Goodness knows, it's happened before. The Red Sox enter an off-season (after a disappointing year) flush with hopes of making a big Winter splash. Then:
nada, nothing, bupkis. If
J.D. Martinez is scooped by another interested team (or returns to Arizona),
and Eric Hosmer can't stand leaving all those barbecued ribs in Kansas City (is there some
other attraction we're missing?),
and Giancarlo Stanton becomes the new
Barry Bonds in San Francisco—
then where are we? Boston could just as easily get two out of three of the above outcomes
or get totally skunked. In the "skunked" scenario, we are
really in trouble. We would likely settle for a 1B/DH mix of
Hanley Ramirez,
Carlos Santana or
Logan Morrison—none of which would solve the obvious power shortage problem. These lower-cost options would give us more dough to improve the bulllpen and get a legitimate back-up for the injured
Dustin Pedroia—but will those moves excite the fan base? Not bloody likely. The bottom line is:
Dave Dombrowski had better get busy with some of
John Henry's cash.
