While we continue to figure out where to put all this snow from the last few days, the baseball season is already almost a week old, as the Red Sox opened their Grapefruit League schedule down in Florida on Saturday against the Twins.
Believe it or not, MLB Opening Day is exactly one month away, with the Giants set to host the Yankees on March 25 in what will be the first ever baseball broadcast on Netflix. The Red Sox open their regular season one day later in Cincinnati, and are scheduled to make their Fenway debut (snow permitting…only half-joking) on April 3 against the Padres.
After an offseason of swings and misses at thumpers for the Red Sox offense, the Boston front office was able to make a killing adding to their starting rotation, trading for three-time All-Star Sonny Gray and signing one-time All-Star Ranger Suarez to a five-year, $130 million deal.
Gray, a righty, and Suarez, a lefty, join a staff headlined by Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet, arguably giving the Red Sox the best one-two-three combination in the American League. Add in what Brayan Bello was able to become for Boston for most of the 2025 season (11-9, 3.35 ERA), along with the bevy of exciting young arms to choose from for that No. 5 role, and you’re looking at a rotation that went from an injured, depleted group to end last season to what is now the true strength of the team.
In addition to the pitching staff getting reinforcements, the lineup card will also see two new infielders in the mix in 2026. In late December, the Red Sox traded for Cardinals first baseman Wilson Contreras - a player who once upon a time was the catcher for a Cubs team that won the World Series in 2016, and has since become a durable, consistent bat for St. Louis at a corner infield spot. A month and a half later, the Red Sox traded for yet another bat from the NL Central, acquiring infielder Caleb Durbin from the Milwaukee Brewers. Durbin is 26 years old, and is coming off a season in which he finished in third place for NL Rookie of the Year.
They’ve got new arms, they’ve got new gloves, they’ve got a bunch of young players ready to ascend, and they have a superstar in the making in Roman Anthony.
…this team might be in good shape after all?
On Wednesday, live from Fort Myers, The Greg Hill Show asked Red Sox team president Sam Kennedy if the organization felt confident that this approach to roster building would still allow Boston to compete at a high level in 2026.
“Is the feeling that the defense and the flexibility of your roster will compensate for the lack of 30-home-run-power that's projected this season?” asked WEEI’s Chris Curtis.
“Starting pitching was clearly a priority for us in the offseason,” said Kennedy. “Adding to bullpen depth, stronger infield defense, certainly important. And run prevention is a big part of the game. But you have to score runs, and we have high expectations for this group on that front.
“So, yes - pitching and defense are critical, but I think if you look at the lineup and you look at the guys that we have in there, I don't think we should count out guys having the ability to hit 30-or-more home runs. Obviously, they have to do that, and here we are in February - it's easy to say that. But it's not something that we're - we have high expectations on the offensive side of the ball as well.”
According to FanGraphs ZiPS projections, the Red Sox are the only team in baseball without a single hitter on their roster projected to hit at least 20 home runs this season.
Of course, these numbers aren’t a final grade, by any means. Heck, think about last season. Was there a single person who would have predicted the types of seasons we saw from Trevor Story or Carlos Narvaez? These things have a way of looking very wrong by about midsummer.
With that being said, those projections certainly speak to an organizational philosophy that has been implemented by Craig Breslow - pitching, defense and flexibility matter.
We’re a little more than a month away from seeing if this hard shift towards run prevention was a gamble worth taking.
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