This team that seemed to have so much promise for the future just a couple months ago now looks like it could be mired in Wild Cardish mediocrity for a while. How and when is the starting pitching going to get better? The bullpen?
I don't see this team's future as mediocre at all. The team got hit by a string of injuries (which, not surprisingly, is what led to the Braves' collapse, as well). Losing Youk and Buchholz killed the team, and then Lester and Bard went into terrible slumps.
So, how does the pitching get better? By having Lester pitch better (as his track record says he will) and by having Buchholz healthy. Getting any sort of improvement at all from Lackey (he was historically bad) also improves the pitching staff. Bard will definitely improve over what he showed in September; he was lights out for most of the year.
I don't think things are hopeless for the Sox at all. This month royally sucked, but I see them competing for the division crown for the foreseeable future.
A couple thoughts:
a) With a payroll as huge as the Red Sox have, not making the playoffs and contending is an enormous failure. Therefore, simply "competing for a division crown" (which, technically, they did this year) is not sufficient to justify all of that money.
b) The pitching will get better with Buchholz back and healthy, and hopefully we can expect that Lester and Bard will be better. Still, I'm very skeptical that our starting pitching can be anything other than just above average. Beckett really looks like his best days are behind him. Buchholz is good but not great even when he's healthy. We have no decent starters to speak of outside the top 3. Lackey is dead weight.
As for the bullpen, I don't expect Aceves to be this good again next year. Bard has put his future in question. Papelbon was very good for the most part this year, but the blown saves in the last week are very concerning. After this meltdown, he might feel like starting over somewhere else. Nobody else is worth mentioning, and I expect a lot of new faces (good riddance Albers, Morales, Wheeler, Jenks etc). I'm not seeing how our bullpen is going to improve greatly.
c) I get that the biggest factor in the team's collapse was the injury trouble. But that has been a consistent issue over the past few seasons. Injuries derailed last year's team, as well. When do injuries start becoming an organizational issue that deserves some culpability? Youkilis is injury prone; that's not going to change. Our starting pitching rotation seems to fall apart every year at some point due to major injuries, no matter how much depth we have to start the season. How are we supposed to feel confident that next season won't be derailed by injuries, too?
