The Red Sox flirted with playoff contention at times in 2024 but ultimately fell short, finishing five games back of a Wild Card spot at 81-81. That puts their focus on the offseason and Alex Speier of the Boston Globe published a column today, trying to read the tea leaves on some recent comments from chief baseball officer Craig Breslow as well as president and CEO Sam Kennedy.
Notably, the comments suggest the club plans to enter the winter with more of a win-now mentality. “It’s time to take that next step. It really is time,” said Kennedy. “You really need to build a roster and have a team that is built to win that division. That’s where we want to get to. We just have to go and do the right things that put us in that position to push towards 90-95 wins.” Kennedy has also stated that the club feels they have “building blocks” in place that they can construct a club around.
Of course, many fans will be quick to point to chairman Tom Werner’s “full throttle” comments from a year ago as a reason to be skeptical, since the club didn’t really follow through on that promise. Generally speaking, the Sox had a relatively future-focused offseason going into 2024, with the most notable move being the trade that sent Chris Sale to Atlanta for infielder Vaughn Grissom. That deal has gone very poorly so far for the Sox, as Sale went on to have an excellent season for his new club while Grissom struggled immensely after that deal.
But as Speier points out, most of the comments made by the Boston brass around this time a year ago were far more measured, with the “full throttle” quote being the exception that received the most attention. Breslow has recently suggested that a deal like the Sale-Grissom swap will get less consideration this offseason.
“That was a decision that was made with a longer-term focus in mind as much as 2024,” said Breslow on NESN’s 310 to Left podcast, as relayed by Speier. “Exclusively looking at the future is not something that we should be prepared to do as we embark on this offseason heading into 2025. Otherwise, fans would be rightfully frustrated with this continued push-off into the future of the window of contention. We can no longer ask our fans to look to the future, to think about a Red Sox team that’s capable of winning the division and capable of making a deep postseason run. We have to talk to decisive actions that we’re taking right now to put a better team on the field in…
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