The 2023 Red Sox season will go down as a lost opportunity.
Boston made the kind of additions that could bolster a postseason run, a power bat in Adam Duvall, a clubhouse staple arrived in Justin Turner and had one of the best seasons of his career, largely playing on one leg. Chris Martin and Kenley Janson locked down the back end of the bullpen with two of the best relief years in recent Sox history. Rafael Devers, Alex Verdugo, Masataka Yoshida and Connor Wong rounded out one of the league's ten best offenses. All those performances happened on a last-place team as former Dodgers marveled this week at playing out the final weeks eliminated from the postseason -- which officially happened last Wednesday after the Sox lost 12-of-15.
“It’s hard,” Jansen said. “I ain’t going to lie about it."
A postseason berth more than ever means a chance to drive deep into the playoffs, the Philadelphia Phillies (who started 22-29) the most recent unlikely league championship or World Series participant just two years after Boston made an unlikely run to the ALCS. The Sox, with a playoff push, could've tapped into the surge of popularity across MLB following rule changes that shortened and increased action in games. The league experienced a 9.2% increase in attendance through Aug. 14 while the Sox spent another year averaging 3,000 fewer fans per game compared to 2019, when Dave Dombrowski's tenure ended.
Boston fired Chaim Bloom similarly, costing them the opportunity to see out his long-term vision. That might go down as the biggest loss, regardless of what blame you place on Bloom. He certainly generated little direction at the major league level over the past two years as the Sox regressed immensely following their last playoff appearance. The team's prospect ranking improved, Ken Rosenthal calling it Orioles-like, but as the MLB Sox team largely faded from relevancy in Boston, Bloom allowed them to settle in the middle without cementing the team's holes or taking advantage of what's become a seller's market at the trade deadline. Reports since his firing described missed opportunities at various deals, including dumping Chris Sale's entire salary. An Athletic report pointed toward the team having made little progress since the firing, focusing primarily on taking care of interim executive Brian O'Halloran, a long-time executive, as the desirability of Boston's top job falls into question.
Will the Sox spend? They fell to 13th in payroll this season. Will they commit long-term to the next GM? They're set to hire a fourth over the past decade. Those questions will complicate what once would've topped many in baseball's dream job. It's not even clear if Bloom's replacement can choose a manager, considering the Sox' brass and Alex Cora both talked in recent weeks as if Cora will return to the dugout for the final year of his contract. Boston will also need to make a difficult call on Cora's future to avoid making him a lame-duck manager next year, and while rumors floated that he could pivot to the front office and pick his replacement, he shot down the idea for now in multiple interviews. Bloom probably deserved to go. The future became no more clear once it happened.
Previously, Shohei Ohtani would've become a no-brainer solution to solve the fanbase's apathy toward the team and the organization's pitching problem. Now, he won't pitch until 2025 as he recovers from a second significant surgery on his elbow. He can't play the field for a team that could bring back Turner and will assess Masataka Yoshida's future in left field as part of a needed defensive overhaul. The lasting memory for many of the Bloom era will include Jarren Duran's infamous miss on Raimel Tapia's fly ball to center field that allowed an inside-the-park grand slam in a 28-5 loss to fellow playoff contender Toronto. Kiké Hernández threw balls all over the infield trying to replace Xander Bogaerts at shortstop. Devers regressed to a negative fielder at third base while Wong quietly struggled to throw out base stealers early and late this season.
Ohtani can't help a team that tied for 24th in defensive runs saved (-19) and committed 100 errors (29th), and Brayan Bello's worst starts showed the damage that pitching to contact with bad defense behind you can lead to. For the pitching staff, Bello, Kutter Crawford and a combination of Sale and Nick Pivetta might suffice as back-end starters, opening a need for two top-end arms. Cubs ace Marcus Stroman and Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will both attract enormous interest in a bad starting pitching free agent market, would suffice. Boston, for all the hype around its prospect core, doesn't appear on track to call-up sensational arms behind Bello.
“Pitching depth is important. It’s not just going out and getting superstars. We saw it. You can’t help injuries," Jansen said. "I feel like injuries hit us right at the All-Star break, and we were thin on pitching," Jansen said this week. "I think that’s when fatigue hit everybody. That’s my opinion. But who am I? I’m a player saying that. But that’s just my experience. Being on great teams, they have good pitching.”
The churn of arms will go down as the Bloom method that many fans who tuned out following Mookie Betts' disaster didn't notice. Many looked up to see the GM gone three years later and thought the Betts trade alone cost Bloom his job. Richard Bleier. Ryan Brazier. Dinelson Lamet. Chris Murphy. Kyle Barraclough. Franklin German. All those names cost him too. Every bullpen arm called upon for middle relief or bulk innings felt destined to allow droves or runs and return to Worcester or waivers. The same went for many of the team's stop-gap positional starters like Yu Chang and Christian Arroyo. Fortunately, higher-regarded prospects like Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu showed legitimate flashes, including a five-hit game for Abreu, but the team already juggling Rafaela between the infield and outfield set an ominous tone for his career, along with a game-losing misplay in center field at Toronto.
This year, obviously, provided plenty of bad, but Triston Casas' near rookie of the year-caliber season made some of it worth watching. The charismatic lefty fielded better, joined the franchise's legends in productivity before a Red Sox' 24th birthday and even hit left-handed pitchers in the second half as he became the team's everyday first baseman after a rough start. He finished the season with 24 home runs, 65 RBI, 70 walks and hit .263 with an .856 OPS in 132 games. Casas and Devers, extended long-term, give the team two cornerstone hitters for years into the future.
Forecasting how the team can finish closer to the postseason next year becomes the next GM's job description, narrowing a field already limited by aforementioned factors. Mike Hazen's fixation on defense and recent improvement in Arizona intrigues, as does his former connection to the Boston front office. Targeting executives in successful front offices like Brandon Gomes (Dodgers) and Sam Fuld (Philadelphia) makes sense as well. Giving Cora the benefit of the doubt with a larger say would mark a leap of faith considering his inexperience and inherent culpability in how loosely the team played in recent years. It'd also ensure one of the game's most successful figures stays within the team, and he gets the say in the manager to succeed him, instilling trust in the clubhouse that undoubtedly grew to resent its stagnant front office. Of course -- ownership needs to pay up.
"I love this place, but obviously there’s other stuff that comes into play,” Cora said recenlty. “I’m 47, I turn 48 next week. I don’t see myself like Tito [Francona] and Tony [La Russa], to manage until 70 whatever. I enjoy what I’m doing, but at one point we’re going to have to move on to do something else.”