The 2020 schedule didn't begin until the last week of July, but as far back as February, it seemed pretty obvious where this Red Sox season was headed.
When the Red Sox shipped Mookie Betts (and David Price) to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team was saying the quiet part out loud. The 2020 season would be a period of transition.
That much had seemed likely as far back as September, when the club dismissed Dave Dombrowski, and a month later, introduced Chaim Bloom as his replacement.
A team doesn't hire someone diametrically different than its current chief baseball executive -- as Bloom was to Dombrowski -- without signaling a major shift in the way it operated. And if Dombrowski was the very embodiment of a win-now executive -- trading prospects for established stars, signing top (and costly) free agents -- what does that make Bloom?
While spending 15 years with the prototypical small-market team, Bloom was mainly focused on player development, uncovering competitive advantages, exploiting market inefficiencies and discovering innovative approaches.
In much the same way a team often replaces a hardo disciplinarian in the dugout with a manager known to be more player-friendly, the Red Sox were reversing course at the front office level. Bloom was the instrument by which they sought to achieve that change.
The Betts trade was another not-so-subtle declaration. Either the Sox couldn't or wouldn't sign Betts, so they set out to get the best possible return for him before they were left with no return at all. When the team announced the deal, Bloom conceded that the trade, which cost the Sox one of the game's handful of best players along with a fairly dependable veteran starting pitcher and brought back a young major leaguer and two prospects, would likely leave the Sox, for the time being at least, worse.
After the pandemic caused a shutdown of the game for several months and it became obvious that no fans would be allowed to attend games this year, the Red Sox had themselves the perfect out -- which they didn't act on.
In the past, the team has flinched at any suggestion of a "bridge'' year. From 2003-2008, the Red Sox won two World Series and went to Game 7 of the ALCS two other times. Theo Epstein understood that, after a period of competing at the highest level, the Red Sox would need to take a step back in order to move forward in the future.
But when Epstein characterized the plan for a bridge year for 2009, an insurrection occurred within the fan base. It wasn't as if Epstein has vowed that the Sox would be undergoing a long rebuilding program. He was merely acknowledging what was obvious: the Red Sox weren't positioned to compete for a championship that season. For his candor, he was pilloried.
Angry Red Sox fans pointed out that while the Red Sox weren't intent on winning, then they shouldn't be charging some of the highest ticket prices in the game for a reduced product. Thanks to that outrage, the phrase "bridge year'' was unofficially banned within the confines of Fenway. It wasn't quite as offensive as the "R" (rebuilding) word, but it was dangerously close.
But isn't that what we're witnessing this year? No significant offseason upgrades. A reduced payroll. A makeshift rotation, that only gotten worse with the loss of Eduardo Rodriguez for the season.
Some of these thing are the fault of the Red Sox; others are beyond their control. No matter how they got here, however, the effect is the same.
The absence of fans could have, should have made this an easier sell. The Red Sox could have said something like the following: Due to the highly unusual nature of the 2020 season -- a far shorter schedule, no fans allowed at the ballpark and no guarantee that the season is going to be completed -- we've decided that to marshal our usual resources into trying to win a championship makes little sense. Because we are not charging our fans to attend games at Fenway, this represents a unique opportunity to begin planning for the next great Red Sox team. We don't anticipate this process will be terribly long and we vow that we are not interested in "tanking'' -- deliberately losing so as to ensure better draft picks and a bigger signing pool. But having assessed the talent on hand and the need to improve our player development system for 2021 and beyond, there's a limit to how much we'e going to invest for this season.
Even the most demanding Red Sox fan would have understood that explanation. This season feels like some weird experiment to begin with, so why not use it as a jumping off point?
Instead, the Red Sox insist on trying to convince their fans otherwise. Last weekend, Bloom, when discussing the loss of Rodriguez for the remainder of the year, felt compelled to mention that the Sox were intent on being in the playoff race.
''We want to compete, we want to win right now,” Bloom said.
Bloom might have been told to deliver that message, or perhaps he's just reciting as a reflex. Baseball executives are a competitive lot, and even if they harbor doubts about their team's readiness to win, they seldom acknowledge it publicly. In most cases, it's not good for business -- even if it's inarguably true.
But the Red Sox would be better served by admitting the obvious. They're not good enough to get into the playoffs, and even they did -- thanks to MLB's come-one, come-all postseason format for 2020 -- they surely wouldn't go far.
Even with no fans in the stands, the Red Sox have business interests which make it hard for them to completely punt on 2020. As 80 percent shareholders in NESN, they don't want to drive off TV viewers, since advertising and sponsorships are one of the few revenue-producing elements in this environment.
If there were ever a year to take a step backward, 2020 is it. The best time to under-deliver is when no one is expecting much in the first place.
Whether it's sheer stubbornness or not, the Red Sox can't bring themselves to admit that. But anyone paying attention can see it anyway.
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