Sonny Gray's brilliant debut season with the Boston Red Sox concluded with a 2.72 ERA over 169 innings, making him an obvious candidate to receive some love during awards season. He can already add one feather to his cap in that regard, as the MLBPA have nominated him as one of the finalists for the American League Pitcher of the Year award.
The problem? The other finalists are Cam Schlittler of the New York Yankees and Dylan Cease of the Toronto Blue Jays. Not only does their presence effectively guarantee a third-place finish for Gray in the voting, but it's also a reminder of just how darned good the pitching is in the AL East these days.
Including the Red Sox, who led the AL in pitcher fWAR this season (23.3), five of the top six teams in that category hail from the same division. Only the Cleveland Guardians at No. 3 were able to break up the AL East's monopoly on pitching value in the Junior Circuit this year.
In other words, it should be more clear than ever that to compete in and, ideally, win this division, you have to be able to put runs on the board against elite competition.
Red Sox are missing the power hitters they need to support their elite pitching staff
It's true that you don't need to sell out for power to win. The Rays, who are on their second World Series trip this decade, are title contenders because of a contact-heavy approach; they had the lowest strikeout rate (18.8%) and whiff rate (20.7%) of every MLB team this season.
But that kind of offensive philosophy takes years of meticulous drafting and developing to accomplish. The Red Sox have certainly tried to acquire players of that ilk in recent years, but it's far easier to pay for (and build around) power in the modern game.
And within an organizational context, power is a bigger need for the Red Sox right now anyway. They ranked a respectable fourth in the AL in batting average (.245) but just ninth in slugging percentage (.398). By hitting just 163 home runs as a team, they finished 26th in all of baseball in over-the-fence power — and six homers behind the so-called "small ball" Rays.
This has been a known issue for some time, something which the front office failed to address properly a year ago. They must rectify it heading into 2027, lest they waste another year from their elite pitching staff.
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