The Red Sox are officially out of the running for a 2024 MLB playoff spot, which means Boston can shift all of its focus to the future.

Craig Breslow and company are about to embark on a crucial offseason. This season proved the Red Sox aren't too far away from being a contender, but the club will need to make at least a few improvements to be among the league's best next season.

What will those boosts entail? Breslow shed light on Boston's offseason priorities Thursday morning when he joined WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show."

"I think we need to figure out how to balance out our lineup," Breslow said, as transcribed by WEEI's Rob Bradford. "Obviously, it's left-handed heavy and a number of our young players who will be impacting the big league club shortly are also left-handed. I think we need to figure out how we balance that out to not leave ourselves so susceptible to left-handed pitching. We can never have enough starting pitching. We can never have enough quality starting pitching so I think looking at starting pitching is the other area of focus for us."

Story continues below advertisement

Those remarks will sound familiar to Red Sox fans. Boston faced the same needs leading up to this year's MLB trade deadline, but the moves Breslow made before the final months of the season proved to be unfruitful. Thus, the Red Sox will go back to the drawing board in hopes of ending their postseason drought in 2025.

As for how those improvements could be made, Breslow on Wednesday confirmed he will look into the trade market and not rely solely on free agency.

    What do you think?  Leave a comment.

Featured image via Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports Images