Red Sox Insider Urges Drastic Pivot For Boston Front Office originally appeared on NESN.
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The Boston Red Sox haven’t been true sellers at the trade deadline since 2020, but that may be about to change this summer.
Memorial Day is typically when front offices begin to take stock of their rosters and start to get a good sense of their teams. It’s been two months since Opening Day and a third of the way through the regular season, so there’s a fairly large sample size at this point.
Unfortunately for the Red Sox, they are not in good shape. They enter play on Tuesday last in the AL East with a 22-30 record and a minus-16 run differential. Their pitching and defense have been great, but their offense has been one of the worst in baseball and they’ve been historically bad at Fenway Park.
Craig Breslow, Sam Kennedy and others have talked about trying to add to Boston’s roster at the trade deadline, as the team is still only a few games out of a playoff spot. The postseason odds are not in their favor, however, with FanGraphs putting the team’s playoff chances at 26.9 percent as of Tuesday morning.
Accordingly, Red Sox beat writer Peter Abraham thinks the team needs to pivot and sell at the deadline rather than buy.
“Saturday offered more evidence that the Sox are not legitimate contenders and that their focus should be on changing that for next season,” Abraham wrote for The Boston Globe over the weekend. “The sooner they get started, the better.”
That may be premature, as Boston still has 110 games remaining and the trade deadline is still two months away. If the Red Sox don’t show considerable signs of improvement by the All-Star Break, however, the front office may need to change course and start making moves for next season and beyond.
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