Are you excited for the Boston Red Sox to start their season?
The Red Sox kicked off their season at 10:10 p.m. on the road for the Seattle Mariners on Thursday, March 28 — the absolute worst start time imaginable for fans on the East Coast. It’s the start of the team’s 10-game road West Coast trip.
As if low expectations for the team weren’t a big enough problem, late start times give people yet another reason not to watch the Red Sox early in the season. That’s a trend that may also continue for the other 152 regular season games.
Such little enthusiasm exists for the Red Sox starting their season, that people in Boston don’t even know who the players are. When NBC 10 Boston did a report about the Red Sox last week outside Fenway Park, the liberal network interviewed five people and asked them to name one current player on the team. Four out of five people failed the test. The only person to pass could only name third baseman Rafael Devers, the highest-paid player in franchise history.
That’s bound to happen for a team that’s coming off back-to-back last-place finishes and one that’s widely expected to finish in last again this season. Baseball Prospectus, for example, projects that the Red Sox will go 78-84 while projecting that each of the other four American League East will win between 87 to 91 games. That means the expectation is that the AL East will be highly competitive this season and several different teams are playoff contenders. There’s just one exception: the Red Sox.
The team struggled last season and did little to improve. There wasn’t a big-name free agent signing, but the Red Sox did trade 2018 World Series champ Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves for Vaughn Grissom, who is already injured. Plus, they signed starting pitcher Lucas Giolito, who may miss the entire season due to an elbow injury.
One of the few bright spots for the Red Sox is that their top three prospects, according to SoxProspects.com, are in the upper minors. Outfielder Roman Anthony, shortstop Marcelo Mayer, and catcher Kyle Teel are all members of the Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox Double-A affiliate) this season. It’s unclear if that will make any difference this season or if the players will develop into valuable Major League contributors, but prospect development is likely the franchise’s only way out of this rut. After all, they’re not signing or trading for any A-list talent.
Maybe the Red Sox will shock everyone and have a great team this year, but I doubt it. They’ve provided people with little reason to believe in them in recent times.
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