When last season ended it wasn’t a secret what the Red Sox needed to do over the winter. The offense lacked a power bat, and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow wasn’t shy about that being among the club’s top priorities.
While the Red Sox roster has improved as a whole, the club failed in that pursuit.
The Red Sox did not land either of the top power hitters on the free agent market — Pete Alonso signed with the Baltimore Orioles and Kyle Schwarber returned to the Philadelphia Phillies — and Alex Bregman wound up leaving to join the Chicago Cubs.
Once that happened the club pivoted to run prevention, signing top free agent starting pitcher Ranger Suarez and trading for infielder Caleb Durbin, a talented young player but not anyone’s idea of a masher. As a result the Red Sox head into 2026 with legitimate playoff aspirations, but also with one of the most power-deficient lineups in baseball.
Breslow acknowledged that aspect of the offseason didn’t work out as planned.
“We don’t think it’s much of a secret, we pursued opportunities to bring in slug and when those didn’t play out we looked at other opportunities to improve the team,” Breslow said on Wednesday. “That said, we’re talking about a large majority of a team coming back that was a top-10 offensive team in baseball with opportunities for guys to take steps forward because of the age and because of the development in front of them. I think there’s going to be slug and power that emerges from this group, but I also think we’ve got a pretty balanced lineup.”
But even if Breslow is correct, how much power potential does this group actually possess?
Models paint dim view
The preseason models do not view the Red Sox’s power potential favorably. According to FanGraph’s ZiPS model, Boston is the only club in MLB without a player projected to top 20 home runs. Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu and Trevor Story are projected as the club’s leaders with 18 each, three others are listed with 17 homers and the numbers sag off from there.
Incredibly, the model even projects that prospects Mikey Romero and Freili Encarnacion, the latter of whom hasn’t even played above Single-A, will finish within the club’s top-10 with 14 and 12 homers, respectively.
The story isn’t much different with the Steamer projection. That model has Willson Contreras leading the team with 19 home runs and only eight players in double figures.
Asked about those forecasts, Breslow said he doesn’t think it’s worth getting overly caught up in public projections, noting he believes in not only the club’s own models but also its players and staff.
“Trevor, right? He’s going to be back and we anticipate another full healthy season and reason to believe there’s even another step forward for him to take given so much of his time here was marred by injuries, and guys like Roman and Willy being healthy for full seasons,” Breslow said. “We may have someone who hits for over 20 home runs, we may not, ultimately we need to win more games.”
Health will be key
One important caveat with the Red Sox’s projections is they do not anticipate a full-season workload for any of Boston’s top hitters. Anthony is projected by ZiPS to play 134 games, Story 132, Abreu 122 and Contreras 116, and Steamer’s numbers are even lower than that.
Obviously health can’t be taken for granted, but if those players can stay on the field they should all comfortably clear 20 home runs.
That might represent an improvement from last year when the Red Sox only had two players top 20 homers, those being Story (25) and Abreu (22). Abreu did so despite only playing 115 games, and even without any proven thumpers the Red Sox ranked 15th in home runs anyway with 186 as a team, coming in just below the MLB average of 188.
The Red Sox also ranked seventh in runs scored (786), and while hitting home runs wasn’t a strength, where the club really excelled was hitting doubles. The Red Sox led MLB with 324, and the 28-double gap between them and the second-place Athletics (296) was equivalent to the difference between the A’s and the seventh-place Phillies (268).
Although the major projection models generally focus on individual players and not on teams as a whole, the Red Sox should be well positioned to lead the league in doubles again.
Would Bregman have helped?
There’s no question that Bregman is a terrific player who would have helped this year’s team immensely. But in terms of power potential, he might not have moved the needle that much.
ZiPS projects Bregman will hit 18 home runs in 131 games for the Cubs, and Steamer has him at 23 home runs in 142 games. Those are certainly better than the projections for likely third base candidates Durbin (10 ZiPS/10 Steamer) and Marcelo Mayer (9/8), but it’s not like anyone expects Bregman to return to his 2018-19 heyday and become a 30-homer guy again.
With Bregman on board the Red Sox offense would have been a supercharged version of what it appears to be today, which is a doubles machine with sneaky pop but which will ultimately rely on putting the ball in play and capitalizing with men in scoring position.
Houses the wild card
There is one player in the organization who does possess legitimate 30-homer potential. The problem is he may also be the club’s biggest question mark.
When healthy, Triston Casas has shown he can be a genuine middle-of-the-order force in the majors. During his lone full season (2023) he hit 24 homers in 132 games, and even when he was limited to 63 games in 2024 he still popped 13 bombs. Over his four big league seasons he has averaged 29 homers per 162 games. The problem, obviously, is he hasn’t been able to stay on the field.
This year Casas’ role is yet to be determined. The club has brought in Contreras as the new starting first baseman and the designated hitter spot is likely to be occupied by Masataka Yoshida and a rotating group of outfielders. Casas also hasn’t fully recovered from last year’s ruptured patellar tendon, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him start the season on the IL and spend time at Triple-A getting regular at bats while completing his rehab.
Playing time may be hard to come by early on, but ultimately the best version of the Red Sox lineup probably features a healthy Casas in the DH spot. It will be interesting to see if that comes to fruition by midseason.
Midseason reinforcements?
Ultimately if the Red Sox want to raise their power ceiling, they’ll have to bring in some external reinforcements. Assuming the Red Sox are in contention as expected, it would make sense for them to pursue a bat at the trade deadline.
The most desirable target would be Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte, who the Red Sox were reportedly in on over the offseason before the Diamondbacks decided to pull him off the trade block. Marte is a switch-hitting second baseman who has recorded three consecutive 25-homer seasons, including a career-high 36 in 2024. He’d come at a high price, but he’d fit perfectly onto this Red Sox roster, especially if Mayer doesn’t wind up taking a step forward in his second big league season, or if someone gets hurt.
Another possible infield bat who Boston could aim for is Brandon Lowe. The former Tampa Bay Rays second baseman hit 31 homers last season but was just traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who appear to actually want to field a proper major league lineup and capitalize on reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes while he’s under team control.
Maybe their offseason additions will pay off, but if the Pirates fall to the basement of the NL Central again Lowe will be an obvious trade candidate given that he’s set to hit free agency at the end of the season.
Best case scenario
Realistically, this Red Sox team isn’t built to swing for the fences, but that doesn’t mean the club won’t be capable of popping a few out from time to time.
And if everything goes right, power might turn out not to be such a weakness after all.
Besides Casas, the Red Sox’s other big wild card is Anthony. Before making his debut Anthony was regarded as a premium power talent who had hit some titanic blasts during spring training and at Triple-A. But for everything else he did well as a rookie, that power didn’t really manifest itself until August, when he settled in and hit six home runs over his final 21 games before suffering what wound up being a season-ending oblique injury.
While it’s best to keep expectations measured, is it really that farfetched to imagine Anthony going off for 30 home runs in 2026? Sure, 20-25 is more realistic, but if Anthony exceeds expectations then he could absolutely become the power anchor the Red Sox need.
Abreu hitting 30 isn’t crazy, either. He hit 22 last year in only 115 games, which equals to 31 over a full 162 games. Alex Cora has also committed to playing Abreu every day, including against lefties, so if he can stay healthy he’ll have more opportunities to boost those totals.
Others could outperform expectations too, and even if nobody reaches 30 home runs, four or five guys getting into the 20s would represent a huge step forward for what was already a pretty good offense. With a vastly improved starting rotation and a roster that looks better equipped to play defense, put the ball in play and capitalize on scoring opportunities, that modest power boost could be enough to elevate the Red Sox into a true championship contender.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.