Jason Mastrodonato: Red Sox failing to find momentum heading into Spring Training

Some scattered thoughts on the Red Sox as the truck pulls into JetBlue Park in Fort Myers…

1. The Red Sox are doing a heck of a job alienating both their fanbase and former players this winter, with Matt Barnes the latest longtime player they’ve irritated.

While Barnes was honest and professional in his goodbye press conference this week, he shared more on the Jared Carrabis podcast about what happened when chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom told him he was being designated for assignment.

“I was like ‘why? What’s the logic there?’ You have to explain this to me because I need to know what you’re thinking,” Barnes said he told Bloom. “And it was essentially like, roster construction with having to have some flexible pieces, and on paper, analytically, the last two months of the season were, he didn’t say lucky, but insinuated that.”

Barnes then told the Carrabis podcast it “makes me happy” that the Red Sox will be paying part of his salary while he pitches for the Marlins this season, and that he has June 27, when the Marlins are in Boston, “circled on my calendar.”

It’s not surprising Barnes wants to stick it to his former team now, but this part is surprising: why on earth were the Red Sox wasting valuable ninth-inning opportunities on Barnes in the final two months of the 2022 season if they actually thought he wasn’t very good?

If their “on-paper analytics” were indicating he sucked in August and September and was only getting lucky, why did they keep sending him out in the ninth inning when they could’ve been giving the ball to young players who might actually benefit from a confidence boost and experience closing out games?

Here’s one more nugget from Barnes, who told the Globe what many in the organization must’ve been thinking about the Sox’ inability to retain any players from the 2011 draft:

“Honestly, the person that I would have expected to stay in Boston there for their entire career from that draft would be Mookie,” Barnes said. “The fact that he isn’t there is still crazy to me. But such is the nature of the business, right?”

2. FanGraphs expects the Red Sox to win 82 games, though they leave room for improvement if players like Connor Wong, Reese McGuire, Bobby Dalbec and Adalberto Mondesi take huge steps forward.

...continued

swipe to next page