Get Healthy, Spend Just Enough, Hope for the Best - That Sure Feels Like The 'Plan' For The Red Sox Another Early Playoff Exit
There were not many laughs in the Red Sox season-ending press conference on Monday. But Craig Breslow being asked if he would have drafted himself - and the Sox President of Baseball Operations saying that he would have - was pretty funny.
The rest of the hour with Breslow, Chad Tracy, and Sellin' Sam Kennedy? Pretty boring. And annoying. And did not leave me with much confidence in the team - or the next Red Sox championship - going forward.
"We didn't hit a ton of home runs."
Yeah, no shit, Craig. The Red Sox were 26th in all of baseball in home runs this season. Breslow made the point several times last offseason that the team needed more power to compete, especially in the playoffs. They're coming off a playoff series in New York that saw them get ZERO base runners to third base, outside of a pair of solo home runs that accounted for their only offensive output in 48 hours in the Bronx.
Asked multiple times (and in multiple ways) about why the offense might have struggled during the season and in the playoffs, Breslow basically pointed to the injuries. Asked how the team would be improved on offense in the offseason, Breslow again pointed mostly to getting guys healthy.
Me? I want better players.
Caleb Durbin is a good player, but Alex Bregman had a much better season. If you just look at offensive WAR, Bregman was 21st in MLB (4.3). Durbin ranked 68th (3.0). But Durbin is younger and more cost-effective (cheaper), so my guess is the team is happy with the decision not to make much of an effort to re-sign Bregman.
Just like they're probably happy with Willson Contreras over Pete Alonso, given their respective salaries.
Nothing I heard Monday makes me feel like there'll be any change in philosophy going forward. The Red Sox will spend enough to be in the mix, but fall well short of the win-at-any-cost mentality that defined the early years of this ownership group - an ownership group led by John Henry.
And for an eighth straight season, Henry was not present at the end-of-year press conference to take questions from the media.
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This bothered me. Like I said, a lot of injury talk on Monday. Breslow admitted that Roman Anthony was never fully healed when he came back at the end of the season. So if they knew he was still dealing with something, why in the world did he play in 25 of 26 games after he came back? Why not try to manage the injury? How does that make sense?
Of course, he suffered new injuries in that same hand that kept him out for almost five months, either in the last game of the season or against the Yankees. The team said that surgery would not be an option and that it might not even help if he had surgery.
1. So he missed five months and still could not heal 100%
2. We're expected to believe that he'll be able to get himself right this offseason
3. They knew he wasn't 100% but kept letting him play every day in September
Not great!
It was a lost year for Roman, who had his best baseball moments in 2026 with Team USA in the WBC. In the most obvious take of all time, they need to find a way to get him healthy - this is two straight seasons where he was unable to help them against the Yankees in the playoffs. Breslow banked on getting a big year from him when he passed on other power bats in free agency. The team put too much on him, and when he didn't deliver, they were screwed.
Tracy didn't help in the playoffs. The recently extended manager made it clear that it was his call to take out Payton Tolle and Sonny Gray when he did. Both moves were disastrous, and he took the blame. Even if he was the front office making those moves, he's never going to say that.
The smarmy Kennedy was as lifeless in this thing as his team was in the playoffs.
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Last year, he was angry about how the season ended and what they could do to improve. Today? Today, he praised the front office for their work during the "magical and historic" 32-5 run that saved their season. His boring, scripted opening set the tone for the whole hour.
Looming over alllllllllllllllllllllllll of this is an impending player lockout and the real potential for a lost baseball season in 2027, as the owners lobby for a salary cap and the players (and the Union) fight their hardest to avoid one.
I don't know what I was really expecting from this, but it was disappointing. Nothing said at Fenway on Monday suggested the Red Sox are about to chase the kind of roster they used to have - punctuated by big free-agent stars that put them over the top. They’ll get some guys healthy, spend enough to stay relevant, and call it a 'plan.'
It's not a 'plan' that I have much confidence in producing the next World Series title in Boston.