It may be difficult for even the most optimistic Red Sox fan to expect much in the 2023 season.
The losses of both Xander Bogaerts (free agency) and, at least for the first half of the season, Trevor Story (IL) make the case for contention a difficult one. All over the field, there are questions about either the readiness or suitability of some everyday position players and there's a chance that, even after a season that saw them finish 20th in home runs, the Sox could have less sock in their lineup in 2023.
But for those seeking reasons to be cheerful, the team's pitching staff offers some hope.
The bullpen has been bolstered with the additions of Chris Martin, Joely Rodriguez and closer Kenley Jansen. And the rotation, while full of some potential pitfalls when it comes to health and availability, is deeper with a chance to shine.
Before the start of spring training, the Red Sox boast the potential of seven quality starters: Chris Sale, James Paxton, Corey Kluber, Nick Pivetta, Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Brayan Bello.
Were this, say, 2015 rather than 2023, the Big Three of Sale, Paxton and Kluber would represent a trio as good as any in the American League. Alas, some eight years later, Sale and Paxton have undergone Tommy John procedures and Kluber missed most of two full seasons with an assortment of injuries. They're not who they once were.
Meanwhile, both Whitlock (hip) and Houck (back) are coming off end-of-season surgeries, and while both appear to be fully recovered and have no restrictions in place, there's some unavoidable uncertainty that surrounds the two.
Add in the inexperience of Bello (11 major league starts) and a mediocre 2022 from Pivetta (ERA plus of 92), and there are questions aplenty.
Still, if the Red Sox were to get good health from their three 30-something starters and steps forward from both Whitlock and Bello, it's not difficult to envision the team possessing a strong and deep rotation.
Even if it's widely assumed that Houck remains in the bullpen -- a good bet to begin with, made better with the DFA of Matt Barnes -- the Sox go into spring training with six contenders for the rotation. For now, the team seems to have ruled out any unorthodox arrangements like a six-man rotation or the notion of two starters piggybacking with one another.
"There's plenty of innings, especially early in camp, to get all of them stretched out,'' said pitching coach Dave Bush recently. "We'll do that first and if we're at the end of spring training and all of those guys are healthy, we have a nice problem where we have to figure out what role they have. In the meantime, we'll get as many guys stretched out as we can, so we have those options when the season does start.''
Paxton didn't throw a single pitch in the big leagues last year and Sale threw just 5.2 innings, but the Red Sox aren't particularly worried about seeing their workloads increase exponentially.
"If you'd ask me a couple of years ago, I would have been really cautious,'' Bush said. "But then, with that COVID year where guys went from, in some cases, 0 to 200 (innings) and didn't seem to have any problems, I think we're probably more open to the innings being higher than we used to be. That whole year forced us to re-evaluate innings progressions year over year. That being said, just given their ages and not pitching much the last couple years, we'll be on the cautious side early on and make sure they can stay healthy throughout the year.''
If everything goes according to plan and there are no physical setbacks in the spring, the Sox will have themselves at least one extra starting option at the end of March. Who could be that odd man out?
Sale is a lock to be part of the rotation, and so, too, are Kluber and Whitlock.
Paxton has been mentioned as a candidate for the bullpen, since the sum total of his work last year was less than an inning for the Red Sox' Florida Complex League affiliate. Also, for now, Rodriguez is the lone lefty in the bullpen. But Paxton has never thrown a pitch in relief at the major league level and it's hard to see him consigned to a bullpen role.
Bello has too high a ceiling to use in relief. As the best starting pitching prospect the organization has produced in a decade, it's highly doubtful the Sox would re-assign him to the bullpen.
That leaves Pivetta as the most likely candidate to shift to relief. Aside from the irony of removing their sturdiest starter a year ago (a league-best 33 starts) from the rotation, there's also the matter of Pivetta's first-inning struggles. Would it make sense to ask Pivetta to pitch in relief when his first-inning ERA a year ago was 5.18? Perhaps not.
But if Pivetta could be put in a "bridge'' role, asked to eat up multiple innings from the fourth through the seventh, his durability could be a positive out of the bullpen.
A year ago, the Red Sox used a dozen different starters and budgeting for at least the same number this season makes sense. In addition to Houck, the team could, at some point, utilize Kutter Crawford, Josh Winckowski, Brandon Walter, Bryan Mata and Chris Murphy. The latter three have no major league experience, but have each pitched at Triple A, with big league debuts serving as the next logical step.
(If there's one thing the Sox could use this late in the offseason, it's an experienced starter for depth purposes. They've signed and announced at least five minor league free agents and invited them to major league spring training, but to date, they've all been position players or relievers).
"We have more than five starters right now on purpose,'' said Bush. "We're going to need the depth, so we're building up multiple guys. We're going to get them all ready in spring training. Then, by the end of spring training, if we get through it with everybody healthy, we'll have some decisions to make. And that's a nice problem to have...I would love to get through the spring and have all of them be healthy. That'd be great. Then we could decide what roles are best.
"But between now and then, we'll get them all ready and see where things fall.''
A lot can happen and change over the course of six weeks of spring and it might be a longshot that the Sox get to Opening Day with a completely healthy bunch of starters. But even allowing for the usual attrition, the rotation offers plenty of upside -- and that's not something that can be said about every aspect of the roster.
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Spring training doesn't get underway for another few weeks, but already, you can see a dominant theme emerging for Red Sox players. To a man, based on conversations with more than a dozen or so players at Winter Weekend last where, the clear overriding message was: Don't be so quick to write us off.
Of course, coming off a last-place finish in 2022, and having lost one of their two best players to free agency, it's not the Red Sox were going to be overrated.
But it's just as obvious that the players are aware of the low expectations associated with this year's team. They hear and see the negativity, the fan anger, the critical media coverage and the low expectations being set. So, their rallying cry is, essentially: "We'll show them!''
Player after player, when asked about their thoughts for 2023, repeated the same theme:
"I think we've done pretty good,'' said Kiké Hernandez of the team's winter moves. "Obviously on paper, we'd be better with Trevor (Story) on the team. But I think we got better in a couple of areas that we needed to address....We might (belong) up there with some of the other teams in terms of superstar talent or whatever, but at the end of the day, I feel good about my guys and I think we have the potential to shock a lot of people.
"The team's going to look a lot different. We're going to have a different identity as a team. We may not have as much pop in the lineup as we used to, but we have some guys who can put the ball in play and grind out at-bats. And if we grind out at-bats for nine innings, we play the game hard and we catch the ball, run the bases well, we're going to have a chance to win ballgames. We just have to stay afloat, stay in the battle. I like to be positive and optimistic, and I think we're going to get Trevor back in the middle of the season, he's a game-changer, he's a catalyst and that's a pretty good mid-season acquisition.
"Come (the trade deadline), if we're still in the fight, hopefully, we do the moves necessary to bring in the necessary reinforcements that we (need). It's all about getting into the playoffs. It's a little easier now when there's the extra wild card spots. Once we get in, anything can happen. And that's the goal.''
"I'm actually excited,'' said Chris Sale. "I think we have a really good mix of veteran guys coming in that are going to hold it down. Don't forget -- I've been a minor leaguer for the past three years. I've seen the guys that we have down in the system, that are working their way up. We have some incredible young arms, some very athletic guys in the field. We have no reason not to be confident. We won the World Series (in 2018) and the very next spring training, there were doubters. There's going to be doubters, regardless.
"You can be the best, you can be the worst, but there's going to be people who drag you down. You can't really pay attention to those guys. We have who we have, we'll go forward with it and we're going to fight like hell.''
One thing seems certain: if the Red Sox do surprise everybody and find their way into the postseason, they'll be one of the very few teams to actually earn the right to say: "Nobody gave us a chance!''
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If Bello has emerged as the best Red Sox pitching prospect in more than a decade, with the ceiling of being a top-of-the-rotation starter in the rotation, then Mata is next in line.
Mata missed most of 2021 and the first half of 2022 recovering from Tommy John surgery, but returned for the second half of last year and competed at four different levels -- Low A, High A, Double A and Triple A.
Most of his work came at Portland and Worcester. At Double A, he was 5-2, 1.85 in 10 games. Moving up to Worcester, he was 2-0, 3.47 in five Triple A starts.
Mata and Bello are quite different. While Bello is somewhat slight in build, Mata is much bigger, with a power pitcher's physique (6-foot-3, 240 pounds) and his ceiling may not be as high as Bello's.
Still, Sale, who saw a lot of Mata while rehabbing, came away highly impressed.
"I love watching him throw,'' said Sale. "I was there with him for his rehab process. We rehabbed together and I saw him really turn a corner. The power he possesses, the ease with which he throws...And not for nothing, that's a fun guy to be around. His smile can light up a room. He's a good teammate and you can tell, just by how he operates, he really wants it. I'm excited to see him get here full-time.''
When Mata was told of Sale's assessment of him at the team's Rookie Development Program, he beamed in response.
"That's something I was really grateful for, to have spent that time with him,'' Mata said. "He attended some of my bullpens and I attended some of his. He had a lot of great advice. To have a pitcher of his stature advising me is a big deal for me and I don't take it lightly.... The biggest thing he mentioned was to always put in a honest day's work and let the results speak for themselves.''
Asked what he needed to improve in order to make his major league debut in 2023, Mata cited continued good health and reliability.
Given the depth the Red Sox have in their rotation, a spot there at the start of the season would seem unattainable. But like Crawford, who was a surprise addition to the Opening Day roster a year ago as a member of the bullpen, it's possible that Mata's introduction to the big leagues could come sooner as a reliever.
"That's something that you're conscious of heading in,'' he acknowledged. "It's something that I've thought about. It might not happen, but that's the mentality that I have going in (to spring training) -- that there's that potential.''
"The size, the work he's put in, the stuff -- it's hard to beat that type of excitement for a starting pitcher,'' said director of player development Brian Abraham. "We're excited to see what he can do and excited about the work he's put in this offseason, coming to spring training healthy and ready to impact the upper levels. I would say command of the (strike) zone is really important, to be able to challenge in the zone. You can't get away with painting in the corners in the big leagues -- you have to challenge these guys because they have such good approaches. Being able to challenge within the strike zone, knowing he can get guys out with his stuff consistently, is very important.''