Hollow Words – Déjà Vu: 2024 Red Sox Ready for 2025 Season

All the presents are unwrapped, and an unsettled kids pouts around the holiday tree, toeing empty boxes and crumpled wrapping paper, hoping the golden retriever puppy he asked Santa for might still bound out from somewhere. That’s been the 2024 offseason for fans of the Boston Red Sox with Spring Training set to begin in two weeks.

The migration south begins next Wednesday, February 12th, when pitchers and catchers report. The full squad will be in attendance for the team’s first workout on Monday the 17th. The Friday update:

• On Monday, The Athletic’s veteran baseball talent guru Keith Law named twenty-one-year-old Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony as the game’s number one overall prospect. “He’s got a chance to be a 30-homer, high-average, high-OBP guy in right field, maybe with plus defense there,” wrote Law, “Which is a ‘best player in the league’ profile.” Baseball America currently ranks Anthony at No. 2, behind 23-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki. Anthony is one of the few Red Sox prospects who have held the No. 1 overall ranking. They include Hanley Ramírez (Baseball America, 2005), Yoan Moncada (Baseball America, 2016), and Andrew Benintendi (Baseball America, 2017). All three were ultimately traded.

• On Tuesday, the club added free agent utility man Abraham Toro on a minor league deal. Toro joins David Hamilton, Romy Gonzalez, Nick Sogard and Vaughn Grissom competing for the second base spot with rookie Kristian Campbell. Toro is the first off-season Major League free agent position player signed by the Red Sox in two years. The last was Adam Duval, who agreed to a one-year deal on January 24, 2023

• A report by Josh Yhoe and Rob Rossi of The Athletic said Tuesday that Fenway Sports Group (FSG) is seeking to add an investor to its Pittsburgh Penguins ownership group. FSG purchased the club from former majority owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle in 2021 for $950 million. “FSG takes a relatively hands off approach to its ownership with the Penguins,” read the report, “John Henry and Tom Werner, the co-founders of FSG, occasionally attend games in Pittsburgh and speak on behalf of the team, but in general aren’t fixtures.” 

• Another FSG non-baseball investment, TGL, or Tomorrow’s Golf League, which combines traditional golf with simulated indoor golf, has already started to wobble. Ratings have dropped off 32-percent since it’s premier episode. Fans visiting JetBlue Park on Sunday, March 2nd, can receive a future collector’s item: a free “co-branded Red Sox and Boston Common Golf Cap.”

• Red Sox scouts were among those from eight-odd “unspecified” MLB teams who attended a workout of 40-year-old starter Max Scherzer this week. He agreed to a one-year, $15.5 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday. The three-time Cy Young Award winner made only nine starts with the Rangers last season due to issues with his hand, shoulder, and hamstring. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported Scherzer looked “good enough to be an effective starter.”

• The Brockton Rox have been reborn are set to join the Frontier League under a new ownership group led by Red Sox Hall of Famer Jim Rice.

• Numerous reports this week have all but ended the Alex Bregman-to-Red Sox trade rumors. “The Red Sox have always been an odd fit for Bregman,” wrote Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors Wednesday, “Mainly because of the young position-player talent they’ve got nearing the Majors.” Dierkes doesn’t mention Boston’s hesitancy in both contract length and cost — they’ve refused to offer Bregman a deal longer than four years.

• Nolan Arenado has “has reportedly become more open-minded about what clubs he would approve a trade to in recent weeks,” according to MLB Trade Rumors, but early January reports connecting him to Boston seem to have sputtered.

• The league’s unwillingness to part with draft pick compensation for free agent starter Nick Pivetta might set the stage for a reunion in Boston. Pivetta turned down a one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer after last season. He might be lucky to get half that now, particularly in the wake of the Max Scherzer signing.

• Full-squad Spring Training sessions in Fort Myers are open to the public and free to attend. Single game tickets for April and May home games went on sale the second week of January. A quick search of RedSox.com shows tickets in over half the park still available for the home opener against St. Louis of Friday, April 4th at 2pm. The lowest priced ticket (a bleacher seat) is currently going for $72.00 before taxes and fees.

• The Atlanta Falcons, Utah Hockey Club, Phoenix Suns, and Baltimore Orioles are among the professional sports teams are rethinking conventional stadium food pricing, offering $2 bottles of water and $5 beers. The Red Sox have yet to announce any changes to concessions or their pricing model for 2025. The Street ranked Fenway Park as the second most expensive fan experience in Major League Baseball in April of 2024, behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers.

• Widely loathed “Truck Day” seems to have been quietly, mercifully relegated to a minor league promotional event in Worcester for 2025.

• With the offseason nearing its end, now is a great time to revisit the Red Sox’ end-of-season presser from October 1, 2024 that featured Alex Cora, Craig Breslow, and Sam Kennedy. Cora spends the entire press conference looking like he’s under arrest—part hostage, part weary. Few comments stand out like Kennedy’s shameless bombast: “It’s time to get back and go for that division title, play baseball in the postseason — that’s why we’re here. That’s literally why the three of us are here. That’s our commitment, to do everything we can. And talk is cheap right now. Words are hollow. But that’s what we’re gonna work on this offseason.”

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