Boston Red Sox: Spring baseball and everlasting hope in 2023
The pop of the mitt, constant chatter, and a crack of the bat are all joyful sounds coming out of Arizona and Florida the last few days. For the Boston Red Sox and 29 other MLB teams, Spring Training sites are places where the joy of a brand-new season is on display.
Hope comes in different forms the first weeks of spring training. Teams like the San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Toronto Blue Jays carry favorable dreams of a World Series. Others, like perhaps the Kansas City Royals and Oakland A’s, hope to carry a competitive (and watchable) team into the season.
The Boston Red Sox fall somewhere in the middle. Some may think the Sox are destined for a last-place finish and will end up the worst in franchise history (dire indeed). Others, like myself, think things will be fine — not great — with the Red Sox competitive and building towards a brighter future.
Best case scenario for Boston Red Sox
This scenario should always end, for any franchise, with the team being crowned World Series champions. And if they’re not setting foot on the field in February with that goal in mind, then it might be smart to step away from the game.
Reality and temperament do set in when examining a team’s hopes for the upcoming season.
The best case scenario for the Red Sox ends in the World Series, seeing young (and younger) talent taking a gigantic leap forward. And in the case of many unexpected champions in MLB history, a handful of players playing above their pay grade.
For Boston, a dream scenario involves a healthy starting rotation, where depth at the position is a luxury rather than a desperate need. It is the return of a dominant Chris Sale and an impactful Corey Kluber, who can make a late-career renaissance similar to Justin Verlander. Sale and Kluber are the veterans who balance perfectly with the youth of Brayan Bello and Garrett Whitlock to carry Boston.
All backed up by the bullpen, which is expected to be improved in 2023 no matter the scenario one envisions.
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More questions remain on the hitting side of things, especially in the power department. Best of hopes lie in Rafael Devers hitting 40+ home runs, driving in 120 and hitting .300, delivering on the MVP campaign that never quite materialized in 2022.
The arrival of Masataka Yoshida provides more than ever imagined, providing stability at the top of the order. And Alex Verdugo lives up to his word (and his consistency from the last three months of 2022), teaming with Triston Casas and Justin Turner to provide Devers the protection he needs.
The best scenario also involves a late-season return of Trevor Story, coming in hot and powering the Red Sox to the playoffs.
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Of course, Story’s injury and the loss of Xander Bogaerts via free agency are among a few reasons the worst is being imagined for the Red Sox in 2023.
Boston Red Sox: Worst case 2023
A last-place finish is one thing. Being so bad out of the gate that the Red Sox become sellers by the trade deadline and going all-in on the youth movement is another.
In some regards, that’s really not the worst thing. But for a franchise expected to regularly compete, stammering through that kind of season might be unbearable, even knowing what future seasons might hold.
The crystal ball shatters with a bullpen that doesn’t arrive as advertised and the Red Sox can’t string together a consistent starting rotation.
To top it off, the Red Sox can’t score runs and provide little protection for Devers. Yoshida struggles to adjust, others duplicate career-worst seasons, and Casas and Bobby Dalbec prove to not be the answer at first base. These are just the surface of what the horrible scenarios might look like.
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As it is, hope springs eternal that the Red Sox find a way to make a playoff push in 2023. Perhaps this team can recapture some of the magic from 2021’s ALCS run. A little swagger here and a lot of health there, plus some power from unexpected sources, and it can be done. At least that’s the belief in February, when the arms are fresh, the smiles bright, and everlasting hope carried deeply in the heart.