prospect he has been a disappointment. He's only 27 years old but hasn't provided reliable pitching for his first three and 1/3 full seasons. ERAs ranging from 3.35 (only one under 4) to 4.71 and WHIPS varying between 1.24 (only one 1.34) to 1.78 he's a bottom of the rotation pitcher who has been treated with more respect than Early who truly is a great prospect. 2025 can be looked at as him finally developing or it could be like our catchers, a one-year wonder scenario. We see this all the time with Cora and the Red Sox front office and NESN. Bello, on a good team, should be the 6th or 7th starter not the 5th starter. If Houck was healthy, he should be slotted ahead of him along with Crawford and Sandoval. So, bottom-line, this staff is mediocre. Two great pitchers at the top, one very good pitcher in the middle of the rotation, one SP2 who should be a SP4 and one journeyman who shouldn't be there. Breslow needs to find help because of item two listed above. BAD MANAGER Couple the mediocre SP talent (not including Crochet, Early and Suarez) with a terrible manager who never should have received the honor of being a Red Sox manager and you have a disaster waiting to happen. Until Cora figures out WHEN the right time is to pull a starting pitcher and WHO should come in to keep the baserunners from scoring, Boston's ERA and WHIP will be higher than it should be. It's not that the bullpen is terrible, it's completely misused by an unknowledgeable manager whose only skills include interpersonal relationships with specific players on his team, upper management, ownership, the media and the grounds crew. Managing the roster is done poorly. Managing game situations is done poorly. Managing the batting order is done poorly. Managing the starters based on meritocracy is done very poorly. Managing the starting rotation is done poorly and last but not least managing pitching substitutions is done horribly. Breslow needs to fire Cora to improve results, or Cora will be talking with ownership about finding a new GM. Breslow needs to fix the problem just like he did when Devers was shipped elsewhere and Bregman was brought in to fix the hole at 3B that now exists again. Fire Cora and trade for a reliable 3B, Catcher, 2B and fix the positions in the OF. Abreu needs to go before he repeats his .219 average against mostly right-handed batters in 2025 after April 30th. The gold gloves are created by hole in the metric created by the dimensions of Fenway and his power is good but not timely or consistent. Rafaela, Duran and Anthony needs to be the outfield this season and Boston is weak at every infield position other than SS. Contreras will continue his rapid decline in hitting. Mayer will prove he isn't the player the front office and Cora suggest he is and we desperately need a 3B the caliber of a Bregman. After 5 games we've seen 1 win by Crochet, two back-to-back losses when Cora relieved the starter at the wrong time with the wrong reliever, two SPs not good enough to stop the HOU hitting. Lack of skill and a bad manager is a lot to overcome.

Crocket is a great pitcher but winning a Cy Young in the same league with Skubal is going to be very difficult. They are top 5 pitchers like in the old days when Koufax would beat out Drysdale, Gibson, Marichal and all the top AL SPs (only one CY Young award each year until Koufax retired). The difference is it took Koufax 9 years to be good enough to win a Cy Young award and he had a losing record for his first 6 seasons. Then in 1963 he suddenly became dominant and won 3 of the next 4 Cy Young awards against all MLB pitchers. He finished 3rd behind Dean Chance and Larry Jackson in 1964. Crochet and Skubal are both ahead of Koufax in achieving greatness. Crochet finished second to Skubal in his 5th season and Skubal has won back-to-back Cy Youngs starting in his fifth season. The good news is that Paul Skene is in the National League, so Crochet doesn't have to compete against him for a Cy Young. Skene finished 3rd in the NL in the Cy Young vote as a rookie and won it in year 2. Step back for a moment and put this into perspective. Koufax albeit a questionable choice for the HOF with his limited seasons of greatness (4) was the most dominant pitcher in the early 60s but it took nearly a decade for him to achieve his greatness. Skenes, Skubal and Crochet have done it in less than half the time it took Koufax to become great. That speaks volumes about the quality of pitching in 2026. Yes, hitters may be diluted compared to the sixties thanks to all the additional teams today, but the greatness should not go unnoticed. We are very fortunate to have Crochet and with some luck and a better new manager I believe some day he will have a shot at the Cy Young award, post Cora.

It looks to me we have the same issue on the Red Sox as the last 5 years, bad manager. Uberstine could be a great pitcher, but when the manager is clueless with respect to making pitching changes, sometimes the quality of the pitcher still can't win games. Take today's game and yesterday's game in Cincinnati. Today, Early throws an excellent game and leaves when Cora decides that his pitch count is more important than winning. At 96 pitches, Early should have stayed in to get the double play like several times earlier in the game but instead, he's pulled for Weissert who had been ineffective the day before. This is classic Cora. Bad choice switches a win to a loss. 5 years he's been doing this and he still gets to manage. It's a travesty. The season is 3 games old, and we have two losses due to poor choices after the starter comes out. Yesterday, Gray wasn't pitching well but the bullpen must stop rallies before they change the outcome of games. The bullpen only has Whitlock who can do that consistently. Weissert is gasoline on the fire. Why do the Red Sox ERAs end up higher than they should, the percentage of times the base runners left on by the starter score. Early should have given up ZERO runs but instead got tagged for a run because of a bad choice by Cora. He did to Sale, Eovaldi and so many of the pitchers over the last 5 years, somebody should have noticed by now. They need to take all pitching decisions out of the hands of Cora. I'm going to track losses caused by the Manager's poor decision making with respect to pitching substitutions. Right now, he is 2 for 2 in losses that shouldn't have happened, but he made the wrong choice. Let's hope someone informs Cora when he finally gets Uberstine as to what types of situations he can be successful in. Clearly, Weissert cannot fill the role Whitlock had in the old days of following the starter so inherited runs when playing from ahead are not allowed to score. I bet the next time the same situation occurs to the starter Cora makes the exact same mistake once again. If nothing else, he's consistent at being bad at substituting SPs.

Connor Wong is a one-time wonder. So is Narvaez. The future was tossed into a trade with Chicago to get Crochet when Teel should have been off limits. Now there is no future catcher on the horizon. Boston needs to find a viable future catcher like Teel. Until they do, catcher and 2nd base will be two holes that need to be filled for years to come. Frankly, 3B is weak now without Bregman and 1B is weak with a converted old catcher trying to stop his massive decline over the last three years. It's hard to believe but Story who forgot how to play for 3 years is now the most attractive player in the Red Sox infield. Hard to believe, but it's true. Mayer is a joke, Contreras is a has been, both catchers are one year wonders and lets hope Durbin can put up decent numbers. Casas, Campbell, Yoshida have all been dismissed as invaluable players without any justification for those decisions by the horrific manager. Abreu is an enigma. A player who can't field yet wins gold gloves due to the screwed-up metrics that get applied in right field of Fenway Park, who also hit .219 after April in 2025 but has become more prominent in Cora's eyes after that fail. Even Jarren Duran who has been nothing but good for Boston yet has about a 50% fan support which makes no sense especially when his boss can't figure out that he should be the full time CF with Rafaela in RF. And last but not least, it's a real conundrum how Cora is liked by fans considering his sinister history in HOU and then again in BOS. It's funny how adding Breslow has created a dichotomy of success. On the one hand we have a great pitching staff that keeps getting better. On the other hand, we have worsening defense even after finally eliminating Devers' stone hands because the manager who has no baseball acumen can't figure out where the outfielders should play, he refuses to use meritocracy to define who plays and where they bat in the batting order and after years of being wrong with pitching substitutions, he hasn't learned a thing from all his experience. Since Cora arrived, the team has failed in the last two months of the season consistently. That is not a coincidence, it's a lack of acumen by the manager. Much like two years ago when Devers was on the team, you must rid the team of the biggest problem. That problem now is Cora.

Who will play once Mayer reinjures his wrist for the fourth time? Also, his defense was substandard in the minor leagues, yet you expect him to be a gold glove player at the MLB level? Kinda like Abreu leads the outfield in errors but gets to be a gold glover despite all his mistakes? Mayer fielded at a .953 pace at shortstop in the minors. Does that sound like a gold glover to you? And like Abreu who hit .219 after April in 2025 while facing mostly right-handed pitchers, you think Mayer will bounce back from his third wrist injury in four years? Why? Because Bloom wasted the fourth pick in the draft and now the Red Sox have to sell it as if it wasn't a huge mistake? Numbers don't lie and wrist injuries don't heal easily and they reduce the batter's ability to hit for power. I'll ask again, who gets to start at 2B once Mayer is out? Besides catcher, 2B is the second biggest issue in the Red Sox line-up. Hopefully, all the pitching additions will allow this team to be average hitters and defenders in hopes of staying with TOR, NYY and BAL.

Connelly Early will be the next big thing in Boston as he surpasses Crochet in performance over the next two years. Fantasy players should grab this guy in keeper leagues.

Based on his age and his improving maturity, he has a great chance to be a perennial all-star due to his stellar defense, his speed, his "clutch factor" and his willingness to work hard even when his manager and front office treat him radically different from lesser stars like Mayer and Abreu.

Nice report. He's the future of the Red Sox. He should surpass Crochet by 2027. A lefty Scenes.

To suggest the Mookie trade and the Devers trade are alike is 100% false. Mookie was a generational player who has cost us being competitive for 5 years now. Devers was a slightly above average hitter and the WORST defender at 3B in history. HUGE DIFFERENCE. The Devers contract could have been called an albatross but that just doesn't seem to be a strong enough word for its impact on the organization. It was a complete disaster, and Breslow solved the problem and will always be a success in Boston simply for the one move. Boston has not only benefitted from the Devers deal, it's flourished from it. The Betts deal is still impacting Boston in a very negative way. It was a pure travesty. Breslow has TWO great deals in adding Crochet and dumping Devers. He's screwed the pooch on the Sale deal and there have been a lot of blah deals that didn't help or hurt much. I love the new pitching staff with Crochet, Gray, Early, Suarez and Tolle. I hate the infield because Mayer is a bust, Story is unreliable, there is no proven 2B and the addition of Contreras projects to be a bust based on his dramatic drop-offs over the last 3 years. Casas as a former DD draft pick, is far more likely to succeed at 1B than Contreras. The outfield is a joke since Cora has no managerial acumen, so he plays Abreu who hit .219 after April 30th in 2025 while facing mostly right-handed pitchers!!! OUCH. Instead, Cora needs to wake up and realize Duran is a crap left fielder and an excellent center fielder and Rafaela is a stud who should play RF and bat high in the order, so he proves he's the all-star talent that his potential shows. Rafaela would turn the GG from Abreu into Platinum Gloves. Oh, and one last thing, trading for Teel was a brilliant move by the White Sox because they stole a HOF catcher leaving Boston with two one-year wonders who in their one good year were very average. Look for a massive step backwards in 2026 by Narvaez, just like Wong did the year before.

Neither!! No good deals to be made between the two teams.

Your games total doesn't reflect the time Lawlar played in the winter leagues. Mayer is a pompous ass who thinks he's above working out in the winter leagues to improve his game. That's a character issue in my book. Some call it silver spoon syndrome. They have played 44 vs 42 MLB games. Hardly enough to evaluate them. Lawlar played well enough in the minors to play at the MLB level in 2023. Another sign of a guy progressing faster in the minors. Neither player is a good defender. Lawler had a .944 FPCT at SS in the minors and a .957 FPCT in 10 starts at SS in the MLB. Mayer had a .953 FPCT at SS in the minors and NO STARTS at SS in the MLB but got in 2 games with two plays and he errored on 1 of them. For me, that's too little to draw conclusions at the MLB level. My review of these two players you chose to point out was spot on as always. 4 - BOS - Marcelo Mayer - Incredibly slow start and injury prone. 100% accurate 6 - ARI - Jordan Lawler - Very slow start but showing signs of reaching his potential. Since you chose OPS, let's compare the two with that stat in the minors: Lawler at RK - .901, A - 1.051, Hi-A - .862, AA - .798 and AAA - .990 Mayer at RK - .817, A - .910, Hi-A - .865, AA - .763 and AAA - .818 I'm not terribly impressed by either since they were top 6 picks in the draft. Mayer went earlier and did less but not a lot less so he got labeled with "incredibly slow start" and Lawler got "very slow start" for being slightly better but not good. Lawler also came up 2 years earlier to the MLB then got sent down and came back and raised his OPS significantly the second time around but it's still too small of a sample. I didn't say he was going to reach his potential I simply pointed out he was showing signs of reaching it by improving from one appearance at the MLB level to his second appearance at the MLB level. As usual, I was spot on and you failed to make a valid point. The bigger question is the same as always: Why try to point out a small insignificant number as if you are some sort of expert. You aren't. You may be a Mayer fan, but I didn't say anything that wasn't true to argue about. Your comments were an unsolicited inaccurate critique because it came from me. And once again, you look like a fool for making it. There is no virtue in trying to pick apart minute details in a comment. Most people find it offensive.

If you are hoping Mayer will be a good defender, think again. He is average at best based on his minor league inability to field balls. His .953 Fielding Percentage is barely better than Devers. Fans who continue to follow fake information from the metrics world are fools. Just like Global Warming was a complete lie, so are the metrics currently being secretly produced (aren't verified) and then presented to the public as if they were the Bible. DRS is BS. Every play ends in a binary result, out or not out. When Abreu leads the team in errors only playing part time and wins a GG similar to a very average Verdugo who finished 2nd the year before Abreu, there is clearly something wrong with the metric. When a .953 fielding percentage (Mayer at SS in the minors) mysteriously translates to a star defender, there is obviously something wrong with the measurement. So don't count on Mayer being anything more than an average defender. That's why Eugenio Suarez does qualify as a not much worse than Mayer candidate at 3B except for the fact that he's a Contreras clone. He's old and fading like Contreras which makes your suggestions superior on offense not just defense. I wanted Jose Ramirez in a trade because he's still a legit star on defense and offense and we have SO MANY over-rated young players that Cleveland might think we could help them. Mayer, Abreu, Arias and Justin Gonzalez for Ramirez would restock Cleveland's farm system and improve on Bregman at 3B. Obviously, Garcia and Shaw would be cheaper but try to go big first then settle for either of them at a much lower cost. You are definitely on the right track. We already have one too many old players accelerating into their decline, we need a young and vibrant defender and hitter at 3B or a stud like Jose Ramirez so Boston can contend for the division like the good old days when we had Dombrowski providing monster talent that even Cora couldn't screw up. Let's hope Breslow properly fills the spot at 3B and moves players like Abreu, Mayer, Yoshida and Bello to improve our catchers, 3B and 2B. It was fun to see a competitive team in 2025. He needs to surprise fans AGAIN in 2026. The unnecessary demise of the great 2018 team by Bloom was a travesty and as expected when Mookie was given away, the franchise wasn't going to recover for at least 5 years. We are now in year 6 of that recovery without a division win since Dombrowski got wrongfully fired.

For me, we still have a monster hole at 3B because Mayer isn't the answer now or long-term! Look at the fielding percentages of each season in the minors you see a weak to average fielder at SS. Yes, he did well in a very, very small sample in the majors and while the vast majority of baseball neophytes on this website think small samples are very telling, they are simply wrong based on over 100 years of baseball history. You guys loved Will Middlebrooks and hated Bogaerts when he struggled his rookie year playing 3B. The history of predicting defensive skills by Red Sox fans is atrocious. You are the same fools who kept talking about Devers getting better. So, lets deal in reality. Below average defense for several years and then a small sample of good defense DOES NOT project to a good defender let alone an excellent defender, it points to a sketchy fielder with a consistent history of getting hurt and a known injury he is healing from that reduces one's offensive skills and is highly susceptible to recurring issues with the wrist. Nope Mayer is not the 3B solution. Boston needs to get the other Suarez (Eugenio) for 3B. His fielding would be comparable to Mayer but he won't get hurt as much and he's a better hitter. Those facts push Mayer to 2B where once again he had success in a very, very small sample in 2025 at the MLB level but his history of average defense from the minors still looms large in predicting his future at 2B. The addition of Suarez (Ranger) the pitcher makes Boston close to a contender so the additions of both Suarez the 3B and Marte at 2B would be a power move to overtake the Yankees, Toronto and Baltimore. It's something the Dodgers would do and in fact just did when they acquired Bellinger and Tucker. Can ownership afford both Suarez and Marte? Absolutely!! Will they spend the money to go for it? Absolutely NOT. Do they have a manager that can be smart and overcome the disadvantages? NOPE. They have one of the dumbest managers in baseball who also lacks integrity so unless he figures a new way to cheat, he's only going to hurt the Red Sox chances of winning anything. In summary, Mayer isn't the answer but Suarez is and he is theoretically within the budget. Marte is outside the budget but would be a piece that would give them a chance of winning the division but it's not going to happen. The Mayer situation is what happens when a daft GM drafts the wrong guy at the 4th spot in a draft and must over-hype him to not look foolish. Just as a reminder here are the top picks in the draft Bloom completely blew: 1 - PIT - Henry Davis - A bust 2- TX - Jack Leiter - Slow start but bright future 3 - DET - Jackson Jobe - Slow start but bright future 4 - BOS - Marcelo Mayer - Incredibly slow start and injury prone 5 - BAL - Colton Cowser - Great pick doing very well with bright future 6 - ARI - Jordan Lawler - Very slow start but showing signs of reaching his potential 7 - KC - Frank Mozzicato - BUST 8 - COL - Benny Montgomery - BUST 9 - LAA - Sam Bachman - BUST 10 - NYM - Kumar Rocker - Slow start but bright future 11 - WAS - Brady House - Slow start but bright future 12 - SEA - Harry Ford - BUST 13 - PHI - Andrew Painter - Slow start with injuries but huge upside 14 - SF - Wil Bednar - Already an excellent closer 15 - MIL - Sal Frelick - Moments of greatness already but not consistent yet 16 - MIA - Khalil Watson - Ahead of all SSs taken ahead of him. Excellent choice. 17 - CIN - Matt McLain - Another SS better than Mayer who is an establish MLB talent Clearly, Bloom blew it and I haven't showed you others he missed on not just in this round but in later rounds!!! Round 1 - Jackson Merrill pick 27th to SD Round 2 - Connor Norby pick 41 right after Boston, Andrew Abbott CIN pick 53 Spencer Swellenbach ATL pick 59 Zack Gelop OAK pick 60 JAMES WOOD SD pick 62 and finally Kyle Manzardo TB pick 63. Round 3 - Mason Miller Round 4 - Hunter Goodman Round 5 - Tanner Bibbee Round 6 - Bryan Woo This draft was loaded with talent and we got: Mayer - Borderline Bust Jud Fabian - Bust Then nothing until Hunter Dobbins in the 8th round and he pitched well before being traded for an aging catcher turned 1B in his fourth year of decline and 34 years old!! These facts establish many of the reasons this team is still shaky after 5 years to recover from firing Dombrowski and watching Cora screw-up the daily line-up, the morale of the team, the pitching rotation and the in-game pitching substitutions. All the screw-ups and yet some fans remain loyal to the biggest cheater in baseball history based on him cheating more than his two cohorts in Houston when he came to Boston and installed the media room cheating that never got fully investigated thanks to the commissioner and the Player Union. Boston needs to clean its house of Cora and give Breslow the freedom of payroll to get the skills needed to WIN the division.

Tolle needs to be a starter. Also, with Whitlock and Chapman being set for 8th and 9th is great. We are talking about a moron named Cora as the manager so my suggestion is this: SP1 to SP6 need to be the starters so that leaves 7 relievers totaling 13 pitchers on the 26 man roster. Chapman and Whitlock leaves 5 spots for relievers. Have Cora use the other 5 pitchers as he sees fit which means doing what he always does.... he gets a gut feeling which is wrong most of the time and he subs the wrong guy. You can't get away from this approach with Cora. He's the worst manager in the business and proves it daily through his handling of the pitching staff, the setting of the line-up and his choices when to pull or not pull a pitcher. He can't be fixed as he has proven since 2018. He's not qualified to be a manager so trying to suggest a framework for this would be a waste of time. It is what it is, so this article is all about an addressable situation thanks to Cora.

Unless you are willing to give up young players like Abreu, you need to grab the best Free Agent 3B which is by far Suarez at roughly $15 to $20 Million. Sure, you can hope for a Bichette but he's a SS where Mayer and Campbell play not to mention the last two years of Story's contract. If you put Bichette at 3B, he's an expensive add to play out of position. I don't think ownership will go for it and frankly it makes more sense to trade for a 3B if you can't get Suarez at a reasonable price. Breslow needs to start trying to plan his positions better. People count on Mayer and he's an injury waiting to happen and his legacy bad wrist isn't likely to restore the same level of hitting production that was seen in ONLY 2024. The other years he was very average. Plus, he's an error prone fielder thanks to his athleticism that works against him. So, if we stack the depth at all positions, you'll see that we have too many players in some spots and not enough at others, so Breslow needs to balance his talent now and for the future with his minor league talent. C - We have nothing and nothing on the horizon because Teel is in Chicago 1B - We have a quickly fading catcher and an injury prone youngster 2B - We have no established 2B SS - We have an incredibly inconsistent excellent SS who has mostly failed in Boston, we have an injury prone over-rated 4th pick in the draft from half a decade ago, we have the Minor League Player of the Year from 2024 who struggled last year, and we have our #1 prospect who is rated much higher than he should be 3B - Absolutely nothing except players who normally play another position LF - We have our player of the future who should play there but Cora is too stupid to move Duran to his best position by far (CF) because he likes a platoon hitter that had a horrendous year in 2025 to play right field. CF - He has maybe the best defensive outfielder in the game and another top 5 CF because Cora isn't smart enough to put the stud in the toughest field (RF). Thus, we have an overabundance of CF talent and rather than move the best to the toughest field he plays a guy he likes who can't hit in RF. RF - A joke of an outfielder gets to start despite having the most limitations of any player on offense. He can't hit lefties and hit righties for .216 after April. Meanwhile, the stud outfielder could play the one field that stretches from the Pesky Pole at 302 to right center at 380. By the far the most demanding field where Mookie played with his speed and athleticism like Rafaela should. DH - Three choices. Yoshida, Abreu or Casas. Not great choices yet not bad choices either. Breslow's best move is to fire Cora and hire someone who is a winner. The 2018 team won on talent not the manager. They won despite him. Breslow needs a Breslow guy at manager, so he doesn't have to worry about the knife in the back that has happened to the last two GMs. As of today, TOR, NY, BAL are all stronger than BOS and TB always is better than you think so without some fixes on offense and defense, this team could go back to the cellar after a promising year. Cora is the wild card that's going to cost you 10 games if it's not perfectly clear who the best players are and where they should play. He has a long history of mistakes that always need to be overcome. But hey, if the bench players love him because he uses them too much, then everyone seems happy except for the non-winning that always happens down the stretch.

I think the rotation is the strength of this team. Crochet is dominant, Early will be at Crochet's level very soon, Gray is a rock solid #2 or #3, Tolle if he gets an off-speed pitch is an excellent #4 compared to other teams and then the weak spot is the #5 hole but there are plenty of candidates until a guy like Witherspoon is ready. Sandoval, Oviedo or even an over-rated Bello could take up the last spot and as long as Crochet, Early or Gray don't get hurt, this team will compete against anyone with its pitching. The defense and hitting is a mess. You have Cora playing the wrong outfielders in the wrong positions. You have no 3B. You have a SS who has been good 1 of 4 seasons. You demoted and demoralized the 2B of the future. You picked up a rapidly fading catcher turned 1B to replace an oft injured 1B of the future. You have NO reliable catchers because Narvaez is coming off a career year that was very average and you have Wong who proved to be a one-year wonder like Narvaez is going to prove to be in 2026. Add to this Cora's ineptitude in figuring out the outfield which should be Anthony in LF, Duran in CF and Rafaela in RF (the biggest outfield position). Rafaela is so good and so much faster than Abreu that he will get to SO MANY balls Abreu can't dream about getting to. Add to that the fact that Abreu hit .216 after April against mostly RH pitchers and very few LH pitchers (his weakness), he should start in the minors or be traded. Without a 3B, C and giving Campbell another shot at 2B, this team is a weak hitting and fielding team. Add the extremely fragile characteristics of guys like Story, Mayer, Casas, Contreras and all of Abreu's shortcomings, the pitching will need to be stellar for this team to finish ahead of Tampa Bay.

With Contreras aging quickly (3 consecutive years of big drop offs in WAR) and his 34-year-old age, Casas needs to stay around for when Contreras doesn't perform. Plus, if Yoshida and Abreu fail at the DH position, he could fill that slot as well. Houck is a right-handed Sale so he should have been a no-brainer.

It's premature to suggest that Tolle can't develop his necessary off-speed pitch to make the rotation. Also, Bello should be slotted in the 5th spot at best. Clearly, Early should be slated as the SP3 because he's left-handed, but I still consider him the 2nd best SP on the team. Gray will fill the 2nd spot and then the fourth spot from a talent spot is Tolle if he can develop the pitch but as a young lefty it is smart to fill the SP5 with Tolle if he is ready. The fourth spot in my opinion should be Oviedo since I think Bello is highly over-rated. If Tolle isn't ready like you suggest then I think Sandoval should take the SP5 spot with Bello as the SP6 to be used as needed. We've watched Houck come up and be the best pitcher for a couple of years, but he's not supported by the front office much like Campbell so the second he struggled he was dismissed. He's already proven to be far superior to Bello who is highly supported by the organization despite his lack of talent much like Mayer. I think it's fair what you wrote because it follows the group think on this website and the front office. For me, I spent so many years evaluating players that I refuse to be bullied into thinking the way the organization wants fans to think so I'll stick with a talent ranking of pitchers as follows: 1 - Crochet 2-Early 3-Gray 4-Tolle 5-Houck 6-Oviedo/Sandoval 8-Crawford 9-Bello Clearly Houck and Crawford are still recovering and possibly Sandoval will be too so players need to slot in this order if they are healthy. One key point about the pitching, while Early and Tolle are young and still learning their stuff is far superior to everyone other than Crochet and the farm system has someone equivalent to them based on stuff in Witherspoon. Sandlin is also a potential starter that exceeds Bello's and Crawford's skills and could be roughly as good as Houck when healthy. Breslow has established a great future pitching staff and now must go fill the gaping holes at 3B, 2B, C as well as rearrange the outfield so Anthony, Duran and Rafaela are the regulars. Having depth at 1B is good and keeping Yoshida at DH versus Abreu is smart. Personally, I'd switch-off 1Bs at DH if Yoshida struggles to start the season. Your thoughts on Tolle were good. I just think he can move forward with his needed pitch faster than you believe he will. You seem to have insights into the "organizations viewpoints" so you are probably right that they won't let him develop at a faster pace than you predict whether he masters the extra pitch or not. Adding Early, Tolle and Witherspoon are all huge upgrades that far surpass both Crawford and Bello. It will be fun to see if Houck comes back strong because he's a right-handed Sale which fits perfectly with Gray and the lefties (Crochet, Early and Tolle). Breslow has the pitching horses, now he needs the smarts to fix the outfield and solidify 3B, 2B and C.

What a ridiculous take on the 2026 season. The hatred from 2025 simply continues with this biased writer. The starting staff based on talent is Crochet, Early, Gray, Tolle, Oviedo/Bello/Sandoval The infield is in shambles because Story has had just 1 of 4 good seasons so he'll absolutely need to repeat or improve on last year, you have a vacancy at 3B and right now the only apparent choice is a mediocre SS that under performed in the minors after being picked 4th in the draft. He has had just one good season in Boston since being drafted in the first round of 2021 and he's constantly hurt. His injury isn't the type that will effectively heal without losing some capabilities from having a bad wrist. Some players never come back to their original level after a wrist injury. It is far more likely that it will happen again than not happen again in his future. At 2B we have a great young player that most people on this site hate because he surpassed Mayer and won Minor League Player of the Year in 2024 but wasn't on the projected stars of the future list prior to 2024. So when he struggled, he was dismissed prematurely which likely will lead to another bad trade like giving up Teel instead of Mayer. Along with Campbell, there are lots of mediocre prospects at 2B for 2026. At 1B we just dumped on the 1B of the future by picking up an aging former Catcher that now plays 1B and has consistently regressed for the last 3 seasons. The fact that he moved off catcher to 1B and continued his regression is a sign that he's at the end of his career. Miggy and Pujols, much better players than him, put up great numbers at 33 and never performed at a high level again. Contreras will be 34 in 2026 and his WAR has dropped from 4.2 to 3.8 to 3.3 to 2.5 (as a 1B only). Boston needs to keep Casas to step in for Contreras when he fails. The catching situation is dismal because Narvaez had a career year and it was mediocre and is not likely to be repeated. His history never showed a season like last year and that is exactly what happened the year before with Wong who then reverted back to his below average skills in 2025. Narvaez has a huge regression waiting to happen in 2026. Breslow should have gotten a real catcher like Realmuto, even if he's old. It still would have been a huge upgrade. Is Boston ready to compete in 2026? Absolutely not because pitching can only take you so far. NO 3B is huge. A lack of willingness to use Campbell in the infield is ignorant. Using Abreu who hit .216 after April 30th as anything other than a bat off the bench late in games is insane. Not using Duran in his most effective position of CF is dumb. Not moving Rafaela to RF where the distance from the Pesky Pole to Right Center Field is 78 feet as opposed to 60 in CF is just bad management. Not firing Cora keeps the team from competing late in the season as Cora has shown since 2018, plus there is still the whole integrity issue with a convicted cheater. Add to that his rise in pulling pitchers after 4.2 innings when the gambling world is being scrutinized for cheating and 4.2 innings assures no win for a starting pitcher and the decision maker is a convicted cheater doesn't boost the Red Sox public perception of integrity. Do your own research on the number of 4.2 inning games by Cora and how a gambler can bet NO WIN and cash in when the Red Sox lead and the pitcher suddenly gets pulled for no apparent reason other than a base runner or two. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. 4.2 innings pitched is the single greatest anomaly in the 2025 stats. The team is a hot mess with Cora as manager, with no 3B, no meritocracy when selecting the best player for a position (Abreu and Campbell just two examples) and weaknesses throughout the infield after losing Bregman and signing an aging 1B to replace the young 1B of the future. Thank goodness the pitching staff rocks!!! Don't be surprised if Early makes the all-star game along with Crochet. Gray should have an excellent year and if Tolle gets his off-speed stuff improved from a control perspective, he's going to be excellent too. We need the over-hyped Bello or the questionable add of Sandoval and Oviedo to come through to provide depth to the staff. The bullpen could use a second closer but if not, Whitlock will need to take a big step forward this year to help Chapman. I hope Breslow fixes some of these huge holes otherwise it should be more of the same disappointments since Dombrowski left. Close but no cigar may become the Cora motto. Thank God for the monster talent on the 2018 roster. They really overcame so much to win the ring!! Make us proud Mr. Breslow. You have the skills to make it happen; you just need to execute effectively!!

Look there is nothing more inaccurate than farm system rankings. The system has NO ACCOUNTABILITY!! Why? Because it is implied that the estimates of a few about the players in the minor leagues with each organization reflect the future. They don't. Have you ever noticed that there has never been a post facto analysis of whether the potential ever turned into success for the organization. Baseball writers are lazy. They want to brag about their prowess in estimating future talent, but they refuse to do a post- mortem on how WRONG they were because if they did, nobody would ever care about their thoughts on the future because they are so incredibly wrong. Evaluating a guy like Breslow or any GM needs to comeback to individual deals and net results. Example - Breslow traded Sale and paid $17Million addition dollars for an absolutely worthless young second baseman that experts touted to be great (high wrong ranking as usual). Breslow missed badly on that deal. Next, he traded a GREAT future catcher instead of a worthless Mayer to get an outstanding pitcher from the White Sox. Great deal overall but massive mistake including Teel rather than Mayer because Mayer had a higher fake value as documented by his ranking. Breslow gets a big thumbs up since Crochet is so impactful, but his grade is B+ since he lost Teel not Mayer. And to be fair, Dombrowski left idiot Bloom a great roster that simply needed to be tweaked and he annihilated it. Worst GM in Baseball!! Enter Breslow with a completely depleted roster with just a few exceptions and is it a shock that he improved the roster? Absolutely not because Bloom decimated it. Most people hired at that point would have improved it. How much he improves it will be his legacy. The jury is out since he has had great wins and great loses. He kept Cora which is his biggest mistake whether imposed on him by ownership or if it's his choice. Cora is a moron and a convicted cheater so to clean-up the reputation of the team he needed to be fired and still does. Integrity is important, even in baseball. The minor league players have been heavily hyped, and others have been under hyped. Damon was under-hyped and has outperformed his reputation. Mayer has been over-hyped and completely under-performed his reputation. Nobody heard of Campbell until he won Minor League Player of the Year and when he finally struggled for the first time in his career, fans completely abandoned his career. Anthony has hyped like Mayer and Teel and has proven to be the real deal so his hype seems to match his skills. Watching Teel in Chicago, the same can be said for him. We have had Bello, the most over-hyped SP in the organization, under-perform Houck the most under-rated SP in the organization and now we have to wait a year to see if Breslow is smart enough to keep Houck and deal Bello while he's over-rated. Also, two more sleepers came out of nowhere this past year, and Early and Tolle could be as good or better than Houck in his early years. I think Early is far closer to being an ace than Tolle but with a new pitch both could be future aces. The addition of Gray was a smart move by Breslow and if Sandoval comes back healthy and effective, this staff is the strongest since 2018. One last observation. Now that the feds are beginning to wake up to all the cheating created by allowing gambling into the sports industries, start tracking the number of games when a starter pitches 4.2 innings. Cora elevated the Red Sox total last year and we all know that a bet on a winning pitcher is a lock if they only get credit for 4.2 innings. The proliferation in baseball overall in 2025 of pitchers ending with 4.2 innings is beyond suspicious. Much like basketball players taking themselves out of games with injuries to ensure the "under" bet, managers taking pitchers out at 4.2 innings at a rate far greater than any season prior is enormously suspicious, especially when it involves a convicted cheater. Remember, the banged cans in Houston allowed many gamblers to cash in on their bets with prior knowledge that the average better didn't have. It's no different than an always right stock tip based on insider information. This is what all the sports industries get for being greedy and wanting a portion of the gambling winnings for expanding the wealth of the sports industries. The integrity that Kennisaw Mountain Landis strived for has been obliterated.

Giving up Tolle is a bad move. Early and Tolle with Crochet and Gray are all critical pitchers to hold on to. Give'em Bello for Paredes and hope last year will be the defensive level Paredes will be at going forward because prior to that he was a very bad defender. This trade could be a cheap way to replace Bregman if the Red Sox can extend him at a reasonable price otherwise Bello is too high a cost for two years of Paredes.

ZIPS projections are a joke. Use common sense to evaluate your team. Don't be biased and you can come closer than automated formulas built by people who never played the game. C - We suck. Narvaez would need to match his career year to consider ourselves with ONE average catcher and a weak back-up 1B - Contreras is on a 4 year straight line decline even after being moved off catcher to improve his offense. 108 games per year suggests Casas will need to platoon with him because he can't be counted on to provide more than 108 games at his age with his history. The platoon, however, might end up being a nice surprise if Casas makes a comeback, otherwise, our 1B solution will be among the weakest. 2B - The oft injured Mayer who hasn't really proven defensive capabilities at 2B other than his small sample size in 2025 which was good. His minor league performance at shortstop suggests he's an average defensive infielder at best. Campbell had a great track record both defensively and offensively until 2025 and he failed for the first time in his career. That usually suggests he'll bounce back and be the player who won Minor League Player of the Year in 2024. SS - Story has been here 4 years and 3 were bad and 1 was good. He's healthy and he's only 33 this year so he should be able to repeat 2025 which was by far his best year in Boston. His WAR based on history if he's healthy should be between 2.0 and 4.0. Boston fans need to pray he doesn't miss much time. 3B - MASSIVE HOLE. LF - Anthony is the modern day Ted, Yaz or Rice. Could see an all-star performance from him if he is healthy. CF - Duran's best defensive position by a long way and the best lead off prospect on the roster. Fans are harsh on him for no apparent reason. The guy is valued by all other teams and fans much, much higher than the biased Red Sox fans. Everyone should love this guy. RF - Rafaela is the second coming of Betts in right field where the 302 Pesky Pole to the 380 right center field distance is the largest in Fenway and well suited for the best defensive player who happens to be the fastest outfielder too. DH - Many options. On days when righties pitch, Abreu is available but not against LH pitchers. Since he as poorly as Campbell after April 30th and mostly against RH pitchers you have to wonder why fan support is so great. He leads the team in errors in the outfield during the period when the league "GAVE" him GGs since he didn't earn them. Yoshida has been a bust since he arrived. With his 1.0 WAR per year and his 109 OPS+ his $18Million price tag makes him immoveable without a significant cost. For me, Casas makes the most sense since Contreras probably is the better defensive 1B but it's close and at his age, Casas should probably take 1/3 of the games to keep Contreras fresh. How good is this offense? Right now without a replacement for Bregman, it's close to the worst. The good news is the bad offense doesn't need to score that many runs. The pitching is excellent. 1 - Crochet is a Cy Young Candidate 2 - Connelly Early will be the big surprise this year since so many people have no recognition of his greatness. He will be in Crochet's category in a year or two. 3 - Sonny Gray will be an excellent #3 SP and by matching up with #3s he should have a very winning season. 4 - Payton Tolle has incredible stuff but needs to lock down an off-speed pitch to be dominant. When he does, this team will have 3 ACE equivalents plus Gray a solid #2 SP. 5 - Bello, Sandoval and eventually Witherspoon. This is the lone weakness in the pitching staff but if slotted versus other #5 SPs, these guys will give the team a chance to win. Closer - Chapman is a stud at age 38. We could use another closer for security. Whitlock stands as the next best reliever behind Chapman but a true closer would be smart depth. So ZIPS is pretty far off with estimates other than guys like Crochet. This team must get a 3B before we can rank them versus NY, TOR, BAL and TB. As of today, they are even with TB in the cellar even with the great pitching because Cora isn't smart enough to position the outfield to maximize defense or set up a batting order that makes sense.

We desperately need a catcher since Teel was traded so lets hope Heyman rises quickly through the ranks!!!

It's always a great solution to bring in a 3rd first baseman when you have a young one in Casas and a converted one in Campbell. Contreras is rapidly trending downward in WAR with his career peak in 2021 at 4.2, 2022 at 3.8, 2023 at 3.3, 2024 at 3.0 all while catching. Then he stops catching and his WAR continues downward to 2.5 at age 33. With stars like Miggy and Pulols struggling to hit after age 33 I am not optimistic that this was even close to a good deal. Miggy's war at age 28-30 was over 7.0, then at ages 31, 32 and 33 he provided WARs of 5.1, 4.9 and 4.9. He never produced another WAR over 1.0!! After dropping from 4.2 to 3.0 before moving from catcher to 1B and with a 2.5 WAR at 1B, why should we expect the decline to stop? There are no signs of that happening and Miggy dropped from 4.9 to under 1.0. Contreras is at 2.5 right now. Nothing shows it will rise so was this a good deal rather than extending Bregman a few years at $25 Million his current REAL value? Bo Bichette is gone now, and it would be insane to play Rafaela anywhere other than RF if Duran and Anthony start in CF and LF. Mayer can handle 2B with Bregman back at 3B or Campbell if Mayer fails. Casas is either the 1B of the future or next year Breslow will need to get yet another over-priced 1B to replace Contreras. Maybe he could be used to teach the two bad hitting catchers to play better defense. Or maybe, the highly likely 1.0 WAR will stay at 2.5 like last year and Casas can be traded later in the year, but I wouldn't bet on it. Nothing was fixed with the Contreras trade except the clubhouse got an upgrade back to the level it was at with Bregman. Contreras is likely to play no more than 108 games as his career suggests. He's a small Band-Aid. This is not time to pivot. Let's call the Contreras deal insurance and go double down on Bregman to assure the team can compete. Also, they need to trade Abreu and Yoshida as wasted resources that could help other teams. Even if you only get prospects, it's worth it so the upside potential of minor league players can be realized. If you think you will eat money with Yoshida, have Abreu's sparkling GGs off set it so no more debt is accumulated. Yoshida has one less year on his contract!! With Story having only played one season and Mayer being injured every season, minor league depth is likely to be needed. So be prepared to try out Campbell, Arias and Romero when Story and Mayer end up on the IL.