Standings Aside, Red Sox-Yankees Series Barometer For Future

There is no mistaking the fact that the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees aren’t where they want to be.

The two squads are separated by just two games in the American League wild-card race, but will each miss the postseason barring some sort of miracle. The expectation is that the Red Sox and Yankees will each see their season end on Oct. 1, giving them an early start on building back toward contention in 2024.

That doesn’t mean these final games don’t matter, however.

In fact, the series Boston and New York will compete in at Fenway Park this week will show us a lot about where each franchise could end up in the near future. Let’s take a look at how both teams got here, and how they can fight their way back out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into.

New York Yankees
The 2023 season has been an abject disaster for the Yankees, who entered with the second-best odds (+800) to win the World Series and were all but mathematically eliminated from contention by September. New York has been ravaged by injuries, with Aaron Judge (54 games missed), Nestor Cortez (12 starts), Anthony Rizzo (44 games missed), Luis Severino (18 starts) and Jose Trevino (88 games missed) all missing significant time with injury. That entire list, save for Judge, is done for the year.

In what looked like a positive sign for future success, top prospect Jasson Dominguez came up and started raking for the Bronx Bombers, but tore his UCL just eight games into his career and will miss most of the offseason recovering from the injury.

The pitching staff has been snakebitten, with Frankie Montas missing the entire season, Carlos Rodón making $27 million a year to procure a 6.60 ERA and Domingo Germán going on a clubhouse tirade and being checked into an inpatient rehab center for alcohol abuse just 34 days after throwing the 24th perfect game in Major League Baseball history. Gerrit Cole might win the AL Cy Young, though, so there’s that.

So, how can New York bounce back? It might take a while.

The Yankees have never had an issue spending money, but a hard reset might be in order if they hope for sustained success down the road. New York is due to pay a $30 million tax bill, and will still have the third-highest payroll in baseball if nothing changes heading into 2024. New York general manager Brian Cashman likely will be retained, but it seems like a long shot that owner Hal Steinbrenner would hold onto both Cashman and manager Aaron Boone.

The most likely outcome seems to be letting go of Boone, hiring an experienced manager and shedding a ton of payroll. If there’s one thing the Yankees have right now it is an abundance of young talent waiting for their opportunity, and they can afford to give those opportunities in 2024 while opening up money for future big swings.

That’s kind of what they do after all.

Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox entered this season in a very different place than the Yankees, with most projecting them to miss the postseason and finish in the bottom half of the AL East.

That’s pretty much where they’re at, but the good part of living up to those underwhelming expectations is that Boston has shown exactly what it needs to compete moving forward: starting pitching.

The month of August was a perfect encapsulation of what doomed the Red Sox this season, with starting pitchers failing to surpass five innings pitched in 21-of-28 starts — with the total sitting at 83 across 142 games. That ain’t gonna get it done. The bullpen has been phenomenal throughout the season for Boston, but a lack of innings from the starters has pretty much gassed the relievers and impacted them tremendously down the stretch.

The defense also needs improvement, which has seemingly been the case since 2020. Things have slowly started to trend upward, but not before the Red Sox found themselves with the second most errors (96) in baseball.

The offense has been solid enough, but has gotten a tremendous amount of production out of players who might not be long for Boston — with Justin Turner and Adam Duvall scorching the ball when on the field. The Red Sox should be fine offensively, though, as Rafael Devers, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida and Jarren Duran will be sticking around for a while. There are a few other names that seem primed to have roles in 2024, as Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu have slowly broken out over the course of the last few weeks. Boston is lucky enough to only have one side of the diamond to (really) worry about this winter.

The Future
In short, the upcoming four-game set between these two squads will be a solid showcase of what is to come. The Red Sox have been dominant this season, and will have the likes of Casas, Devers, Yoshida, Garrett Whitlock, Josh Winckowski, Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford playing not just this week, but around for the future as well. The Yankees, on the other hand, have an opportunity for their youngsters to go out and make a very loud statement at Fenway Park.

It doesn’t mean anything in the standings, but wrapping up the season series strongly would go a long way for either franchise.

You can watch the first three games of the series live on NESN, with first pitch of a day-night doubleheader scheduled for 1:35 p.m. ET on Tuesday, following an hour of pregame coverage.