Perhaps the title of “Renaissance man” is thrown around too much. Sure, folks can be talented in multiple different disciplines of the arts. Culture is a broad spectrum that reaches billions, and the beauty of it is that its auteurs and practitioners can reach across any construct of division that might separate us: race, gender, creed, language […]
about 6 hours ago | 0 reads
Hello one and all, and happy Saturday. To those who will be in attendance: happy Fenway Fest to you and yours! I won’t be able to make it this year, sadly, as I missed the boat on ticket inventory. I gambled that the event wouldn’t sell out, and I lost. If it’s your first time, […]
about 7 hours ago | 0 reads
Good morning. Camp Story is wrapping up somewhere in Texas. Time to do some scrapbooking: Talk about what you want, write to your new camp buddies, and be good to one another.
1 day ago | 0 reads
There’s a long history of people being associated with things they never *exactly* said. On July 15, 1979, exactly 18 months after I was born, Jimmy Carter gave a speech about a “crisis of confidence” in America that’s commonly referred to as the “malaise” speech, despite Carter never having used the word. But the brain […]
1 day ago | 0 reads
It’s early January in Boston. Every day, or so it seems, there is the dreaded wintery of sleet/snow/rain/ice and of course wind. But over the next month there will be more and more stories about guys “in the best shape of his life” and heading to Florida for Spring Training. And as soon as those […]
2 days ago | 0 reads
Last night, the Colorado Rockies signed RHP Michael Lorenzen to a one-year, $8 million deal, and while that transaction may appear totally irrelevant to the Red Sox on the surface, it does leave Boston as the only team in baseball that hasn’t spent a cent on a major league free agent so far this winter. […]
2 days ago | 0 reads
The Red Sox are set to host another edition of Fenway Fest this weekend, which looks to be heavily focused on players, autograph sessions, and stories of the 1986 team. It doesn’t appear there will be any sessions with ownership or the front office, which is unfortunate because those have provided some of the most […]
2 days ago | 0 reads
It’s the most exciting time of the offseason: free-agency arbitration agreement time! Tomorrow is the deadline for clubs and players eligible for arbitration to agree to new contract terms or duke it out in front of an arbitration panel. The Sox have five eligible players: Triston Casas, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, Romy Gonzalez, and Johan […]
3 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning! Dustin Pedroia is not going to be elected to the Hall of Fame this year. But he’d get in if Kevin Youkilis was the sole voter. Youk made an appearance on MLB Network this week and talked about his old teammate and some other interesting things, like how World Series winning teams divide […]
3 days ago | 0 reads
Over the holidays, my father told me he was going to send me a Tim Wakefield bobblehead that he found in a junk pile at his house. I didn’t have high hopes for this, given that description of its provenance, but it arrived last week, and it’s beautiful. Truly awesome. Opening it, I felt moved—by […]
3 days ago | 0 reads
Who is he and where did he come from? He’s Matt Clyde Joe Teran Fraizer, and he comes to us from Clovis, California via the University of Arizona and the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. The Red Sox signed him as a minor league free agent last week after he was released by the Pirates. […]
4 days ago | 0 reads
Who is he and where did he come from? He’s Matt Clyde Joe Teran Frazier, and he comes to us from Clovis, California via the University of Arizona and the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. The Red Sox signed him as a minor league free agent last week after he was released by the Pirates. […]
4 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning! Truck Day — as overexposed as it has become in the FSG era — is often likened to Groundhog Day as a harbinger of spring. So it’s kind of wonderful that, thanks to the World Baseball Classic, Truck Day is coming early this year and will land on actual Groundhog Day, February 2. […]
4 days ago | 0 reads
Welcome back to the 2025-26 edition of Smash or Pass, in which we examine potential free agent and trade targets to determine whether the Red Sox should pursue them and what it would take to land them. Today we look at a fireballer out of the bullpen. Who is he and where does he come from? […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning! The holidays are over, it was 14 degrees in Boston this morning, and everyone is back to work. Thus begins the worst, most depressing stretch of the entire year. Can we at least get some interesting Red Sox news to hold us over? No, we can’t. But we can get unsourced rumors about […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
As of this writing the Boston Red Sox, winners of four World Series championships since 2004 have not signed a single free agent for the 2026 season. They have, of course, made several trades but, but big question marks remain as we enter January, and Spring Training officially begins next month. So what better thing […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
Yet another corner infielder comes off the board. This time it’s Kazuma Okamoto, formerly of Bobby Dalbec’s Yomiuri Giants, who reached a four-year/$60 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. I won’t pretend to know how good Okamoto will be stateside — and you should be suspicious of anyone who insists they do. But this […]
6 days ago | 0 reads
The Red Sox are stepping into the 2026 season in a way they haven’t since 2022: off a (short) playoff run. That’s not nothing. While the offseason hasn’t seen any free agent signings — big or small — there have been notable trades. 1. On a recent episode of Effectively Wild both guests, Craig Goldstein […]
7 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning! The internet is ablaze with reports that the Red Sox have “made an aggressive offer” to Alex Bregman. Something to keep in mind here, though: As you can hear in the above clip (start at 7:15), this chatter originated from an offhand remark made by ESPN’s Buster Olney — while he was on […]
7 days ago | 0 reads
2025 may be gone, but the holes in this Red Sox roster are not. With virtually the entire MLB offseason on hold over the last week for the holidays, we enter 2026 with both a Red Sox team that hasn’t participated in free agency yet this winter, and a free agent class that still has […]
9 days ago | 0 reads
For Craig Breslow: Make a decisive long-term decision that may or may not come back to haunt you I want to see Craig Breslow plant a flag somewhere in 2026. Nearly every move that he has made in his two-year tenure has been risk-averse, as seen in the short duration contracts he chases: Trade for […]
10 days ago | 0 reads
Is there a chance that, at age-34, Willson Contreras gets even better next year? As a right-handed hitter who pulls the ball in the air in left field, he’s going to the perfect ballpark. And there is very recent history of a righty coming from St. Louis to Boston and immediately improving in a statistical […]
11 days ago | 0 reads
Welcome back to the 2025-26 edition of Smash or Pass, in which we examine potential free agent and trade targets to determine whether the Red Sox should pursue them and what it would take to land them. Today we look at a catcher who shows versatility and power at the plate. Who is he and where […]
11 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning. Japanese third baseman/first baseman Kazuma Okamoto has traveled to the US to meet in-person with teams in advance of his fast-approaching signing deadline. Regardless of whether the Sox are meaningful players in this pursuit, this should speed up their offseason by clarifying the third base picture around the league. Talk about what you […]
11 days ago | 0 reads
After a series of decisions at the end of the 2025 season, the Red Sox quickly went from a plethora to a dearth of left-handed pitchers, almost overnight. Justin Wilson, who spent a year in Boston, and Steven Matz, who was acquired at the trade deadline, were both free agents at season’s end. Then, at […]
12 days ago | 0 reads