The Red Sox are 9-16 — eighteen months after trading Rafael Devers — and Craig Breslow wants you to believe this is a talent deployment problem. “We have a bunch of good players who are not performing up to their potential right now, and that’s going to turn,” he said this week — a framing that is carefully, strategically incomplete. It locates the failure in the players, not in the decisions that assembled them.
That reframing should make you furious.
Boston traded Rafael Devers to San Francisco on June 15, 2025, receiving Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison, James Tibbs III, and Jose Bello in return. The front office’s thesis was coherent, if aggressive: absorb the short-term pain of losing a franchise third baseman, redirect $271M in savings toward elite rotation talent, and build a pitching-first contender. Eighteen months later, that thesis has not merely failed — it has collapsed so completely that it’s almost instructive. Hicks posted an 8.20 ERA and was traded to the White Sox in February 2026 with a prospect attached just to shed him. Harrison, the headliner, now pitches for Milwaukee at a 2.61 ERA — for someone else. Tibbs III landed with the Dodgers in the Dustin May deal and is posting a 1.206 OPS in Triple-A, for someone else. The entire return package is gone. Every piece.
The only Devers trade asset still wearing Boston red is Jose Bello, whose ERA sits north of 6.75.
Meanwhile, the savings went to Ranger Suárez (5 years, $130M) and Sonny Gray — both acquisitions the organization celebrated as evidence the plan was working. Suárez has been mediocre. Gray has been on the IL since April 20 with a right hamstring strain. The Red Sox also extended a $165M offer to Alex Bregman to plug the Devers-shaped hole at third; he took the Cubs’ money instead.
So: no Devers, no Bregman, no healthy Gray, and a rotation that ranks 25th in MLB by ERA (4.88–5.05) with an xERA of 5.67 — third-worst in the league.
And this is where the blame needs to land precisely, because the bullpen is not the problem. Boston’s relievers carry a 3.56 ERA, 10th in MLB. The bullpen has done its job. The starters haven’t come close to doing theirs, and the team’s record reflects it in the starkest possible terms: the Red Sox are 8-0 when a starter goes six-plus innings. They are 1-15 in every other game.
Garrett Crochet is 72nd out of 73 qualified pitchers. His velocity has slid from 96.3 mph to 95.6 — touching as low as 94.5 in his worst outings. His count-control rate (pitches thrown ahead in the count) dropped from 31.5% last season to 25.2% this year. On April 13 against the Twins, he lasted 1.2 innings, allowing 9 hits and 11 runs — the first Red Sox pitcher ever to surrender 10-plus runs in under two innings. He called it “embarrassing,” said he “let the guys down,” and insisted the velocity will come. He may be right. He may bounce back.
Jose Bello went out on April 24 against Baltimore and allowed 5 home runs and 13 hits in under four innings. Thirteen hits in under four innings — the first Red Sox pitcher to do that since 1936.
Cubs win streak: 10
Total wins this season:
Phillies 8
Mets 9
Red Sox 9
Royals 9— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) April 25, 2026
Alex Cora, asked about Crochet’s health after that Twins start, said: “He’s healthy, so that’s the most important thing.” Which is the kind of answer that makes sense coming from a manager managing up, trying to protect a guy he needs. But it also captures how thoroughly this organization has convinced itself that the plan is still intact — that the issue is timing, not structure.
The wRC+ is 81. Slugging is .333, last in MLB. The offense lost Devers and never replaced him, which everyone knew going in; the calculation was that the rotation would compensate. The rotation is the problem. The rotation was always going to be the plan’s load-bearing wall, and every beam in it is cracked or missing.
Breslow’s other line this week — “decisions made at the height of emotion are generally bad decisions” — landed as a subtle dig at the fans demanding accountability. Maybe. But decisions made with misplaced confidence in a trade return that was already unraveling aren’t better for being calm. This team is where it is because the front office bet the franchise’s competitive window on pitching assets that couldn’t hold, signed veterans who are now hurt, and handed a 25-year-old lefty — however talented — a rotation that offers him no margin for development.
The players aren’t underperforming their potential. They’re performing exactly as the construction of this roster implied they would.
