The Red Sox have a lot of work to do to turn this club around.
We’re only a few weeks into the schedule and this already feels like a lost season for the Boston Red Sox.
A seven-game losing streak has dropped the 6-16 Red Sox to the bottom of the American League standings. Only the Pittsburgh Pirates have been worse in Major League Baseball. The Colorado Rockies own a collective batting average (.280) that is higher than Boston’s winning percentage (.273).
The Red Sox were swept in four games at home by the Tampa Bay Rays and they are now on the verge of getting swept by the Yankees in their four-game trip to the Bronx. They are already 9.5 games behind New York in the AL East and seven games out of a Wild Card spot. The expanded playoff format won’t save them with two of the league’s best teams residing in their division.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom is as frustrated as the rest of us. He never could have imagined the club would sink this low when he took the job but he’s come to realize that there’s a lot of work to do in order to return this franchise to contention.
"“Obviously the results have not been what we wanted,” Bloom told The Boston Globe. “We knew that we were down a couple of pitchers and that this was going to be an area of our team that was a work in progress, and certainly we’ve gotten really poor results so far.”"
We knew from the moment that Mookie Betts and David Price were shipped to the Dodgers that this was a rebuilding year. After missing the postseason last year, Boston wasn’t suddenly going to get better by trading away a former MVP along with a former Cy Young award winner.
The Red Sox still had enough talent to be competitive but then they lost Chris Sale to injury and Eduardo Rodriguez to COVID-19 complications. This left them with a woefully undermanned rotation that has used 11 different starting pitchers in 22 games.
Bloom has failed to replace these significant losses to patch together a viable rotation but he hasn’t been given much to work with. The mandate from ownership was clear when he arrived. Cut payroll in order to reset the luxury tax penalties and start restocking the farm system.
Boston went all in to win a championship in 2018, gutting the farm system and loading up on expensive contracts that led to the highest payroll in baseball. It worked out with a World Series trophy but the strategy was never sustainable. Eventually, the bill comes due and the Red Sox are paying for it now.
More from Red Sox News
- Bizarre trade deadline comes back to haunt Red Sox after Nathan Eovaldi departure
- Red Sox’ Moneyball-style offseason continues with Corey Kluber contract
- Rich Hill’s Red Sox departure puts him within striking distance of unique MLB record
- Red Sox offseason takes another nasty hit with Nathan Eovaldi departure
- Why Red Sox fans should be rooting for Carlos Correa’s Mets deal to go through
A step back in the short term in order to reposition themselves for the future was expected but nobody believed it would be this bad. Viewing themselves as contenders wasn’t realistic but we thought they would at least be competitive.
Bloom emphasized that long-term sustainability is the priority. Of course Boston’s brass is going to claim they expect to compete. What else are they going to do, tell fans to tune out because they intend to be awful this year? Obviously that’s not the message they want to say publicly even if they are internally aware that it’s a necessary step in order to put the club’s future back on course.
Reset the tax to create financial flexibility moving forward. Get a high draft pick to add a desperately needed blue chip prospect to their system. Trade away expendable veterans at the deadline to restock the farm with assets.
That’s the goal for 2020. That’s the smart way to manage an organization that was saddled with too many expensive contracts and few impact prospects to replenish the roster with cheap talent. We knew it was necessary in order to achieve long-term success. We just didn’t realize it would be this painful to watch.