A To-Do List For The Red Sox Off-Season In Case It Ever Restarts

Also can someone get MLB Trade Rumors a lollipop or something my gosh!

I don’t know when you last bothered to check MLBTradeRumors.com but things aren’t going well over there.

Tell me there’s nothing going on in baseball without telling me there’s nothing going on in baseball.

That headline is a bit like me reporting that Joe Biden will be the President, or that hey, there’s a pandemic on! Yes. Yes. We know those things. In fact, we knew them a year ago.

But what makes this headline especially strange is what it’s reporting wasn’t even news a year ago. Back then, the Padres were trying to trade Eric Hosmer to anyone who would listen. They talked to any team who would answer the phone. Heck, they would come to your house and bring donuts if they thought there was a shot at getting rid of Hosmer. Everyone knew this. This was not news! This remains not news!

Also, note the last two words of the headline: Last Summer! As in last summer! As in: LAST SUMMER! Hey, here’s a rumored trade that everyone already knew about that didn’t happen and won’t ever happen and also IT WAS LAST YEAR good lord please help me I’m trapped in the baseball internet and I can’t get out someone go to my apartment and feed my cat wait never mind it’s a virtual cat but still help!

Rough times here in baseball-coverage-land is what I’m saying. But what about the Red Sox, you’re asking. What about the reason you have this newsletter, you’re asking?

Fair. So, okay, let’s talk Red Sox!

I have something to say on this, but first: this is the Sox Outsider newsletter and I’m Matt Kory. Hi. I hope you’re having a happy holiday season. During this festive season of giving, might I gently suggest getting your loved one a subscription to Sox Outsider? They’ll love it and because it’s free you can impress them with your thoughtfulness and spend all the money you were going to spend on them on yourself instead.

And while you’re at it, why not subscribe yourself?

So back to the thing I have to say. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe put out an article which was a good article and which I’ll link to right here that effectively listed all the things the Red Sox still had to do this off-season. This is a great idea for an article! In fact, I was writing something similar, but Alex beat me to it (look in the mirror right now to discover your shocked face) and also he did it 100 times better too (though with 100 times fewer poop jokes). Regardless, let’s chat about what the Sox have left to do.

To me there’s three things the Red Sox need to do. The first is add to their bullpen. There are a few guys still out there on the free agent market, but either they’ll be too expensive (Kenley Jansen), too old (Kenley Jansen), or will require too long a deal (Kenley Jansen). The point of that joke is that there actually isn’t much bullpen help left on the free agent market. Colin McHugh and Joe Kelly are available and they’d make the pen deeper, but I’m not sure they’d make it better. Maybe a tad, but that might not be worth they money they’ll command. The long and short of this is I think the Red Sox might be looking at a trade to solve their bullpen issues.

I’m not going to pretend to know which relievers might be available on the trade market, but if you’re looking for names, might I suggest peeping the rosters of the Reds, A’s, Rockies, Nationals, Pirates, and Diamondbacks. None of those teams projects to be much good in 2022 and a few are in active teardown mode. Most anyone on their rosters should be available for the right price. If you want some names, cajole me in the comments to write a piece on it and you’ll probably get your wish.

Beyond the pen, the big questions are at second base and with team extensions. Specifically, are they going to add at second base, what will they decide to do with Xander Bogaerts and the one year he has left on his contract, and will they try to extend Rafael Devers who has two seasons left of team control. These are questions even though I forgot to put a question mark at the end of the last sentence.

At second base, I don’t see a huge move coming, like for example, signing Carlos Correa and moving Xander Bogaerts to second base. That would be massive, and it would make the team better in two big spots, but it would be supremely expensive and require a long-term commitment the Red Sox haven’t yet shown a desire to pull off under Chaim Bloom.

A smaller move would be, as Speier suggests in his story (not to copy him, but it’s a good idea), to sign Trevor Story to a similar contract to what Marcus Semien signed with Toronto before last season. They’d give Story a one year deal for pretty big money, play him at second base, let him re-enter the market next off-season coming off a much better year, and watch him almost win the MVP award. Good plan, right? That fits Bloom’s M.O. a lot better than giving Correa a 10 year deal (or whatever he ends up with). Spending money for a season isn’t a problem, it’s spending long into the future that can hurt a franchise, or so the thought process goes. A one-year deal for Story would fit that mold.

As for the extensions, it’s tough because of the opt-out in Xander’s deal and the fact that Devers might or might not be a third baseman. Those two things make it difficult to project what kind of deals might get made, never mind the fact that both might be signing (or not) deals under a new CBA with vastly different rules. That all said, I’ll try to have more on this later in the week.

Beyond that (and finally), it would make sense to add another outfielder, even after adding Jackie Bradley in the Hunter Renfroe trade. Using Bradley as a backup outfielder/defensive replacement for an outfield of Enrique Hernandez, Alex Verdugo (who I forgot to mention in the last article; sorry!) and Kyle Schwarber/Seiya Suzuki makes a lot more sense than trying to make Bradley a starter off the bat. If he hits, fantastic. If he doesn’t (and he *reeeally* didn’t last season, so I wouldn’t be expecting much) then you can live with him as a fourth outfielder. If I had to guess at this point, the Red Sox seem to prefer Suzuki’s upside, defensive ability, and likely lower cost over those of Schwarber. If Suzuki opts to sign elsewhere then maybe they pivot back to Schwarber.

So that’s kinda the to-do list. Bullpen, second base/Bogaerts/Devers, outfield, and kick the tires on some big moves, just in case something falls into place. Here’s hoping the Sox get a chance to enact this sort-of-plan sometime in the near future.

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