2026 Red Sox/MLB Season Thread

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

I get that this has been a frustrating season but I feel there are more keepers than some are saying as part of their vents.  I like the outfield, Abreu, Rafaela, Anthony could still be one of the best Outfields in the game.  Overall, the pitching is good.  Bello may snap out of it, Crochet will be back at some point, no need to blow up the pitching, starters or bullpen.

But the infield, Contreras is fine, really good actually, but big questions with Mayer and Durbin have been major disappointments as the future SS and 3B.  2B is a big issue too as is catcher.

What I am seeing does not make me think that trying to build by signing young players is necessarily the wrong strategy, but you have to sign the right young players.  Same with signing vets, whether or not it is a better or worse strategy, you have to sign the right players.  The Sox so far have not hit on the young players, but that does not mean that signing young players is always wrong or an indication that the team is cheap.

The outfield is very good defensively but is a power vacuum -- in this day and age of big bats, a championship-level OF should account for at least 70 home runs, but Boston's current trio of Abreu/Duran/Rafaela has only 23, which is on pace for about 56. We all hope that Anthony will raise that number quite a bit, but he had only 1 homer in 30 games prior to his injury, and he's still mostly unproven, so nothing's guaranteed with him.

In the infield (including catcher), Contreras is the only positive bat at this point. And Yoshida as the primary DH is a disaster.

So, yeah, the starting pitching is pretty good, especially given that Early and Tolle look so promising and Crochet's return should help a lot (whenever that happens), but the bullpen has a lot of holes outside of Chapman and Whitlock, and the offense is a train wreck at this point, confirmed by the fact that Boston is second-worst in runs scored in the entire majors this season, only 3 runs ahead of last-place San Diego. It'll be AWESOME to get the dead weight of Story and Yoshida off the books, but all that cap room won't do much good if Henry's gonna limit spending to "promising young players" as opposed to proven vets who are likely to hit 30+ homers every season.