Red Sox GM sets the bar high for next season
The Winter Meetings are here and our sights can officially be set to the horizon. Though things have been pretty quiet this offseason the Meetings can open the door for the Red Sox to begin wheeling and dealing. One thing that’s certain, Boston can’t afford another disappointment like they’ve experienced these past two years. A massive fall from grace by a team that won it all just two seasons ago, but Brian O’Halloran thinks that can change in 2021.
The Red Sox general manager is optimistic that the team will once again be playing meaningful baseball next October. This all seems like a bit of a leap from the front office boss as it looked like Boston shouldn’t even have been allowed to watch postseason baseball in 2020. But things are a bit different for the squad moving forward and that may be what has sparked the optimism in O’Halloran.
"“We want — and we expect — to compete for the postseason and beyond in 2021,” O’Halloran said Monday. “As we’ve stated numerous times, our long-term goals are to be competitive and have a championship-caliber team year in and year out. We need to continue to work on the long-term piece of that as well.”"
It wasn’t long ago that the Red Sox re-hired Alex Cora to be the manager and that very well may be the spark the team needs to turn things around. But it all can’t be on the shoulders of one man as he’s not going to walk into the clubhouse on day one and things will instantly be fixed.
So I find it a bit interesting that BOH thinks that Boston will be back in the postseason in 2021. Obviously, he can’t come out and say the team is trash but he can shoot for not finishing almost last in the league as a starting point.
As weird as this past season was, you don’t just go from the fourth-worst team in the league to October baseball, just doesn’t happen. Well, it does, as Red Sox Nation is well aware of. But how many times can we expect that kind of thing to occur?
Are there some pieces returning in 2021 that could at least allow the Red Sox to make things interesting in the AL East? Sure. But a half a season of Chris Sale and a massive question mark surrounding Eduardo Rodriguez shouldn’t be building confidence.
One of the things that the Red Sox haven’t had to worry about recently was their offense, but even that took a major dive in 2020. Per Fangraphs, Boston finished second for the overall offense in 2018 and sixth in 2019 but plummeted to 14th this season. The bats were the one thing that kept Boston semi-competitive and they didn’t even show up.
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I’m at least optimistic that the offense will once again thrive under Cora so I can’t fault O’Halloran for believing in that aspect of the game. Boston seriously needs to build up their pitching staff though as the starting rotation and relief squad both let the team down in 2020. This is the biggest thing that makes it hard for me to believe in the exec’s optimism.
It’s one thing to put on a brave face and give the lip service, but at the end of the day, it’s better, to be honest. This team needs some serious work and they’re going to put in the effort to get it done. Luckily BOH did just that and walked the fine line of being overly-optimistic while also being realistic with what’s facing the team.
"“I don’t think we think we’re the fourth-worst team in baseball,” O’Halloran added. “We certainly have work to do and want to improve the team both short-term and long-term. I don’t think we go into it thinking we’re whatever the proration was, a mid-sixties win team. We think we have a good team that can compete in 2021, certainly as we make additions to it and improvements.”"
Again, I think it’ll be an incredibly uphill battle for the Red Sox to make it to the postseason in 2021. If the league and MLBPA can once again come to terms on expanding the postseason to more teams as they did in 2020, then there may be a slim chance, but it’s still tough. With the Rays and Yankees far ahead of the rest of the pack, chasing them down won’t be an easy task. I appreciate O’Halloran setting big goals for the team but I think he may have reached a bit too far with this one.