Alotofifs... but Sox could be interesting
Call it conventional wisdom, or common sense, or just the cold reality of how the 2024 Red Sox are perceived before the first official pitch of their season is delivered:
I don’t think they’re going to be any good, you don’t think they’re going to be any good, national pundits don’t think they’re going to be any good, and your favorite sports radio host definitely doesn’t think they’re going to be any good.
Most sobering of all, at least one of their own players didn’t seem to think they’re going to be any good, at least in the early weeks in Fort Myers. “Everybody knows what we need,” said Rafael Devers, the team’s slugging third baseman and highestpaid player, in an unexpected moment of candor Feb. 20.
Even with all of the cliched but irresistible anything-can-happen promises of hope that accompany a new baseball season and the alleged arrival of spring, optimism for the Red Sox is hard to muster, and frankly, the organization is seasons overdue now in proving worthy of any.
And yet . . . and yet . . . there is a path.
Not to World Series contention. No way. No chance. Not happening. Not coming close to happening. This isn’t 2013. It’s not even 2021, when Chaim Bloom’s Patchwork All-Stars took the Astros to six games in the American League Championship Series.
But could these Red Sox — whose slogan right now might as well be “Nothing is possible” — win 85-ish games, legitimately compete for a wild card, and actually provide a fun summer at Fenway?
It’s not totally implausible. It’s not. Here’s how it will happen — here’s what will need to happen, to use Devers’s word — if the Red Sox are actually going to be good.
The offense will have to carry them until the pitching is sorted out: The Red Sox scored 4.77 runs per game last season, good for sixth in the American League, and more than the Yankees or Blue Jays, among others.
This year’s lineup should be better than sixth in the league, perhaps much better. Over the past three seasons, Devers has averaged 33 home runs, 38 doubles, 100 RBIs, and an .873 OPS. This is his age-27 season.
He is approaching his peak as a hitter, and has MVP-caliber ability. It’s reasonable to expect him to surpass all of those stats this season.
And he doesn’t have to anchor the middle of the lineup alone. In his rookie season, Triston Casas hit 24 home runs with an .856 OPS. He was a genuine force after the All-Star break, hitting 15 of those home runs in 180 at-bats, with a 1.034 OPS. Casas and Devers should combine for 60 home runs, at a minimum.
There’s depth, too. Masataka Yoshida, who posted an .874 OPS in the first half before wearing down and turning into 1992 Jack Clark in the second half, should be better now that he’s acclimated to the long MLB season and won’t be miscast in left field every day.
Trevor Story — insert the “if he stays healthy” caveat here — should be good for 20-25 home runs. Jarren Duran, who had an .828 OPS last season, Tyler O’Neill, and Wilyer Abreu all have upside, as does young second baseman Vaughn Grissom.
The defense will be much better: Ceddanne Rafaela will play a Bradleyesque center field, and his winning the starting job allows for the other outfield spots to align with a proper defensive fit.
But the biggest defensive improvement is having the steady and often spectacular Story out there at shortstop every day … or have you forgotten that Kiké Hernández — the worst-throwing Red Sox infielder since Butch Hobson was rearranging the bone chips in his elbow between pitches — began last season at shortstop? Also, Casas looked improved at first base during spring training.
The pitching will . . . well . . . uh . . . hmmm: Yes, this is the weakness, the “everybody knows what we need” to which Devers was referring.
The Red Sox were at least one starter short, and probably more than that, even before Lucas Giolito was lost for the season with an elbow injury. The season-opening rotation of Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, and Tanner Houck looks to me like three No. 3 starters and two guys who should be in the bullpen.
But the bullpen should be strong yet again, especially if Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin are healthy and remain Red Sox. Live-armed Rule 5 pick Justin Slaten is intriguing, as is Greg Weissert, acquired from the Yankees in the Alex Verdugo expulsion.
If Bello, whom the Red Sox happily paid, and Crawford, whom the Red Sox love, can emerge as front-end starters under the tutelage of well-regarded new pitching coach Andrew Bailey, perhaps this won’t be as mediocre on the field as it appears on paper.
Sure, there are a lot of ifs here. To surprise all of the justified skeptics about this team, the Red Sox will require season-long good health, career years from unexpected sources, deft managing from Alex Cora, excellent chemistry, the stunning decline of at least one of the AL East teams presumed to be superior, and at least one top prospect to arrive, as sentient Excel spreadsheet and president of baseball operations Craig Breslow puts it, on an “accelerated external timeline.”
It is too much to ask? Maybe. Fine, probably. But there is a path for the Red Sox to be better than we think, even as the most well-worn path lately has led to the bottom of the AL East.