Well, maybe not. But they’re not going to be Oakland A’s horrible this year. Boston has Trevor Story back from his injury that limited him to 43 games last year. They also traded for Vaughn Grissom to be their everyday second baseman.

Their biggest issue is what it was last year, starting pitching. They signed Lucas Giolito to eat some innings, but he injured his elbow in spring training and is out for the season. So the starting pitchers this year are Bello, Pivetta, Crawford, Whitlock, and Houck. So as a Redsox fan this doesn’t excite me.

But what does excite is the offensive/defensive lineup that this years team has. It’s a much better defensive team than last year, when they had Kiki at SS. They would’ve been better off not even fielding a SS last year the way Kike played.

Triston Casas is average to above average at 1B, but his offensive numbers are great. He had a horrible April, but after that he was a top 5 hitter in baseball. He needs to avoid a slow start this year and he could hit over .300/38/100/.910 OPS.

Vaughn Grissom is an above average fielder that has only committed 4 errors in 153 chances at 2B. He’s not going to be a guy that hits 20-25 homers, but they don’t need that.

Trevor Story looked great at SS in the 43 gams he played last year. His hitting wasn’t great, but you’d expect that. With him playing a full season, I expect him to hit .280/20/75/.750 OPS.

Rafael Devers is obviously an offensive monster, but he needs to cut down on errors at 3B. That’s the only negative with Devers. When he plays bad in the field it tends to translate to bad AB’s

Connor Wong will be a good defensive catcher for them and has shown he can come up clutch at the plate.

The Redsox outfield is stacked with talent and looks on paper as one of the quickest in MLB.

Tyler O’Neill playing in LF will help hold runners to singles, instead of doubles when Yoshida played there last year. I look for him to have a big jump in his power numbers and using the Green Monster to his advantage.

Cedanne Rafaela, the rookie sensation gets the nod at CF. Rafaela and Duran may platoon at CF. He needs to cut down on his strikeouts, he swung at some bad pitches when he played last year.

Jarren Duran will be in RF, platooning with Wilyer Abreu. Duran was playing well until he hurt his foot. Look for him to have a great offensive season in 2024.

The starting pitchers are what they are. Bello needs to be better in day games, than he was last year. If you look at his splits, he was much better at night and his ERA was a full point higher in day games. He was shot at the end of the year and that hurt his overall numbers.

Nick Pivetta started last year and ended up in as a long/middle reliever role. He whined about that a little, then embraced it and was very good in that role.

Tanner Houck is good, but can’t get through the line up a third time, and that’s obviously not good. That was one reason why the bullpen arms were done the last 2 months.

Kutter Crawford and Garrett Whitlock could be sneaky good this year. Both have worked on some different pitches in the off-season and spring training.

Kenley Jansen is the closer. He gives you panic attacks as a Sox fan. But he doesn’t seem to like being in Boston. He’s already been complaining and hasn’t played much in spring training. His last two outings he’s pitched well, and I hope he can be a dominate closer.

If he can’t be or the Sox trade Kansen then Liam Hendricks will be the closer, but not until the trade deadline since he’s recovering from an elbow injury

That’s my look at the 2024 Boston Red Sox. As I stated earlier they won’t be Oakland A’s bad, but they will be good and could, with better defense, be in a wild card hunt like they were last year. They cratered in mid August because all the bullpen pitchers arms were falling off.

Photo Credit; Over the Monster, The Denver Post

By : Owen Roberts

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