Time to get caught up on the Red Sox

For many of us, baseball is a 365-day season, with action going on all year and something to talk about just about each and every day. If that describes you, this post may not be your cup of tea. Others have spent the last few months totally focused on the Patriots and football season in general and have put baseball on the back-burner until the end of that season. Said ending came Sunday night, and though it certainly didn’t end how we wanted, this is often dubbed the unofficial start of baseball season. (I know the Celtics and Bruins still exist, but I don’t make the unofficial rules.) That it matches up with Truck Day just makes it that much more perfect.

If you are among those who haven’t really been following the baseball landscape since the end of October, I’m here to help you. I’ll get you all caught up on what’s happened with the Red Sox so you can go to work and impress your friends/enemies with all of your crazy baseball knowledge. They’ll be like, wow, that guy/gal knows what happened in baseball. Crazy!

• The Red Sox have a new manager. Alex Cora, who you may remember from Red Sox infields last decade, came over after winning a World Series as Houston’s bench coach. Cora is an exciting addition to the organization and by all accounts should have the ears of the younger players as well as some more progressive strategies. The bad news is we’ll have to find a new hashtag to replace #FireFarrell for when the fanbase inevitably turns on Cora in May. #CanCora? We can do better. Sleep on it.

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

• Boston has made one major-league signing this winter to go with zero (0) trades. That signing was to bring back Mitch Moreland, a first baseman who has had exactly one above-average year at the plate (by wRC+) in the last five seasons. That’s not to say Moreland doesn’t have his pros. He’s strong defensively, the team as a whole seems to like him a whole lot, and if he is kept in a platoon role his offensive ceiling gets larger. It was an underwhelming signing, but Moreland will not be the difference in this season.
• Although a signing hasn’t come, Boston has been connected to J.D. Martinez all winter long. Depending on who you listen to, they have a five-year offer worth somewhere between $100-$125 million out to the slugger, but he’s clearly looking for more. There hasn’t been much publicly known competition to the Red Sox in the Martinez market and the presumption is still that they will end up with him. He is willing to wait them out, though, and it’s entirely possible that the Red Sox will be running out the same lineup as last season and hoping for better results.
• The Yankees, meanwhile, got one of the best hitters in baseball when they traded for Giancarlo Stanton early in the winter. New York already had one of the scariest lineups in the game, and now they are the presumed favorite in the American League East. That being said, the extent to which they are favorites is likely being overstated right now.

And......that’s about it. In case you couldn’t tell, you haven’t missed much. There have been other moves around the league — the Angels are suddenly among the most exciting teams in baseball — but it’s been a historically slow offseason. Now, as we wait for more action we are also getting ready for spring training. The Patriots couldn’t take home the ultimate prize, and now our lonely eyes turn to you, Red Sox.