The way the Boston Red Sox have started the 2026 season has been nothing short of atrocious. The offense looks asleep at the wheel, the defense is worse than last year's at this time despite plenty of offseason talk about serious improvement, the pitching out of the rotation and bullpen has left much to be desires and Craig Breslow's offseason additions haven't performed as well as he hoped.
All of these issues have led to a disastrous 2-7 record to start the season, the worst in MLB. Red Sox fans are upset at the team's downfall after making the playoffs last season for the first time in four years — so much so that "sell the team" chants were heard on NESN's broadcast of Boston's April 5 game against the San Diego Padres.
While this may be the first time that Red Sox fans' anger at ownership has drawn the attention of fans across the country, they've been calling for a change in the front office for years. Fans of other teams are seemingly at a loss for why, because Boston has won four titles since 2004.
While winning is everything and the Red Sox have been the winningest team in terms of championships since the turn of the millennium, effort and attitude in losses are also something. Boston's front office has been lacking in genuine effort to improve since the year after its most recent championship in 2018.
Won a WS in 2018 btw https://t.co/YfctHYoxOD
— Redbirdriot (@RedbirdRiot) April 5, 2026
Not even a decade later, no players remain in Boston from that championship team, the winningest team in Red Sox history. They traded Mookie Betts for a bag of balls, let Xander Bogaerts walk after a pitiful contract offer and traded Rafael Devers for peanuts.
The Devers trade only gets worse when one looks into the details. Not only was he under contract for the next eight seasons, the breakdown of his relationship with the front office was its own fault. The Red Sox planned to replace Devers with Alex Bregman, with whom it failed to reunite after a pathetic series of negotiations over the offseason. Devers was — and still is — sorely missed in Boston for his ability to hit home runs and post competitive at-bats, two skills the Red Sox desperately need.
The Chris Sale trade was also an unmitigated disaster. The Red Sox no longer have Vaughn Grissom, their return in the deal, and Sale won his first-ever Cy Young Award immediately after his trade to the Atlanta Braves. Tanner Houck was Boston's best pitcher that year, and he fell apart after the All-Star Game.
Breslow has made some excellent trades since he took over as chief baseball officer of the Red Sox before the 2024 season, such as the Garrett Crochet deal, but his failures stand out much more than his successes at this moment.
Fans around MLB confused as Red Sox fans call for John Henry, FSG to 'sell the team' after 2-7 start to 2026
So far, he's been unsuccessful at replacing Bregman's offensive production with Caleb Durbin and his defensive skill with Willson Contreras. Ranger Suárez has struggled in his first two Red Sox starts and Johan Oviedo has been added to the injured list with an arm injury. It's still early and the players have time to bounce back, but neither Durbin nor Contreras have the ceiling Devers or Bregman have.
Breslow attested multuiple times that he hoped to sign a bat of that caliber — an impactful, middle-of-the-order bat — over the offseason, but did not succeed. He could've had Bregman if Red Sox ownership was willing to give him the no-trade clause that he deemed so important, but Boston's brass would rather have a free pass to get out of any expensive situation rather than field a good team.
For years, the Red Sox's promises have not aligned with their execution. Their last World Series win was eight years ago and they haven't made a genuine effort to field a winning team since then. Fenway Park has become a money printing facility for John Henry and Fenway Sports group, not only because Boston fans will never stop coming, but because it's a tourist destination. The Red Sox don't have to be good, and in fact, it's more profitable if they aren't, because Fenway will still sell out on an almost nightly basis.
To opposing fans, Henry looks like an incredible owner for adopting the "Moneyball" philosophy early and bringing in four championships that way, but his ownership has become entirely profit-focused. Journalist Joon Lee partnered with More Perfect Union to give an incredible explanation of what happens when sports ownership becomes driven by profit and when private equity enters the picture (spoiler alert: it's nothing good).
Red Sox fans may look and sound spoiled to fans around the league, but they don't have the same knowledge of the front offices operations as Bostonians do: hire a new CBO, tell him to tell fans that they're going to spend big and make huge moves to win championships, fail and fire him after three seasons, repeat. Breslow seems headed down the same path, and he'll take the blame for some of the team's failings, but Red Sox fans will see right through his firing, as they did with Chaim Bloom.
It's not wrong of fans to want an ownership change when their favorite team's owner takes no accountability for the team's losses, which are, in this case, entirely self-inflicted. It's okay to want more for your favorite team, even if they've won a lot, because that's what being a fan is. It's more than okay to demand more from billionaires. And it's only right to ask for accountability after promises go unmet and the Red Sox continue to be incredibly disappointing, yet still have the nerve to be one of the most expensive teams to follow.