As Opening Day arrives and baseball returns to America for the 2015 season, the Boston Red Sox are once again presented with the opportunity to rebound from a down year and look to make a run at a second World Series title in three years.
Coming off a 71-91 season in which they finished fifth in the American League East and were the sixth worst team in baseball, the Red Sox have reloaded with hitters such as Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramírez and pitchers such as Rick Porcello and Wade Miley.
Issues that the Red Sox have addressed this winter are the procuring of big hitters to complement David Ortiz as well as acquiring pitching to boost a staff that saw the departures of both Jon Lester and John Lackey in 2014. Following the 2014 season, the Red Sox aggressively pursued the San Francisco Giants’ third baseman Sandoval, who boasts 106 total home runs, a .294 career batting average and owns three World Series rings. Just before signing the man known as the Kung Fu Panda to a five-year, $100-million contract, the Red Sox were able to reunite with former star prospect Ramírez from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 2005, the Red Sox traded Ramírez and pitching prospect Aníbal Sánchez to the Florida Marlins for Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett before going on to win the 2007 World Series. After a five-year stint with the Marlins and a subsequent two-year period with the Dodgers, Ramírez reached a four-year, $88 million-deal with the Boston ball club. While the Red Sox have Sandoval playing third and young player Xander Bogaerts manning the shortstop position, Ramírez will most likely find a new home in the left field shadow of Fenway’s Green Monster.
Looking to bolster a pitching squad that lost the likes of ace Lester to the Oakland Athletics and then the Chicago Cubs, the Red Sox have been busy adding pitchers through trades and signings throughout the offseason. By acquiring former Tigers’ starter Porcello in trading outfielder Yoenis Céspedes, the Red Sox were able to add to a staff that featured Clay Buchholz and Joe Kelly. Porcello is a 25-year-old groundball pitcher who posted 15 wins and a 3.43 ERA last season and primarily relies on a two-seam fastball.
Along with trading for Porcello, the Red Sox front office was able to bring back another former prospect they traded in 2007: Justin Masterson. Coupled with the one-year, $9.5 million-contract that Masterson signed in early December, the Red Sox continued to add to their starting rotation by trading Rubby De La Rosa and Allen Webster to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Miley. The former Diamondback who later signed a three-year deal with Boston brings a deadly slider and a seldom-used curveball to the rotation and is set to be the fourth starter. Steven Wright, a rookie knuckleballer who has been working with former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield during Spring Training, is set to fill in for the injured Kelly at the beginning of the season.
While the Red Sox have plenty of upsides this year, there are still many question marks surrounding the team and its ability to succeed. A big issue with the 2015 Red Sox team is its lack of an ace. While the Red Sox front office has done its best to put together a rotation that can compete with fellow American League teams such as the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers, they have failed to acquire an arm that can effectively replace Lester as well as be the headliner for the rest of the staff.
After losing Lester to former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein and the Chicago Cubs, the Red Sox entered into trade talks with the Philadelphia Phillies over ace pitcher Cole Hamels. However, talks broke down when the Phillies wanted prospects, like Mookie Betts, Henry Owens or Blake Swihart, all of whom proved too valuable for the Red Sox to lose for the 31-year-old starter. While most of the premiere free-agent pitchers have already been signed — Lester to the Cubs, Max Scherzer to the Nationals and Jeff Samardzija to the White Sox — the Red Sox will most likely have to rely on a trade deadline deal in order to land an ace. With teams like the Phillies, the Cincinnati Reds and the Miami Marlins possibly having down years, the Red Sox could very well be the beneficiaries of a late July salary cap dump in the form of Hamels, Johnny Cueto or Mat Latos.
Other question marks facing this year’s Red Sox include the ability for Dustin Pedroia to rebound from a season in which he was plagued by a nagging hand injury as well as the need to find an everyday catcher after learning of a right elbow sprain in Christian Vázquez’s throwing arm.
Even through all of the issues and questions surrounding this year’s highly touted Red Sox, the hometown ball club finds themselves in the unusual situation of feeling pressure to succeed in a weak division after a sub-par season in which they finished 10 games below .500. However, the last time the Red Sox were asked to rebound from a season in which they missed the playoffs and finished last in the AL East was 2013, when they won the World Series.
