For a pair of teams who share the same division and have represented the American League in the World Series a combined eight times over the last 40 years, the relationship between the Blue Jays and Red Sox has been remarkably tame. There's no signature clash, no recent season where one stood in the doorway and blocked the other, and no real palpable animosity between the fanbases.
1935 - The National League takes over the bankrupt Boston Braves franchise after several failed attempts to buy the club. 2018 - The Braves sign free agents Josh Donaldson and Brian McCann to one-year deals. Donaldson will appear in 155 games while hitting .259/.379/.521 with 37 home runs. McCann posts a .249/.323/.412 line with 12 home runs in 85 games before retiring at the end of the season.
Happy Tuesday, Red Sox Nation! With Thanksgiving around the corner, MLB's offseason is defrosting with the turkeys. The Mets and Rangers made a one for one major league trade and the Mariners brought back Josh Naylor, but apart from that, there hasn't been much movement. Maybe today's the day we get a nice appetizer before the meat and potatoes hit the table.
With the starting market providing some high potential but no true home runs, I'm personally of the belief that Boston should try to find a No. 3 in the free agent market and conduct a trade to bring in a true No. 2 behind Garrett Crochet (I will pray every night this offseason that Joe Ryan or Hunter Greene somehow make their way to Boston).
The Red Sox have been linked to some of the top hitters in free agency this offseason, like Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, and Munetaka Murakami. Of course, they're also strongly in the mix to re-sign Alex Bregman. But they could improve their lineup via trade, too. In fact, The Boston Globe's Alex Speier recently reported that he suspects the Red Sox won't sign two of "premium" bats in free agency this offseason, but could look to add a complementary bat
Triston Casas was once projected to be a key cog in the Red Sox' next wave of top young talent. But, after breaking through with a 23-homer season in 2023, the power-hitting first baseman has seen his career derailed by injuries and a sizable dip in production. He has appeared in just 92 total games over the last two seasons, batting .222 with 16 home runs and 43 RBI over that stretch.
Yesterday was the deadline to add prospects to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft, a bizarre mechanism whereby teams can swipe veteran minor leaguers from each other, under the condition that the selecting team needs to then keep that player on the big league roster for the remainder of the following season. The Red Sox added three minor leaguers to the roster:
Let's start with this: in 97 games last year, Braiden Ward stole 57 bases and was only caught 7 times. Over the course of his minor league career, he has stolen a total of 211 bases while only being caught 33 times. For reference, David Hamilton stole 185 bases while being caught 32 times in the minors. Ward is one of the fastest men in baseball.
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He's Tristan Gray, and he comes from Missouri City, Texas. He went to Elkins High School, which also produced longtime big leaguers in Matt Carpenter and James Loney. While MLB talent has gone through Elkins, the indoor drumline might have been more of a draw. They had a dynasty from 2001 to 2008, winning six state titles over that span. Gray was presumably more interested in baseball than drums, going on to play college baseball at Rice and summer ball with the Falmouth Commodores.
That's right, on Monday night, the Watertown Wombats completed their undefeated rec league slow pitch softball season, winning the championship by a final score of 19-9. Congratulations to me and my teammates. In other news, it was roughly this time last year when the Red Sox made their first move of the offseason, signing Justin Wilson to a deal.
Back in the summer of 2020, I wrote about Jackie Bradley Jr. and the Red Sox's response to protests across sports in reaction to the BLM movement, spurred by multiple instances of police brutality against Black people across the country. I never ended up publishing this article, but I needed to put my thoughts on the situation into words somewhere, whether it be public or not.
Appointed as Dave Dombrowski's successor as Boston's chief baseball officer in October 2019, one of Bloom's first orders of business with the Red Sox was to determine the future of franchise star Mookie Betts. Bloom and the Red Sox - unable to come to terms on a long-term extension with Betts - ultimately traded him to the Dodgers in February 2020 (along with David Price) in exchange for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wong.
It took a little bit for Bello to get going after a brief IL stint to open the season, but from mid-June though August, he was on a roll. Funny how so many things got better in the middle of June. I wonder what changed? Anyway, over a span of 14 starts Bello had an ERA/FIP split of 2.42/3.80 for 89 innings.