When did the Red Sox abandon their quest for a power bat?

Let me preface this by saying there’s still a little bit of offseason left. The Red Sox could turn around at any moment, make a stunning trade for a big stick, and instantly shift the narrative. But for now, the offseason is beginning to solidify, and it doesn’t look good for anybody hoping the front office would improve the middle of the lineup.

Around baseball, we’ve seen the following moves in just the first few days of February: The Red Sox sent Jordan Hicks packing in a salary dump to the White Sox, Eugenio Suarez signed back with the Reds, the Mariners acquired Brendan Donovan from the Cardinals in a three team deal with the Rays, Framber Valdez signed a $115 million contract with the Tigers (an absolutely wild thing for Detroit to do mere hours after taking Tarik Skubal to arbitration), and the Red Sox agreed to a one -year deal with Isiah Kiner-Falefa for $6 million.

So to summarize this action from my perspective: The Red Sox cleared some payroll space with Hicks, the last big power bat went off the free agent board, the last big starting pitching prize went off the free agent board, the Cardinals moved the last infielder they’re likely to move this winter, and the Red Sox used the money they saved on Hicks for 2026 and gave it to Kiner-Falefa.

With that, there are no more big ticket items left in free agency, and opposing teams are increasingly unlikely to to pursue elaborate deals with each passing day. The window is still open for more trades of course, but they will become increasingly difficult to pull off as we approach spring training and the World Baseball Classic.

So it raises the question: When did the front office accept that the lineup was going to look like this? When did they become tolerant of this much missing thump? I ask not in anger, but in genuine curiosity.

My anger already peaked back when they let Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso go to the Mid Atlantic, couldn’t align with Arizona to get a deal done for Ketel Marte, and allowed negations with Alex Bregman to fall apart to the point he went to the Cubs. Once those things happened, I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with any of the obvious solutions left on the table.

Quick aside on that topic. Earlier this week Dan asked our Over The Monster (OTM) community if the Red Sox should have pursued Eugenio Suarez, and I gotta say, I’m thrilled they didn’t! In addition to his obnoxious strikeout numbers, Suarez also manages to ground into an above average number of double plays while providing well below average baserunning and defense. The only thing he does well is hit for power, and with his 35th birthday coming up later this year, that’s liable to disappear at any moment. This is a bullet dodged as far as I’m concerned!

So to be honest, I’ve mostly spent the last couple of weeks waiting and seeing where the chips land so we can get on with things. And now that the concrete appears to be drying, I’m left wondering exactly how this winter played out inside the walls of Fenway. Specifically, when did the decision makers abandon the quest for a big bat?

Did they go into the offseason knowing the main focus would be on pitching and defense, and then just spin fiction in December when they talked about giving a boost to the offense? Did they completely misread the market for sluggers like Schwarber and Alonso and decide the contracts weren’t worth it? Did they consider Willson Contreras, a guy who has never hit 25 home runs in a season, an acceptable pivot to check the right-handed power box? Did they think Bregman would take their offer all the way until the end and then were left without a backup plan when he didn’t?

There are so many compelling questions about the timeline here and they all impact my faith in the front office to build a championship team going forward. Oddly, I’d almost feel better if they lied and had already decided going into the winter that they were building a team completely centered around pitching and defense. In this world, their top priority was always run prevention, and they were fully accepting they might go into spring with a lineup that would still need improvement as the season progressed, particularly with the uncertainty of Triston Casas and the question marks surrounding the performance of Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell in 2026.

Of course, this flies directly in the face of the comments they made back at the end of 2025, but this organization is known for spewing BS on a consistent basis, so it almost makes the most sense if they were just lying again here.

The other extreme is, of course, that they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, but I’m less inclined to believe that because, despite some serious question marks surrounding the options they’ve let slide off the board, this roster is actually really, really solid. Incomplete? Sure! Pieces that still don’t fit like a fresh puzzle? Yep! A very annoying lack of power? Yes, again.

But if you can get beyond all that, and I was only able to do so after spending the whole month of January seething, their pitching and defense appears to be the real deal. Perhaps as good as we’ve seen from a Red Sox squad. Here’s their current starting pitching depth in the general order I’d expect them to be deployed for now:

And that’s before you add in the fact they have Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman closing things out in the back half of the bullpen.

Add in the very underwhelming signing of Kiner-Falefa (at least from an offensive perspective), and they can also run a defense out there that includes Rafaela, Anthony and Abreu in the outfield, and Story, Mayer, Kiner-Falefa and Contreras in the infield. There’s not a single subpar glove in that bunch with the majority of them being above average (and in some cases well above average) fielders.

In other words, this is a legitimate run prevention unit! They’re going to win a bunch of tight, low scoring games, even if they don’t have thump in the middle of the order. Can you imagine if the Sox would have just communicated this better? I’m not here to say people would be happy with the Kiner-Falefa signing, but he’d look much more like one of the last missing pieces to the puzzle if the product promised was specifically focused on the defensive side of the ball.

I’m still really irked by the underwhelming nature of the middle of this lineup no matter how you stack the pieces, but I also think they could add a bat midseason, which is a heck of a lot easier to do than add a big arm.

So I’ll ask one more time, when did the Red Sox decide a big bat wasn’t the priority?

When did the Red Sox abandon their quest for a power bat?

Tags: