After five straight losses, the Red Sox’ playoff hopes are hanging on by a thread. John Tomase weighs in on the the team’s struggles and what they can take away from this season.
Like the doodles in a high school civics notebook, the Red Sox have filled the margins of their roster. There's not an inch of space left to draw so much as a unicorn, pentagram, or AC/DC logo. The margins are full. No more margins.
If the 2024 season has taught us anything, it's that building from within and filling in everywhere else is a recipe for an annual August collapse. The youngsters wilt in the heat of the dog days, and the complementary parts lack the talent to make up the difference. September becomes a perfunctory exercise in wait-til-next-year.
Winning when it counts is about star power, which the Red Sox have decidedly lacked while stripping the roster of recognizable talent over the last five years. That needs to change, or we'll be undertaking this exercise again next year, and the next year, and probably the year after that, too.
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It's time for ownership to pinch its nostrils, grab its privates, and leap off the high dive. You're the Boston bleeping Red Sox. Stop swimming in the kiddie pool and get your hair wet. Go find some real talent so this team can compete.
Talent is what the Yankees have in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.
Two transformative players, one signed long-term to the kind of deal the Red Sox would've ruled "too risky," the other a straight rental acquired for a prospect cost they would've considered "prohibitive." The duo has turbocharged an otherwise meh roster with their Mantle-and-Maris routine. No one will care they were a one-year limited engagement if they win it all.
Talent is what old friend Dave Dombrowski has assembled in Philadelphia.
The Red Sox decided Kyle Schwarber wasn't worth $20 million annually, even though he transformed the lineup and the clubhouse culture, so Dombrowski pounced. And the bringer of Schwarbombs is like their sixth- or seventh-best player! The Phillies are loaded with stars, from Bryce Harper to Zack Wheeler to Trea Turner to Aaron Nola. They own the best record in baseball.
Talent is what the Dodgers are all about.
They boast more former MVPs (four) than the Red Sox have Silver Slugger winners (one). From Mookie Betts to Freddie Freeman to Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers have flipped the player-development machine on its head, acquiring stars and then augmenting them with a fearsome farm system. The Red Sox should take note.
The farm cannot be a means unto its own ends, unless you're willing to wait forever. The Cubs tanked for five years before their championship core reached the playoffs in 2015. The Astros endured three straight seasons with 50-something wins before seeing the results of their process. The Orioles were basically a pointless 4-A team for five years before winning the division last year.
What those clubs have in common are title droughts. The Orioles haven't won a World Series in more than 40 years. The Cubs hadn't raised a trophy since the first Roosevelt administration. The Astros' time without a ring encompassed all of recorded history. Their fans had done nothing but wait, so why not wait a little more?
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There's a cost to such prolonged woe in a market as demanding as Boston, and it's irrelevance. John Henry's insistence on winning like the 2015 world champion Royals has made the Red Sox about as relevant as the 2009-11 Royals, who averaged 68 wins a year. That doesn't fly here.
Despite their flaws, imagine what the 2024 Red Sox would look like if they had added a top-end starter like Corbin Burnes or Blake Snell this winter and left everything else the same. All-Star Tanner Houck slides to the second spot in the rotation. Cooper Criswell becomes swing-man depth instead of your de facto fifth starter. Maybe the bullpen has thrown 70 fewer innings, thereby avoiding the injuries that felled setup men Chris Martin and Justin Slaten.
And more importantly, the clubhouse has somewhere established and experienced to turn when the heat of the pennant race proves unrelenting. (And yes, for the purposes of this argument, we're assuming that Snell doesn't hold out until March).
Instead we got Lucas Giolito and a down payment on 2025 closer Liam Hendriks, a mistake the Red Sox cannot repeat this winter. There was enough young talent to win this year, but it needed anchors.
So go get Soto, a 25-year-old having one of the best seasons of his impressive career. Don't "yeah, but" us that he's expensive, or a bad fit because he's left-handed. He possesses a World Series ring, experience in baseball's biggest market, and true star power, so please kindly shut up.
If you'd rather focus on pitching, steal Burnes from the Birds, sign Max Fried from the Braves, or prepare to get creative should Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki be posted.
Whatever it takes, make the splash. The Red Sox cannot win anytime soon on youth and the margins alone. It's time to address the heart of the roster, or the doodles in the corners of our scorecards will just be a series of middle fingers.
