The best Red Sox rebuild option for 2025 might be to follow underwhelming approach

The melodrama of the Boston Red Sox offseason will continue to intensify with "Do Something!" — the battle cry from Red Sox Nation. But ... how about doing nothing? No significant changes. No peddling highly-touted prospects for much-needed pitching. No scouring the free agent market for the next power bat du jour.

Baseball operations chief executioner Craig Breslow can undoubtedly do the roster-filler dance, collecting parts of various abilities as is done each season but without a headline-grabbing move such as Juan Soto. Do nothing. It's the same formula as the last two seasons.

Examining the Red Sox finish, you must find at least five wins. In the hectic AL East, make it 10 wins for a team that genuinely slogged the last six weeks to an 81-81 yawn.

The easy part to look at is the hitting. The Red Sox produce runs (third in AL), a big reward. However, the Sox whiff far too much (25.2%), and it is a real group effort. If you are a metrics digger, positives and negatives depend on the case you wish to make.

What is known is that Triston Casas, Trevor Story, and the highly-touted Vaughn Grissom missed a pile of games, and that was a lot of batting punch gone stale. Don't expect a repeat in 2025. That is a pile of runs, extra-base hits, and pitching protection.

The farm system is loaded with talent and a wealth of position players. Is this similar to the crop that matured in 1967 of Tony Conigliaro, Reggie Smith, George Scott, Joe Foy, and others?

Roman Anthony and Kristian Cambell may be on the Opening Day roster, with Marcelo Mayer and Kyle Teel making a late-spring/midsummer impact. The system allows management incredible leverage. The patience and reward of previously implied stagnation may be ready to surface.

The question mark regarding the infield concerns second base. BSI has covered how a weakness can suddenly become a glut of prosperity. Manager Alex Cora has a mix-and-match delight on his lineup card.

Depending on Tyler O'Neill's status, the outfield has defense, speed and power. The odd man out could be Masataka Yoshida, who now has the stamp of dead money on his Boston future. Yeah ... we have never seen that before!

What do the Red Sox really need to add to the roster this offseason?

Diving into the statistical mash on FanGraphs, it is a tale of two seasons comparing the first and second half of pitching. The Reader's Digest version is the second half staff "sucked," and that should all be capitalized. So why the optimism? Where can you find wins in that mess?

The first is rotation maturity. Tanner Houck was a solid starter — not ace material — but certainly top of the rotation. The ace, in theory, is Brayan Bello, but saying it means squat unless Bello brings it to the next level. Kutter Crawford left a positive impression on us, and then you have the return of Lucas Giolito, who just exercised his 2025 option for $19 million.

The Red Sox are adept at roster filler, and that does not mean — as much as we would like — dumping multi-year deals that approach $200 million on the next great. They'll go on the cheap and re-sign Nick Pivetta or a clone, or look for a Michael Wacha or James Paxton-type for short-term risk/reward, with risk generally being the winning hand. Expect more of the same, which is a tune for management to play once again.

The bullpen killed them in the second half of 2024, piling up innings as the rotation slowly went nova. Recently, we discussed the closer options, which is the core of 2025's bullpen for those who don't measure up in a possible closer contest. There are many "ifs" in this whimsical projection, but a notch up in hitting and pitching gives you the wins for a playoff slot. That said, they would not go on a deep playoff run if they do this. They have defensive liabilities, inconsistent hitting, and ... did we mention pitching issues? This is the foundation on being on the cusp of making a significant impact.

Like the 1967 Red Sox, the foundation was set with a ninth-place finish in 1966, and it all came together the following season. That is what 2025 will be for RSN — a taste, a player development barrage, renewed enthusiasm, and an ownership that may kick in with some fiscal spackle to get them back into flag and trophy territory. A run at the playoffs is possible, but only of the participation trophy variety.