Big Swing? Red Sox ‘Committed’ To Adding In Offseason

The Boston Red Sox have made it very clear they don’t intend to continue to toil at the bottom of the American League East standings.

In fact, it seems like they’re ready to take a big leap this offseason.

Amid Boston’s final season series with the New York Yankees, Red Sox general manager Brian O’Halloran appeared on “The Greg Hill Show” to discuss the team’s future — including those currently on the roster, and those who could be come 2024.

“We’re disappointed being a game over .500,” O’Halloran said, as transcribed by Red Sox Stats on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “We’re committed to improving that, committed to doing things this offseason to be in a much better spot next year. We do have an emerging young core, despite the disappointing season, there have been some real positive from young players, both here in Boston and in the upper levels of the farm system.

“We’re optimistic that we’re on the upswing from that standpoint, but we need to add, and ownership is definitely committed to doing what it takes to improve the team this offseason to go into next season with a chance to win a championship.”

If taking a broad view at the Red Sox’s season, it isn’t hard to see where things have gone wrong. The starting pitching staff dealt with injuries at the beginning of the year and ran out of gas by the end of it, with Boston clearly understanding its biggest need comes in the form of rotation help.

“We’re going forward,” O’Halloran said. “We believe that we are poised to have a good run here with the talent that we have built up and started to integrate into the big league team with, more coming. We know that we have a lot of work to do this offseason, particularly on the pitching side, and we’re ready to do that.”

“Ownership is definitely committed to doing what it takes to improve the team … to win a championship.”

Red Sox general manager Brian O’Halloran

Luckily for Boston, the market is set up for it to add multiple front-line starters via free agency. The Red Sox are back below the tax and will enter the offseason with just the ninth-highest payroll in Major League Baseball.

That means there’s money available to sign any free agent the Red Sox may like. The starting class is pretty solid, as well, with All-Stars like Aaron Nola, Blake Snell and Sonny Gray all available. The prize of the class (non-Shohei Ohtani division) might even be Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was teammates with Masataka Yoshida in Japan and has been scouted by Boston.

There are plenty of directions the Red Sox can go this offseason, it’s just a matter of their preference.