We’ve done a pretty thorough job of picking apart what the Red Sox haven’t done right this offseason. Now it’s time to look at what has to go right for the Red Sox to have a chance to be competitive in the 2024 season…
Spoiler: a lot
It’s time to grapple with the reality that the (lackluster) roster Craig Breslow has assembled — either by his own doing or on a John Henry-imposed financial leash (which ownership has denied, but it’s six of one… the team is the team, and it isn’t shaping up to be a good one) — is increasingly likely to look the same when Opening Day rolls around.
So, acknowledging that a third straight (and fourth in five years) last-place finish in the AL East is a strong likelihood, I’ll pose the following question: What’s it going to take for these Red Sox as currently constituted to be a playoff contender? (Note that I said “playoff" contender, because being a World Series contender is so far out of the picture that it’s not even funny…)
Here are the scenarios that I believe are most needed in order for that to happen…
Bello fills the (healthy) Chris Sale void
Brayan Bello will be about a month shy of his 25th birthday when his third major league season begins in April. But in order for the Red Sox to be good this year, they’ll need the young and still unproven Bello to pitch with the poise of a grizzled 35-year-old veteran.
It’s not exactly a fair ask for a pitcher with 41 career big league games under his belt, but it isn’t an entirely impossible scenario either. Bello has certainly flashed the potential and has the pedigree of being a top-line starter, and perhaps 2024 could be his true breakout season.
Yet banking on that happening this soon seems unwise. Actually, it’s pretty foolish. Andrew Bailey may be a good pitching coach, but is he ‘turn Bello into the second coming of Pedro Martinez in just one season’ good? Probably not.
While I’d expect Bello to take another step forward this season, putting the weight of the franchise on his shoulder at this young age is a bold bet. It could potentially be a damaging one too, as putting too much pressure on Bello too soon could irreparably shatter his confidence.
In my eyes, the realistic expectations for Bello this season should be for him to produce like a No. 3 starter — meaning someone who is consistently good, but isn’t your staff ace and isn’t the guy you turn to when you need to win a game.
Maybe he will far exceed those expectations, and hopefully so. He took a huge step forward in terms of workload last season, pitching exactly 100 more innings (157) in 15 more games (28) than in his debut season. But it’s not reasonable to expect him to fill the void of Chris Sale, who was the clear-cut ace when healthy. Of course, that rarely happened.
At the very least, here’s hoping that Bello will be more reliable than Sale had been of late…
Giolito lives up to top starter potential
Even if Bello is the second coming of Pedro, he can’t carry an entire staff alone. Enter Lucas Giolito, who will at least need to be the Derek Lowe to Bello’s Pedro. Giolito has talked a good game so far and seems confident he can snap back into his 2019 All-Star form, but talk is cheap… and 2019 was five years ago.
If Giolito can be something close to a 15-win, 200-strikeout pitcher making over 30 starts, that would take a lot of pressure off of Bello — and possibly establish himself as the “ace” of the club in 2024.
Of course, that’s a tall ask — even in 2019, far and away his best season in the majors, he only won 14 games. But like Bello, the potential is there for Giolito to be a top-of-the-rotation-type arm. But also like Bello, I wouldn’t be betting on it this season…
Giolito’s ceiling now is probably that of a No. 3 starter, as well. Again, since his solid 2019 season, he’s made 106 starts in four years since, going 34-36 with a 4.31 ERA, a 1.25 WHIP and an average of 170 strikeouts and 54 walks and (alarmingly) 25 homers allowed per season.
Expecting him to turn back the clock a half decade doesn’t feel like a recipe for success…
Story, Casas anchor lineup around Devers
Rafael Devers is going to be Rafael Devers, at least if he stays healthy… (which will become more of a concern with each passing year for the big-framed, violent-swinging slugger). So you can pencil him in for about 30 homers and 100 RBIs.
But what about the guys hitting around him? An even better question is… who exactly are those guys going to be? If Devers again hits second as he usually has of late (a trend around baseball I still don’t understand, but whatever…), you’re going to need a good 3-hole and cleanup hitter.
Can Trevor Story and Triston Casas be those guys? The right-handed hitting Story could bat third while Casas hits fourth to give them the coveted “left-right-left” mix in the middle of the lineup. Both are capable of filling those roles, but neither has done it with consistency of late.
For Story, the injuries have piled up — as many worried they would when Chaim Bloom signed him to a six-year, $140 million contract. Although he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn (another concern moving forward) with any consistency, he started off with some decent power numbers in hitting 16 homers and driving in 66 runs in his first 94 games of 2022, his first season in Boston.
You know the story from there— he missed much of July, most of August and half of September with hand and heel contusions. Then he had the surprise offseason UCL surgery and didn’t make his 2023 debut until mid August, and never really found any rhythm at the plate in the 43 games he did played.
It’s been a few years since Story’s last decent season, a 25-homer, 75-RBI campaign 2021 campaign with Colorado in which he batted just .251, and a really long time since his last great season. In his second of two career All-Star seasons back-to-back in 2019, Story slashed .294/363/.554 with 35 homers and 85 RBIs in 145 games. (Hey look, another guy the Red Sox have built a team around in 2024 while hoping that they can reproduce their numbers from five years ago…).
Then there’s Casas, who is at least on the upward trajectory after putting together a solid 24-homer, 65-RBI season while hitting .263 over 132 games in 2023. An All-Star year it wasn’t, but it was a considerable progression from his limited 32-game run late in 2022.
We were promised Casas would be an “anchor of the lineup” type of hitter, and it’s certainly possible he becomes that. But it’s a similar situation as it is with Bello where you’d rather put veterans around them and be pleasantly surprised by their progression rather than needing them to come through in a big way immediately.
But if Story and Casas can provide protection around Devers, the Red Sox could have a formidable lineup — as they did for parts of 2023. That isn’t even factoring in Masataka Yoshida, a possible resurgence of Tyler O’Neill to his big power season in 2021, the progression of Jarren Duran at the top of the lineup or the emergence of Vaughn Grissom.
But each of these scenarios is far from guaranteed…
Breslow, Sox buy at the deadline
If the Red Sox are going to have a shot to make some noise in 2024, they’re going to have to get off to a good start and maintain their momentum. I would imagine it would take a really hot start and sustained run for Breslow and the front office to be willing to add to the team at the trade deadline.
But we’ve seen the difference a key deadline acquisition can make firsthand. Kyle Schwarber helped the Red Sox get within two games of the World Series in 2021 after being acquired from the Nationals in Bloom’s second season.
Nathan Eovaldi rode in on a white horse and proved a valuable part of the team’s 2018 postseason run. Steve Pearce was also traded to Boston that season… and he wound up being the World Series MVP (as much as I hate to say it, though, it should have been David Price…).
And I don’t have to tell you what Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz meant to the Red Sox in 2004…
But in order to get there, the Red Sox are going to need to be good — not just hanging around .500 — once July rolls around. Given the way Breslow and company have built this year’s team, it’s clear they’re taking a long-term view of the now-perpetual rebuild.
It’s likely going to take a big shock to the system to force the team’s hand to add in a significant way…
Catch a break or two around the league
And finally, the Red Sox are probably going to need a lot of help around the American League in order to make chicken salad out of chicken… well, you know.
The Yankees still have Aaron Judge and the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole and loaded up with Juan Soto, so they should be better (it would be hard not to be… but then again, Aaron Boone is still their manager). The Rays are the Rays — they always find a way to be inexplicably good in the regular season before falling back to earth in the playoffs. The Orioles took a major step forward last year and look like they could be the new Rays. And the Blue Jays made the playoffs, too.
Considering that two of the three AL Wild Card teams a season ago came from their own division, the Red Sox figure to have a steep hill to climb in 2024. But that’s why you build the team to compete in the division you’re playing in — I don’t want to hear whining about how good the AL or AL East has been of late, because every team has to deal with it the same. Don’t like it? Tough, life ain’t fair. Build a better team…
Now, nothing ever turns out like it’s supposed to on paper. Teams that we expect to be good will struggle and teams we expect to struggle will be good. It’s part of the fun of sports and that’s why you play the games in the regular season.
But it’s one thing to factor in one of Boston’s fellow contenders in the division struggling, and maybe two, but three or four? That doesn’t feel very likely. Then you have to factor in the other teams around the league who seemingly come out of nowhere to contend. It’s a loaded field, folks.
When MLB added a third wild-card spot a few years back, I said at the time that there was no excuse for the Red Sox to miss the postseason ever again. They should always be locks for at least one of those three spots, if not contending for the division crown itself.
Oh how the mighty have fallen…