When Does The Window Open?

On Wednesday, the Red Sox brass (or, at least some of the brass — Tom Werner, Sam Kennedy, and Chaim Bloom were present, but not principal owner John Henry) sat down in front of the media to officially announce Rafael Devers’ contract extension. The principals once again reiterated their belief that they are building an organization that will consistently contend for championships, year in and year out.

Which is nice, really.

But it’s also nothing new; it’s merely a reiteration of what John Henry has stated (and to be fair, what he has generally backed up — count the ringzzzz) since he first arrived in 2002. But moreover, with respect to 2023, at least, it doesn’t seem plausible on its face.

After finishing with 78 wins in 2002, the Red Sox have used this offseason to improve the bullpen (probably, at least), while doing little to improve the offense, and doing nothing whatsoever to improve the starting rotation, simply employing a strategy of “let’s run it back again, and hope that two aging, oft-injured starters don’t get injured this time.”

In other words, they are treating 2023 as a bridge year, and not planning on truly contending until 2024, if not 2025. To be clear: this is a perfectly defensible strategy! (Or, at least, it’s defensible if you consider the last place 2022 team as the starting point, and not the 2019 team that was one year removed from wining 108 games and featured three homegrown stars under the age of 26, anyway). And yet, the brass simply refuses to admit with what their actions have made so obvious.

Why?

In this episode of the Over The Monster Podcast, Dan and Bryan dug into just that question, along with the latest Trevor Story news. Then, they tried to mentally and emotionally gird themselves for the next piece of bad news by engaging in a Negative Visualization exercise. It went pretty much exactly the way Marcus Aurelius intended.

As always, thanks for listening.