By all accounts, the Red Sox mean business this offseason. Agents who have been in touch with the team said as much at the GM Meetings this past week, and executives from other teams across the game have echoed the same thoughts: the Red Sox are driven to improve and are willing to again put their money where their mouth is.
That’s how it should be, of course. But several years of self-imposed spending limits predictably resulted in a downturn in performance on the field. The team’s 81-81 record this past year was its “best” since 2021. Turns out that an unwillingness to invest in the roster led to poor play and declining interest. Who knew?
Despite the renewed efforts to content, however, the team’s fan base is taking all of this with the proverbial grain of salt. Blame it on too many years in which the Sox sat out the bidding for top talent, and unfounded promises (”Full throttle”) from club officials.
Mention that the Red Sox are interested in some top free agents or in serious talks to acquire a talented starting pitcher, however, and no matter the level of detail in the reporting, fans react as though they’re being treated like suckers, mocking even the suggestion that the Sox are again serious in their pursuit of star players.
That’s completely understandable. But it shows that for many fans, trust has been eradicated. The Red Sox have earned the fans’ skepticism. It’s up to the Sox to prove that this time, they mean business.
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* Other than Drake Maye — pretty much a no-brainer at No. 3 — Eliot Wolf’s first draft is so far is one giant bust. Wideouts Ja’Lynn Polk (second round) and Javon Baker (fourth round) have been massive disappointments, and offensive linemen Caedan Wallace (third) and Layden Robinson (fourth) have underperformed and injured.
It’s all well and good to stockpile picks, which the Patriots have been doing. But if you’re not selecting the right players with the picks, they’re pretty meaningless.
* Doc Rivers may be a nice guy, but as a coach, he remains highly overrated. Lured out of coaching retirement by the Milwaukee Bucks, Rivers has a 19-26 record in a little more than half a season with the Bucks. In 26 seasons, he’s reached the NBA Finals twice — both with the Celtics. He’s won one title, and that came when he had a roster with three Hall of Famers. He also has a habit of bailing — he walked away from the Celtics, and then years later, ESPN.
* The Patriots’ offensive play-calling has been more than suspect at times this season, but at least they’ve acknowledged the obvious: there’s no need to design running plays for Drake Maye. Maye has shown the ability to extend plays and salvage some broken plays with his scrambling, but deliberately putting him in harm’s way makes zero sense.
* The Bruins can be thankful that they’re not playing in the Metro Division, where they would already be dead and buried in the standings. In the Atlantic, where they reside, only the Florida Panthers are off to a strong start.
* Disclaimer on Apple+ took quite a turn in its final episode. Both Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline were phenomenal.
* Here’s hoping more teams follow the lead of the Cincinnati Bengals, who went for a two-point conversion in the final minute against Baltimore Thursday night rather than be satisfied with a game-tying point after. No one goes to a game hoping their team can force overtime. “Came here to win,” explained Ja’Marr Chase. What a novel concept in the usually play-it-safe league. Are you listening, Jerod Mayo?
* Yup, Jayson Tatum got a raw deal during the Olympics. Can we all move on now?
* It’s a good thing that the Mets and Yankees enjoyed terrific seasons, because the football season is not going nearly as well for New York sports fans.
* Craig Breslow traveled to Japan late in the season to watch Roki Sasaki pitch in person, as did a handful of executives with other teams. Sasaki is thought to be among the most talented pitchers in the world, and because of his age (23), he’ll not be subject to the kind of all-out bidding war that centered on countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto was a year ago. He’ll be treated as an international amateur, with his signing bonus capped the way Shohei Ohtani’s was when he first came to North America.
But don’t get your hopes up — nearly everybody expects him to sign with the Dodgers, joining both Ohtani and Yamamoto. Like the Kansas City A’s were to the New York Yankees in the 1950s and 1960s, the NPB has become a feeder system for the Dodgers.
* I see that J.J. Reddick Era is off to a strong start. If your coach is storming off the podium because he didn’t like a post-game questions 10 games into the season — and his NBA coaching career — it’s probably not a good sign.
* Just in case you’re thinking about taking the Grammys seriously, know that if the Beatles win for Record of the Year for “Now and Then,” it would mark their first such award.
* If you’re reading the tea leaves do determine whether Jim Montgomery has “lost the room,” consider this: Montgomery has come down hard on two of the team’s biggest stars and in both instances, the players — first Brad Marchand, and then David Pastrnak — copped to their mistakes and essentially admitted that their coach was right. If there were real issues, neither player would have gone out of his way to defend Montgomery’s actions.
* This probably bears repeating at this time of year: When you read reports about interest in a particular free agent or a potential free agent signing, 99 percent of the time, that information is coming from an agent, and not a team. Almost without exception, teams do their best to keep such information from getting out. You’d think people would have that figured out by now.
* It’s cute that Scott Boras still believes that the powers that be are interested in his thoughts about how to improve baseball. Every year, Boras offers up his vision for adjustments to playoff formats and other issues and pretends that Rob Manfred and owners are taking careful notes. It doesn’t matter that some of what Boras proposes constitutes common sense. Ultimately, MLB’s decision-makers wouldn’t concede that the sky is blue if Boras said it first.
* The Yankees’ decision to pick up Aaron Boone’s option for the 2025 season without offering him an extension feels somewhat ominous. It makes little sense for the team to go into next season as the defending American League champs but with a lame-duck manager with no job security.
