The Boston Red Sox are just a few wins from clinching a playoff spot for the second year in a row following a three-year hiatus. It's been a successful year on paper for the Red Sox, especially given all of their early-season chaos. But it's hard not to wonder... what if this team had been healthier in 2026?
Deadline acquisition Curtis Mead barely got to play at all for the Red Sox, and now he could be done for the season. Garrett Crochet made just six starts for Boston. Roman Anthony lost the bulk of what was supposed to be his first full MLB season. Justin Slaten's season is now over prematurely.
Everywhere you look on Boston's '26 roster, there are questions about what could have been. Mead is a potent right-handed bat who was supposed to add not only extra thump to the lineup but also infield depth.
Crochet is a much bigger theoretical. Last year's AL Cy Young runner-up pitched just 30 innings for Boston this season before landing on the IL with shoulder inflammation. In essence, the Red Sox rotation has been missing its true ace for nearly the entire year.
Red Sox's 2026 season comes with a huge "What if?"
Garrett Crochet has, as of today, spent 120 straight days on the IL with a pitching arm injury, which voided his player opt-out after the 2030 season.
— Gordo (@BOSSportsGordo) August 23, 2026
The Red Sox will now have a $15M club option for the 2032 season instead. pic.twitter.com/Pbt2Wg36M1
Anthony’s absence was also tough to swallow for months. He hit .292/.396/.463 with an 140 OPS+ in 71 games as a 21-year-old in 2025, leading many to crown him Boston's franchise player moving forward. This year he played 30 games, then tore a ligament in his right ring finger on a check swing in early May. It was a freak injury that a hand specialist told reporters he had never seen isolated that way.
The Red Sox couldn't have expected Anthony to miss as much time as he did, and the somewhat mysterious nature of the injury made it impossible to plan for when he'd come back. It was a perpetual "when's he coming back?" buzzkill situation for the organization and its fans for months, not that Anthony is to blame.
Anthony and Crochet's absences alone make one wonder if the Red Sox would have already clinched by now had those two been healthy for most of the season. Certainly the Wild Card, no? The division is a harder argument, based on how good Tampa Bay has been all year. But we can realistically assume that the Red Sox would at least be battling the Yankees for the wild-card lead right now (or better) had Anthony and Crochet played more games.
Alas, that's all water under the bridge, and this roster is still on track for October baseball, thanks to a historic surge after the All-Star break. This is a more patched-together version of the Red Sox than any Boston fan would have preferred, but such is often the consequence of a 162-game marathon. Even so, no matter how Boston fares in the postseason (outside of a run to the World Series), fans will always be asking "What if?" about this year.
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