A Season Of Soul Searching

I have been thinking a lot about the pre-2004 Red Sox this week, as the 2022 MLB regular season (and a particularly frustrating Red Sox campaign) came to a close. I don’t think any fan, especially those older than me with an even stronger relationship to the heartbreak wrought by the Curse of the Bambino, would say that they long for those days. And yet, there was something romantic about how 86 years forged an identity for not only a baseball team, but for a fanbase, city, and region. We knew the Red Sox would probably come up short in the end, but we loved them anyway. “There’s always next year” was equal parts coping mechanism and rallying cry. Sure, things might not have worked out this time, but the Sox would be back next April, and so would we.

That forever changed in October 2004, but for my money the evolution began in December 2001, when an investor group led by John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino purchased the Red Sox for a then record $700 million. It crystallized even further when the Sox hired a 28-year old wunderkind to run the front-office. In order to reverse the Curse, the Red Sox would have to do the one thing their fans feared, yet deep down knew had to happen if they ever wanted to win a World Series in their lifetime: become the Yankees. Maybe not in every single way, but Theo Epstein’s “We’re going to become a scout and player development machine” comment from his introductory press conference served as the roadmap. The Red Sox were going to combine their financial might with Moneyball tactics and a conveyor belt of young talent to turn into a ruthlessly efficient baseball operations machine producing results on par with their arch-nemesis in the Bronx. And for a while, especially after winning their second World Series in four seasons in 2007, it worked.

Well, let me rephrase that. It sort of worked. Since winning it all in 2007, the Red Sox have added another two World Series trophies to their tally. They’re also on their fourth baseball operations regime (Epstein, Ben Cherington, Dave Dombrowski, and now Chaim Bloom) over that stretch, and have finished last in the AL East five times. Even at their greatest heights, Boston hasn’t been able to match the overall stability of New York, though I’m sure Yankee fans would trade that for another World Series ring. The organizational whiplash from Epstein, to prospect-clutching Cherington, to all-in gambler Dombrowski has meant that if the Red Sox are any kind of machine it’s a roller coaster, just as likely to win 90+ games and make a deep run into October as to win 70 games and be playing meaningless baseball in September.

Which brings me to the big question from this Red Sox season (and the point of that long-as-hell preamble)…what is this team’s identity now? They’re not the Evil Empire, they’re not the Borg that plays out in Dodger Stadium, they’re not lovable losers, and they’re not really a middling, Brewers/Reds/Twins-esque franchise either. Bloom’s goal as Chief Baseball Officer is clear, and reminiscent in many ways to Epstein’s gameplan from two decades ago: create a deep pipeline of young, cost-and-time-controlled talent while flexing big market muscle to either acquire or retain elite, high-profile stars. All of the talk about how Bloom is turning the Red Sox into “Tampa Bay North” isn’t unfounded, though it misses the point. A Tampa Bay Rays infrastructure combined with immense purchasing power is what former Rays exec (and current Dodgers baseball ops overlord) Andrew Friedman has installed in Los Angeles, to immense success. Forget Tampa North, Bloom is shooting for LA East.

There’s only one problem. Overhauling an organization to restock at the minor league level while attempting to win at the major league level is a tricky line to toe. Last year, the Red Sox did so perfectly by combining key veteran additions like Kikè Hernandez and Hunter Renfroe at minimal cost with a talented core coming off a down year. The result was a massive turnaround from 2020’s COVID-shortened disaster season (a.k.a. the bill coming due for Dombrowski’s make-it-rain approach to winning the 2018 World Series), and a deep run into the playoffs. Outside of some August hand-wringing from yours truly, the vibes emanating from the 2021 Red Sox were truly immaculate, from home run carts to first base fist pumps to beating the Yankees in a one-game playoff at Fenway–something that would have been unheard of in the 20th century. That team was clutch, resilient, and generally fun to follow for seven months.

The 2022 Red Sox, in contrast, not so much. The season was rocky from the start, with Boston losing 19 of its first 29 games. After a red hot June pulled the team 11 games above .500, the Sox followed up by cratering in July, going 8-19 and effectively ending their postseason hopes. Boston was annihilated by divisional opponents all season long (an abhorrent 26-50 against the AL East) and simultaneously struggled to hit for power consistently while fielding one of the worst pitching staffs in the American League. The nadir was undoubtably July 23rd’s 28-5 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park, a game which featured pretty much all of the issues that plagued the Red Sox all season (difficulty making Little League-level plays, ineffectual pitching, going 1-8 with RISP and leaving 8 men on base, Jarren Duran) driven to a Sideshow-Bob-stepping-on-rakes extreme:

For everything I just said about Bloom’s vision earlier, the team was ultimately torpedoed by glaring roster construction issues (iffy-at-best bullpen, heavy reliance on injury-prone starting pitching, a Franchy Cordero/Bobby Dalbec platoon at first base, expecting Jackie Bradley Jr. to be an every day major league player in the year of our Lord 2022) that only became more obvious once the Red Sox were hit with a rash of mid-summer injuries. With the team hovering around .500, the Sox front office chose to both buy and sell. Christian Vazquez and Jake Diekman were sent out out, Reese McGuire and Eric Hosmer were brought in.

On the whole, those trades were probably a net positive, considering Diekman was sub-replacement level and McGuire actually outplayed Vazquez over the last two months. But, those are the kind of moves that a team without an identity makes. Neither trade really moved the needle all that much, and the Red Sox slipped below .500 for good on August 4th, only two days after the trade deadline. Boston netted a couple prospects out of the exchange, but they didn’t dip under the Competitive Balance Tax line in a lost season, didn’t really attempt to acquire a truly game-changing piece, and were unable to flip key pending free agents for any future value.

If anything, trading Vazquez only really managed to piss off an already increasingly grumpy veteran core. The same could be said of the decision to DFA Kevin Plawecki in September, which led to even more bad energy in the Red Sox clubhouse. If 2021 shared many aspects of Boston’s Impossible Dream Redux 2013 season, 2022 was the spiritual cousin of the dreadful 2014 title defense, featuring unhappy veterans, a team in transition, and an inability to follow up on the previous year’s surprise success. On one hand, a lot of the gloominess seemed like it was driven by stars (Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi and even Rafael Devers) with unresolved contract situations chafing a bit–okay, a lot–at the relatively directionless roster construction and overall demeanor of the front office. On the other, it felt like the team was more interested in engaging in Anakin Skywalker levels of sulk than actually winning baseball games. Bloom’s front office clearly needs to consider the human element a bit more when considering transactions, but if clubhouse chemistry is the end-all-be-all secret sauce the Sox would have surely started the season off better. And unfortunately, winning teams don’t have to worry about players getting shipped out at the trade deadline, but losing teams sure do.

Saying goodbye to Eck. Now this. Man, I need a vacation.

pic.twitter.com/djgg67wkT6

— Tom Caron (blue checkmark redacted) (@TomCaron) October 5, 2022

This winter is shaping up to be a tumultuous, franchise shifting offseason for the Red Sox. Bogaerts is almost certainly opting out and, along with Martinez, Eovaldi, and a few other other key pieces, will be a free agent. There are real, legitimate baseball reasons for letting Bogaerts walk: His power slipped in a big way this season, he was incredibly fortunate with batted ball luck, his defense is always a question mark, he just turned 30 on October 1st, and top Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer is also a shortstop (albeit a few years away from the bigs). But Bogaerts is also the singular piece of connective tissue between the four most recent eras of Red Sox baseball. He was signed as an international amateur free agent by Epstein in 2009, graduated to the majors under Cherington, played his best baseball for those Dombrowski teams, and has been the unquestioned team captain for the start of Bloom’s tenure. If the Red Sox have an identity post-2004, it’s David Ortiz and Xander Bogaerts. Does Bloom want to be known as the guy who traded Mookie Betts, let Xander Bogaerts leave, and (potentially) traded Rafael Devers, which is a real apocalyptic scenario should Devers and the Red Sox be unable to find common ground on a contract extension over the next 8-10 months? And if Boston can’t even keep its own homegrown stars, what’s the point of being a big market team, or rooting for these guys to grow with the organization in the first place?

I don’t have the answers to those questions, but I do know this: that Red Sox season stunk. The team is very likely to undergo a seismic reshaping over the next 3-6 months. And if Chaim Bloom’s master plan is ever going to take shape, it’s going to have to start happening now. Ultimately, however, I don’t really care about being Tampa Bay North or Los Angeles East or becoming the “new Yankees”. The Red Sox need to figure out what being the Red Sox means again. Until they do, I have a feeling we’ll be saying “there’s always next year” for a while.