Boston Red Sox terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason

It’s been one thing after another for the Red Sox as the team has had their worst offseason in a long time. The worst part is that it’s been mostly self-inflicted.

2018 has never felt so far away. It really was only two years ago when the Boston Red Sox turned in the most dominant season in franchise history, winning 108 games and their ninth World Series title. Since then, things have gone steadily downhill.

The follow-up campaign in 2019 was a disaster from spring training all the way to the end of the season which saw the Sox finish in third place in the AL East and out of the postseason without a chance to defend their title. Yes, they were beset by injuries and several players under-performed, but despite the bright spots (breakout seasons from Rafael Devers and Eduardo Rodriguez and a stellar season from Xander Bogaerts), there was a feeling from the very first pitch on Opening Day that something just wasn’t right with the team.

What a difference a a few months makes. Since the end of the season things have gone from bad to worse for the Red Sox, if that even seems possible. For a variety of reasons, the team is easily having their worst offseason since 2011-2012 and just when it seems like it can’t sink any lower, they find a way.

From underwhelming player transactions to mixed messages coming from the front office, from an owner sniping at his own newspaper to a manager at the center of a bombshell cheating scandal, this offseason has been a complete train wreck for the Red Sox. Let’s go through each of these one at a time.

Team Building:

During the slog that was the 2019 season, we kept waiting for then-President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski to make some moves that would improve the team’s woeful pitching (as well as the gaping hole at second base) and give them the shot in the arm they needed to get back into contention. However, as the July trade deadline came and passed, all we got for our troubles was the underwhelming Andrew Cashner and a third place finish.

As fans waited for something, anything to happen in the lead up to the trade deadline, Dave Dombrowski was non-committal and evasive as to whether the team would make a move and add another impact player or two while a few weeks prior, owner John Henry stated matter-of-factly that he wasn’t looking to add any payroll.

That message was solidified further by the end of the season when Henry stated that the team needed to reset the tax penalties by getting under the $208 million threshold and that they had known this “for more than a year.”

It seemed as though the Sox went all-in on this by hiring Chaim Bloom who spent years in Tampa Bay working for a team that continually had to do more with less. Bloom mostly sat out the Hot Stove season, opting instead for low-risk, low-reward moves by signing or trading for players like Martin Perez, Jose Perraza, Kevin Plawecki, Trevor Hildenberger, and Austin Brice while letting free agents RIck Porcello and Brock Holt walk away.

In terms of players already on the roster, the team avoided salary arbitration with Mookie Betts ($27 million) and Jackie Bradley ($11 million) while failing to come to agreements with Andrew Benintendi and Eduardo Rodriguez.

The trade rumors surrounding Mookie, Bradley, and David Price continue to swirl, so far they’ve come to nothing.

While nobody really expected Bloom to go all out on the higher-priced free agents this offseason, I’m sure most of us also didn’t expect him to do so little to improve the team’s real areas of need. In a move that seems to sum up Bloom’s offseason thus far, there was mutual interest between the team and reliever Steve Cishek, but the team didn’t want to pay him the $6 million he eventually got from the White Sox.

As of the time of writing, the Red Sox haven’t really done much to bolster their lineup beyond the aforementioned low risk signings, but they also haven’t done much of the payroll slashing they proclaimed they were dedicating this offseason to. In fact, as of right now the team sits at $234.6 million in commitments, not even $10 million less than where they ended last season and a far cry from the $208 million threshold they said they wanted to get under. All of that leads to…

Mixed Messages:

As someone who has worked for both small privately owned companies as well as large global corporations, one thing I’ve learned in my career is that inconsistent leadership and mixed messages are death for morale and productivity. It seemed as though the Red Sox had a unified message heading into the offseason with John Henry and the soon-to-be-fired Dave Dombrowksi preaching fiscal restraint and the goal of resetting the tax penalty. The hiring of small-market Chaim Bloom and the numerous minor moves he’s made thus far seemed to corroborate that.

More from Red Sox News

• 10 grievances against the Boston Red Sox in honor of Seinfeld holiday Festivus
• Red Sox risk repeating rookie mistake with Eric Hosmer release
• Former MLB All-Star slams Red Sox for ’embarrassing’ treatment of Rafael Devers
• Red Sox invited group of players you’ve probably never heard of to Spring Training
• Jeter Downs’ official departure will continue to haunt Red Sox

Imagine the surprise, then, when John Henry went on a bit of a snit (in the newspaper he owns, no less!) by saying that the whole payroll-cutting approach was just “media driven” nonsense and that the plan was always to keep spending and remain competitive. Not only would this seem to be a complete and outright lie given his previous comments mere months before, but it’s a terrible look. He berated the columnist from his own paper who reached out to him (although given that it was Dan Shaughnessy, I’m sure everyone reading sided with Henry on that one) and completely contradicted everything he and the rest of the front office have been saying since last summer.

Beyond making Henry look completely foolish, the worst part of this is that it strips the team (and Bloom, who had nothing to do with Henry’s comments) of their credibility at a time when public perception of the team is at its lowest since the end of the 2011 season (and we all know how incredibly PR-conscious this ownership group has been). As I and others have said for weeks now, it makes the team look directionless and flailing, which as we’re now seeing is exactly what they are. That would seem to be the least of the Red Sox worries at this point, though.

Other Odds and Ends:

There are other smaller but no less damaging hits in public perception the team has taken this offseason. They’ve raised ticket prices yet again after proclaiming their own cost-cutting while apparently not thinking fans might want to do the same (especially after a lousy season and a forthcoming one that doesn’t look much better).

An employee of theirs was convicted of twenty-six counts of sexual assault at the New Hampshire State children’s detention home (to their credit, the team promptly suspended him).  It’s been one thing after another for this team in what’s been their worst offseason in a long time, if not ever.

The obvious comparison to be made here is the 2011 offseason which started with the “fried chicken and beer” scandal and the historic September collapse and ended with the Red Sox out of the postseason. The fallout from that was enormous: Terry Francona was fired and smeared by Henry’s Globe on the way out, GM Theo Epstein resigned, and the entire team (especially Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and John Lackey) were humiliated. The team tried to make things better (unbelievably) by hiring Bobby Valentine to manage the team in 2012…we all know how that turned out and I don’t need to rehash that low point in Red Sox history.

I’d argue that this offseason has been far worse than 2011. Not only does the team seem utterly directionless from ownership and the front office on down, but the talent on the roster has remained stagnant while the Yankees, Twins, Indians, and White Sox (not to mention the still-dangerous Astros and Athletics) have all improved. The team is involved in a cheating scandal which cost them their disgraced manager, there is major uncertainty with their best player, and various other slings and arrows which have all added up to bloody and batter the Red Sox as a brand and as a team.

If the 2020 season is even remotely similar to 2019 on the field, things will get even uglier in a hurry. Regardless, the Red Sox will have no one to blame but themselves as these problems have been almost entirely self-inflicted. This team turned in a season for the ages two years ago and that’s never felt as far away as it does right now.