CLEANED-UP SOX IN MIX FOR NEXT RING
Expectations, payroll high; World Series the real goal
FORT MYERS — The opportunity for the Red Sox to win the World Series is as ripe as it can be.
Just look around the American League.
Skim past the half-dozen teams that don’t look competitive and focus on the few threatening foes.
The defending champion Houston Astros are the best team on paper, but they must contend with the World Series hangover after playing 18 postseason games and into November. The hangover is real. No team has won back-to-back titles since 2000, when the New York Yankees won their third straight.
The 2014 Red Sox felt the hangover. The 2017 Cubs felt it.
“The hangover, yeah,” Cubs president Theo Epstein said this week. “I mean, you’ve got to ask someone else to get good answers on that because we tried everything we could to bounce back and repeat, and we just didn’t deal with it really well the first half of last year.
“We came out of it at the AllStar break. Those four days off really helped, and we played great ball the second half . ... But we had to expend so much energy crawling back into the race and winning the division that we were pretty fried physically and mentally by the time October rolled around. It’s tough. Human nature is undefeated. It’s really hard to get around that. I certainly admire any team from any sport that’s ever managed to repeat. It’s difficult.”
Terry Francona’s Cleveland Indians should be a threat, but there are better teams on paper. The Red Sox and Indians bullpens were the two best in the majors last year. This year the Red Sox rotation should compete with the Tribe’s big five, and the Sox offense could be even better with the addition of J.D. Martinez.
“I’m expecting, hopefully, to do a lot of damage,” Martinez said. “That’s the game plan coming in. But as far as the Red Sox lineup goes, it’s a strong lineup, it’s a good lineup. I’ve been looking at them, checking them out, studying them, obviously playing against them with Detroit. They’ve got guys with a lot of speed, guys who get on base, guys that can really move around the bags and produce runs very quickly, and I’m happy to be part of that now.”
The Yankees are an interesting one, but those picking the Yankees to win the AL East ahead of the Sox seem to be underestimating the difference in quality between the two starting rotations.
Health plays a big role in both groups, but even if it’s a neutral risk for both teams, the talent still sways in favor of Boston.
Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello, Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Sonny Gray and Jordan Montgomery is an easy choice.
“We have pretty high expectations, and we expect a lot of ourselves,” Sale said.
The goal, he said, is to “win a championship. Or at least make it to the playoffs and give yourself a chance to win a World Series. Any other goal other than that doesn’t really matter.”
The Red Sox are setting a club record with an Opening Day payroll of $223 million, highest in the majors compared to the seventhranked Yankees at $167 million.
But next year, when Manny Machado and Bryce Harper hit the free agent market, that payroll pendulum could swing back to the Bronx.
“It’s good when you have other teams getting better to compete because they know they have the Red Sox loaded up,” Hanley Ramirez said. “We just worry about us. We know what we’re going to have to do. We know we can pitch and hit, so we don’t worry
‘I think we have the right team . . . . I think we are very strong and people are highly underrating this team.’ — SLUGGER J.D. MARTINEZ On 2018 Red Sox season outlook
about others. We just worry about us, what we can do to win seven more games than we did last year. Seven or eight more games.”
When the Sox lost to the Astros to the AL Division Series in four games, it was easy to write them off as a team that wasn’t close.
But play the what-if game: If Sale didn’t stay in Game 4 to face lefty-masher Alex Bregman, Craig Kimbrel might have come in a batter earlier and preserved a 3-2 lead. And what if a red-hot Price had been on the mound in a Game 5.
As Kevin Millar is famous for saying, once you get to an elimination game, “Anything can happen.”
But the 2017 Red Sox never hit their stride.
“We said it in our clubhouse the entire year last year: We never felt like we really peaked and played our best baseball,” Porcello said. “At the end of the day, we had a tough first few games against Houston in the postseason, and if you want to break it down, we were 10 innings away from potentially moving on. And that’s with two games where we weren’t ourselves at all.
“If you look at it that way, if we clean up some of the mistakes we made in some of the games where maybe we didn’t play well or stretches where we weren’t playing well and put the pedal to the metal the entire year, I think we’ve got some special things in this clubhouse that we can accomplish.”
Clean up the mistakes. That’s exactly what president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski tried to do by ousting almost the entire coaching staff except for Dana LeVangie, who moved from bullpen coach to pitching coach, and making a splash in February when he signed Martinez.
The Red Sox’ biggest problem, that they had no real threat in the middle of the order and couldn’t hit home runs, was addressed.
“We won 93 games here with basically the team we have coming back and some guys coming back healthy,” Dombrowski said. “I think some guys will have stronger years.”
How about a prediction, Dave? “I’ve learned the predictive nature of the game is not something I partake in very much,” he said. “I’ve been with clubs who’ve been the favorites by far and haven’t done quite as well, and not the favorites and have done quite well. So you let those things take care of themselves”
Owner John Henry made a stronger statement during his annual press conference in February.
“I think we have the right team,” he said, and this was before Martinez signed. “I thought people don’t like us apparently saying we won the division the last two years, but we had the best offense in the American League the year before last. We had significant pitching that was injured last year. I think we are very strong and people are highly underrating this team.” Underrated? The Red Sox? Perhaps.
Bringing on new manager Alex Cora undoubtedly has changed the entire atmosphere around the club. Players seem more relaxed and willing to speak their minds. Cora is taking guys out to lunch and sitting them down to ask for their opinions on decisions, rather than just telling them what’s going to happen.
Players noticed right away. They’ve appreciated his efforts. And, in turn, they bought in to playing his style of baseball.
“You have to connect with them and the people that surround you, they’re going to make you look good,” Cora said. “For me, honestly, going into the season, the teams that are playing clean, they most likely are going to have good starts. They have good starts. I always say if you’re kicking the ball around, that is not a good camp. You don’t want that. If you’re kicking the ball around, that is not good baseball, and it’s not a good feeling.
“Sometimes when you’re in the game, you play good the first four innings, and then you bring the kids to play and they kick the ball around, you forget how good you were in the first four innings. You have that bad taste at the end and didn’t play well. Well, we did play well. The big league team played well. I am good with where we are at. I am happy where we are at. Record aside, it didn’t matter. The way we are playing, I am good with it.”
Cora should get a warm welcome when he’s introduced at Fenway Park next week.
But the happy beginnings don’t always last long in Boston. And expectations for these Red Sox — who have been bounced in the first round in two straight seasons, who have the highest payroll in baseball, and who have a window to win that’s wide-open — hit the ceiling.
World Series or bust this year, right?
“Just got to get back to the playoffs,” Mookie Betts said. “Anything can happen there.
“I think we have to continue to go back and something is bound to happen. Nothing can happen if we’re not there.”