3 fatal decisions since the 2021 ALCS that put the Red Sox in this mess
A lot of Red Sox fans would agree that the past couple of seasons have not necessarily gone to plan for the franchise.
Back-to-back last-place finishes in the AL East, a lack of financial commitment from the front office, and no real sense of direction for the team have left fans disillusioned and jaded. Who would’ve guessed that the team that made it to the ALCS in 2021 was going to fall apart so suddenly?
The pace at which the Red Sox team that won a World Series six seasons ago has fallen apart is impressive — and not in a good way. Boston has moved backward from any goodwill it had with fans and lost all positive momentum it may have held coming out of the 2021 season.
A competitive team that could hold up against the toughest opponents has been replaced with a squad that seems to accept defeat, at no fault of the players. The front office does not want to do anything to fix any holes the Sox may have.
There’s been so much recent negativity that it may be hard to remember how fans ended up with the Boston Red Sox in their current state. We've rifled through the archives and chosen the biggest missteps since the 2021 ALCS that have buried the Red Sox in the basement of the AL East, with no real hope for improvement.
3 fatal decisions since the 2021 ALCS that put the Red Sox in this mess
Signing Trevor Story
At the time, signing Trevor Story seemed like a good idea. Story is a two-time Silver Slugger-winning shortstop who could slide into second base seamlessly, allowing Kiké Hernández to stay in center field. He was another stud in an infield that already boasted one of the best partnerships in baseball in Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers.
Even the contract didn’t seem terrible at 6 years, $140 million. On paper, the Story signing made all the sense in the world. But signing Story hasn't gone the way Red Sox Nation hoped it would.
Story has played a measly 137 games for the Red Sox across the last two seasons, fighting multiple injury issues along the way. During the time he has spent on the field, fans have seen career-worst numbers from Story, only accumulating 3.3 of his 30.1 career WAR with the Red Sox. Story's offensive numbers lend more evidence to the Coors Field Theory, which suggests that any offensive talent from Colorado should have a 20% tax applied to their offensive numbers to get a truer sense of their performance.
Many Sox fans were wary of the Story deal from the jump — Boston signed a shortstop when Bogaerts was still on the team before they had finished discussing a potential extension. If the Red Sox wanted to find another productive middle infielder that offseason, there were plenty of other names available. Marcus Semien signed for seven years at $175 million and Corey Seager signed for 10 years at $325 million with the Rangers and Carlos Correa signed his three-year deal with the Twins.
Signing Story probably led to a Bogaerts, a 10-year Red Sox and one of the team leaders, walking the next offseason and barely getting any helpful production out of him seems like a major misfire.
The Bogaerts-Eovaldi-Martinez triple loss of the 2022-23 offseason
A homegrown talent at a position that has always been in flux throughout Red Sox history, the best possible follow-up designated hitter to David Ortiz that the Sox could have asked for, and a postseason hero who had developed into the strongest pitcher in Boston's rotation all left in three months.
The 2022-23 offseason felt like the true burial of the 2018 team after Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, and Nathan Eovaldi all left the Red Sox in free agency. There was never a chance the team resigned all three of them and the front office never would have matched the 11 years and $280 million that Bogaerts got from the Padres. But it is infuriating that the team didn't get anything in return for any of these three players.
Bogaerts and Martinez leaving were big losses, but Eovaldi was the biggest loss out of the three, considering the lack of production from the starting rotation in the seasons following his departure. This is not to suggest that resigning him would have made Boston a playoff team, but not having him certainly didn't help. His performance in the playoffs for the Rangers in the 2023 postseason shows just how much the Red Sox missed out on.
The front office traded Mookie Betts so they could say they got a return for him before losing out in a potential free-agency bidding war. However, they completely disregarded the idea of return on investment when it came to three good trade pieces.
Bogaerts could have ended up in a trade for a good return package in 2022 after the Red Sox had signed Story. Martinez and Eovaldi both could’ve ended up as half-season rentals for teams looking to make a big push, like the Red Sox shipping Jon Lester to Oakland in 2014.
If they had gotten some sort of return out of these players, maybe some talented prospects or solid veterans to help along the young players in a clear transition period for the roster, Red Sox Nation wouldn't be as upset as it is about losing three key players and fan favorites. But letting Martinez, Eovaldi, and especially Bogaerts walk for nothing in return shows an obvious lack of commitment from the front office and is a spit in the face to fans of the team.
The commitment to cutting payroll above anything else
In 2021, the Boston Red Sox ranked 6th in the MLB in terms of payroll, according to Spotrac. Three of the five teams ranked ahead of them were playoff teams, including the World Series-winning Astros. The Red Sox remained sixth in 2022 after losing a lot of players to injuries that year. Last season, they fell to the 13th-highest payroll. The plan set forth by the front office to continually shed payroll has worked but has come at the expense of not fielding a competitive baseball team.
The Red Sox are currently projected to have the 10th-highest payroll in the league in 2024, but CEO Sam Kennedy has said that they are looking to shed additional payroll before the season. The attempts to treat the Red Sox like a business where the margins are extremely fine are killing the team. All of these businessmen in the front office only view things as a business opportunity, and in a marketplace like professional baseball, there’s always going to be younger and cheaper potential players who can take the roles of these more expensive veterans.
As much hate as fans rightfully give owners like John Fisher, Robert Nutting and Bob Castellini for not wanting to spend money to benefit their teams and their fan bases, John Henry and FSG rightfully deserve as much criticism. FSG is trying to get away with doing whatever it wants because Henry and Tom Werner have managed to bring success and championships to Boston in the past.
All of the other questionable decisions that have been made over the past few years could be excused if the front office was attempting to be competitive and fulfill Boston's big-market expectations, but they're not. The front office is an embarrassment, and ownership's focus on margins over performance and quality of product on the field has caused all of the issues plaguing the Red Sox right now.
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