The rest of the world is talking about the Red Sox for the first time in three years, so I thought—why not get the Register Forum involved, even if 95% of CRLS doesn’t care? The 2025 Red Sox are no longer a team reliant on glass-half-full ideologies and solar-powered flashlights to plug roster holes, but rather a no-frills playoff team with youthful energy and elite depth to boot.
This offseason, in redemption for the “full throttle” fiasco of 2023-2024, Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow crocheted a garment that patched the Red Sox’ former swiss-cheese outfit. In December, Breslow got the yarn spooling by weaving together a deal for White Sox flamethrower Garrett Crochet. Then, instead of taking a much needed day off during the holidays, Breslow signed playoff liquidator Walker Buehler to a one-year, $21 million pact. Finally, after a sleepless two months of reloading the google search “red sox news,” the genie was called upon for the third wish—this time in the form of two-time World Series champion third baseman Alex Bregman, who agreed to a Bregman-not-Bargain three-year, $120 million deal.
I concede that this roster is still inferior to the Dodgers mega-superteam (I’d name names, but word count…) but also no clear weakness. The starting pitching, which finished with the seventh-best ERA a season ago but with the flair of a rubber chicken, now has the pulled pork & mac and cheese in Crochet to complement the already-solid meatloaf and shepherd’s pie (Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, etc.) that fill out the rest of the menu. The bullpen, which had the consistency of a chalk smoothie, now has the chance to take the bull by the horns with the additions of Aroldis Chapman, Liam Hendriks, and Garrett Whitlock. The outfield, with a full year of defensive wizard Ceddanne Rafaela, is almost as certain to be the best defensive group in the sport as Wemby is to win DPOY (reverse-double-anti-jinx activated). Finally, the recent “leaky faucet” infield defense is likely to manifest improvement in the form of a Bregmanian presence at the hot corner and the fairy-tale defense of Trevor Story at shortstop.
It is worth acknowledging that this pie in the sky view of the Red Sox roster is flawed for two reasons. For one, not every player is going to perform as well as my reverse-osmosis-engineered Advanced Extrapolated Projection System (AEPS) mathematically forecasts. Second, injuries are sure to rear their ugly head, a reality that has already set in with Bello, Crawford, and Lucas Giolito expected to begin the season on the Injured List.
However, what sets this group apart is the depth of talent across the board. Last year, the lack of depth led to misplaced position assignments and replacement-level talent when ailments took Rafael Devers, Triston Casas, and Story for chunks of the season. This year, the Sox have solid pitching depth in Richard Fitts, Quinn Priester, and others. On the flip side, the Big Three prospects of Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, and Marcelo Mayer are legit plug-and-play options with perennial all-star upside.
This article also appears in our June 2025 print edition.
