The 2016 Boston Red Sox are a polarizing team. On the one hand, they have an exciting young core, an exciting new alpha and omega for their pitching staff, several high-upside veterans and Brock Holt. On the other, they have a paper-thin pitching staff, a questionable outfield, an even more questionable situation at third base and a high-variance bullpen.
It’s easy to envision this team winning 90-plus games and finishing atop a wide-open AL East. It’s also easy to see this team flirting with .500 and missing the playoffs yet again. With that in mind, the BP Boston staff sent in their predictions for how the Red Sox will end up in 2016, and the results lend themselves to more optimism than you might imagine:
For those of you scoring at home, here’s how the averages turned out:
Our staff is pretty optimistic about the Red Sox overall, generally believing we’ll earn a playoff spot and flirt with a 90-win record. We’re also very high on the seasons David Ortiz, Mookie Betts and David Price are about to have. We’re confident Hanley Ramirez can bounce back — only Dustin Palmateer strayed from Hanley as his comeback selection — and we’re less than optimistic about Rusney Castillo.
What does all this mean, of course? That the Red Sox will win 70 games, Betts will be terrible, Price will struggle and Castillo will hit .300/.400/.500. And next year, PECOTA will still like us better than the Royals.
Feel free to drop your own predictions in the comments below!
*indicates not an actual staff answer
Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images
They will go 80-82 and you will write many column inches of material wondering how you all managed to miss the developments that SHOULD have been so obvious to all…This is why they play the games, and this is why we love baseball.
88-74
1st
ALCS
25
21
.287
.415
12
19
24
Great*
40
Bogaerts
Bradley Jr.
Castillo
Ramirez
89 win 1st from there who knows price 20 wins
88 wins 1st price wins 20 plus games hanley bats 300 30 hrs