It’s easy to talk about how good the Red Sox are right now. They’re really, really good — two games better than the Mets, even! Still, as weird as it might be to say, some spotty performances and injury mishaps could say that the Sox haven’t even hit their actual ceiling just yet. As ridiculous as the Red Sox have been to open this season, what we’ve seen may not even be their best selves.

The bullpen is the most obvious complaint in the early going. The season kicked off with an unfortunate late-inning implosion, after all. Boston’s league-leading pitching numbers look even more impressive when you consider that they currently roster seven arms with ERAs higher than 4.00 when pitching out of the ‘pen — Matt Barnes, Heath Hembree, Brian Johnson, Marcus Walden, Hector Velazquez, and Carson Smith. Craig Kimbrel is an eldritch bullpen horror and Bobby Poyner looks like a nice middle-inning/lefty specialist find, but the team’s potential answers in high-leverage, late-inning scenarios seem limited. A lot of these guys are underperforming their peripherals, and Smith in particular should improve as he settles in as a healthy contributor for the first time since 2015. Still, this is an area I could really see the Red Sox addressing at the trade deadline, as they could benefit greatly from one or two more reliable arms.

Offensively, the Red Sox have looked simultaneously impressive and inconsistent. Runs were a little hard to come by in the early going, as they put up four or fewer in six of the first seven games (two of which went into extras), but they’ve been flowing fairly regularly ever since. Mookie Betts has been ridiculous, as have Xander Bogaerts and Hanley Ramirez. Last year’s power drought feels like ancient history.

And yet, there’s room for a little more there, too. J.D. Martinez is heating up, but he’s still far from his lofty 2017 level and even a ways off from the slightly more modest seasons before that. He’s striking out a little more than usual, and walking a little less. Andrew Benintendi is walking quite a bit and his contact rate is up, but that contact has been weaker — only 17.8 percent of his batted balls are classified as hard-hit on Fangraphs, way down from his 34.3 percent mark last season. Rafael Devers is enduring some growing pains, slugging almost 100 points worse than his 58-game taste of the majors last season.

It’s a safe bet these trends will fix themselves before long, because all three of these hitters are just more talented than we’ve seen from them so far. Martinez probably isn’t going to slug nearly .700 again, but he’s a more disciplined hitter than we’ve seen to this point. He’s also absolutely crushing the ball — a whopping 64 percent of his batted balls are hit hard, across from only seven percent soft contact. Benintendi and Devers are young, but considering what we know about them as prospects, better days should be on the horizon. Even the “bad” version of Benintendi we’ve seen so far has an OBP over .400 and a walk rate near 19 percent in the two-hole of the lineup right now.

Another dimension at play here is that the Boston Sports Injury Plague of 2018 seems to be nipping at the Red Sox heels. Xander Bogaerts hit the 15-day DL almost immediately, cracking a bone in his foot on an awkward slide into the Tampa Bay Rays’ dugout. While the Red Sox seemed to have lucked out in losing him for only about two weeks, the injury drudged up unfortunate memories of seeing about half the Boston Celtics’ roster end their seasons just a few days apart.

Bogaerts will be back soon, but he’s not the only player missing time, either: Eduardo Rodriguez only just returned, Drew Pomeranz is on the way, and Tyler Thornburg is… somewhere. Dustin Pedroia’s new bionic leg is still a work in progress, but he could be ready to go sometime early in May. Between Rodriguez, Pomeranz, and Pedroia, that’s about seven wins (per fWAR) from last year’s team currently sitting on the DL. No team makes it through the year without injuries, and the Red Sox will certainly see other guys miss games, but getting that group back will help.

There’s also the curious case of Mr. David Price, who has managed to make a sterling 2.25 ERA start to the season feel a little nerve-wracking. Three of Price’s four starts have been great, as he’s only allowed one run combined between them. Then there’s the New York start — on April 11, Price allowed four runs in only one inning before leaving the game due to numbness in his pitching hand. It seems that Price is fine, especially in an impressive follow-up performance Tuesday against Mike Trout and the Angels. Still, it was a weird injury that still hasn’t been fully explained, and further issues with Price could compromise what currently looks to be impressive depth in the starting rotation. Considering the city of Boston seems to be cursed by the Pagan God of Sports Injuries, it’s something that will have to sit in the back of fans’ minds for the time being.

These are all things that, in a vacuum, could lead to an even better Red Sox team in 2018 than we’ve seen so far. It’s certainly possible! Baseball, though, is famously not played in a vacuum. The most likely outcome for the Red Sox is probably some kind of middle ground. Some of the early standout performers will come down to Earth eventually, and some players we expect to perform well could underwhelm. These are normal things for any team in any season.

Teams that get off to this kind of start often have a lot of regression down to the mean ahead of them. The Red Sox are unique in that, despite being off to such a hot start, they seem to have nearly as much room to improve as they do to regress. They probably won’t win 86 percent of their games for the entire season, but with some better breaks in terms of health and performance, they may not slow down as much as one might expect. That could turn out to be the recipe for a very special 2018 Red Sox season.

Header photo by Kirby Lee — USA TODAY Sports

Koji is inextricably tied to the 2013 championship team, of course. His campaign that year was one of the most uniquely dominant pitching performances I can remember, high-fiving his way through countless high-leverage innings on the way to the title. In honor of the end of Koji’s MLB career, I spent some time thinking about how his unbelievable 2013 season stacks up against other performances in recent Red Sox history. Let’s take a look at the competition and see who boasts the best individual bullpen season among Red Sox teams since 2007.

Honorable Mention: Junichi Tazawa, 2012

44 IP, 26.2 K%, 2.9 BB% 0.20 HR/9, 1.42 ERA, 1.82 FIP, 2.14 DRA

I wanted to make sure I mentioned Junichi Tazawa in this piece because, while I don’t think he has an individual season that quite ranks among the best of the past ten years, it feels as though he’s been underrated historically among Boston fans. Images of his rough final seasons in Boston are perhaps a little too fresh in people’s minds, but Tazawa was a workhorse for the Red Sox who deserves some warmer recognition.

Tazawa started the 2012 season pitching for Triple-A Pawtucket, and he hit the ground running as soon as he came up to the big-league club to replace Mark Melancon (remember him?). A lot of praise is (deservedly) spent on Koji’s absurd aversion to walks in 2013, but Tazawa actually managed a lower walk rate in 2012, allowing only five free passes in his 44 major league innings. Perhaps most notably, Tazawa was a horse – he pitched 86.1 innings between Triple-A in the majors in 2012 and exceeded the 60 IP mark in each of the next two years, while pitching almost exclusively high-leverage situations. John Farrell leaned on Tazawa almost to a fault, and although his overuse created issues in later years, he was an indispensable piece of the bullpen puzzle for some time.

Tazawa never got the kind of glory a traditional closer would — high-leverage, non-closing relievers have historically struggled to get consistent recognition — but I haven’t forgotten about him.

5 — Daniel Bard, 2010

74.2 IP, 25.8 K%, 10.2 BB%, 0.72 HR/9, 1.93 ERA, 3.36 FIP, 2.96 DRA

Statistically, Daniel Bard’s 2010 might not quite compare to the other seasons mentioned on this list, but it’s the context of his brief run as the team’s setup man that gets him here. Bard once looked like the future of the Red Sox bullpen, a potent fireballer with some of the most ridiculous stuff I’ve ever seen. Across his first three seasons in the majors, he averaged close to 98 miles per hour on his fastball and 84 on his notorious wipeout slider, making hitters look completely futile with hilarious regularity. This utterly absurd, 99 mph something that he dropped on Nick Swisher in 2011 might be the greatest individual pitch in MLB history.

Evidently, it wasn’t meant to last. As we all should well remember, a doomed attempt to convert Bard into a full-time starter destroyed first his command, then his confidence. After the wheels came off in 2012, Bard shuttled around the minor league teams of the Red Sox and other franchise, trying desperately to regain some of his former self. It didn’t work, and this past January, he retired at 32 years old.

In 2010, though, Bard was at the peak of his powers, and the heir apparent to Jonathan Papelbon in the closer role. The warning signs were hanging around — the walks in particular were a little too high — but he had that sparkling sub-2.00 ERA and he certainly looked good, so we were all willing to look past it. His 2011 might have been a little more steady in terms of peripherals, as he cut back on the walks significantly, but Bard Fever was never stronger than that first full season in the majors. He may have washed out dramatic fashion a couple years later, but I’ll always remember him for that dizzying peak.

4 — Andrew Miller, 2014

42.1 IP, 40.6 K%, 7.7 BB%, 0.43 HR/9, 2.34 ERA, 1.69 FIP, 2.00 DRA

These days, we know Andrew Miller as one of the most dominant relievers in baseball, and the foremost example of managers prioritizing high-leverage situations over traditional save situations. He’s not actually the Indians’ closer, but he’s their best bullpen arm and a force of nature in the late innings.

Years ago, though, Miller was a struggling journeyman starter who couldn’t establish himself in the majors. Miller had no command over his pitches, and hitters more or less had their way with him — in some ways, it was not entirely dissimilar from Bard’s late career. Miller hit his nadir in 2010, when he posted an ERA north of 8.00 across 30.2 innings in the majors and one above 6.00 in 85.1 innings in Triple-A.

The Red Sox got their hands on Miller with a minor league deal thereafter, and by 2012, they’d finally embraced him as a full-time reliever. It was exactly what he needed; the walks came down and the strikeouts went way up. Miller’s 2014 was the peak of this Boston reinvention, short-lived as it was. He struck out over 40 percent of the batters he faced and combined with Uehara and Tazawa to form one of the most formidable late-inning units the Red Sox have fielded in recent years.

Unfortunately, they were formidable, but futile. The 2014 Red Sox were terrible, falling to the bottom of the AL East immediately after the 2013 championship, and if there’s one thing terrible teams do, it’s trade their relievers. Relievers, after all, are the most immediately expendable way for struggling franchises to bring quick prospect value to their farm team. Miller went to Baltimore, and while Eduardo Rodriguez looks to be a valuable starting pitcher for years to come, it still hurt a bit to see Miller dominating the 2016 playoffs with Cleveland en route to their World Series loss to the Cubs.

3 — Jonathan Papelbon, 2007

58.1 IP, 37.5 K%, 6.7 BB%, 0.77 HR/9, 1.85 ERA, 2.45 FIP, 2.41 DRA

You knew he was going to pop up here eventually.

Arguments can be made either way between Papelbon’s 2006 and 2007 seasons, but for me, his integral role in the 2007 championship gives that year the edge. Papelbon was a buzzsaw for his entire career in Boston, and the closest answer the Red Sox have ever had to the greatness of Mariano Rivera. He had a manic, unhinged energy on the mound, and while that persona would go on to cause him problems in later years, it made him an instant fan favorite at Fenway Park. There were few more exciting moments in a Red Sox game than Papelbon walking out to “Shipping Up To Boston.”

Papelbon was essentially the spitting image of the traditional closer role, a fastball-centric fireballer who lived and died with his mid-90s four-seamer. He was also remarkably durable, pitching 60 innings or more in nine of his 10 seasons from 2006 to 2015. Ironically, 2007 was the one he didn’t, but he still threw 58.1 frames and appeared in 59 games. These days, he likely wouldn’t stand out quite as much in the current landscape of MLB relievers, but for the late 2000s, he was perpetually near the top.

In addition to his regular season performance, Papelbon threw 10.2 scoreless frames in the playoffs en route to the Red Sox second championship in four years. He was a consistently great playoff performer, with an ERA of exactly 1.00 in his 27 career postseason innings, but would never make another postseason appearance after the team’s short-lived stay in 2009. Papelbon flamed out as aggressively as he pitched, but he’s among the most important bullpen arms in the history of the franchise. The fact that he’s only third on this list is a testament to how great our next two entries really were.

2 — Koji Uehara, 2013

74.1 IP, 38.1 K%, 3.4 BB%, 0.61 HR/9, 1.09 ERA, 1.61 FIP, 1.78 DRA

In 2013, Koji Uehara struck out 101 batters and walked only nine. Think about that for a minute.

If his career started 10 years earlier, teams would likely have laughed at the idea of using a pitcher with an 88 mph fastball as their closer. It was still a fairly weird concept in 2013, and he didn’t even begin the season as the closer. Closers have always traditionally tended towards the “97 mph flamethrower” type, which makes Koji one of the most unique pitchers to fill that role in recent baseball history. He didn’t have crazy velocity, but he did have a dominant sinker and a supernatural command of the strike zone, and in that particular 2013, hitters had no idea what to do with him. He was simply impossible to square up on. He allowed only five home runs on the season, and had a line drive rate of only 11.3 percent. For reference, Papelbon’s career-best mark in that regard was 15.3 percent.

The magic was fairly short-lived. For his following two seasons, Koji was merely very good rather than transcendent. Hitters started to catch up, and home runs became a greater bugaboo as he aged – he allowed twice as many in 2014 despite pitching 10 fewer innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio slipped from above 10 in 2013-14 to around five in 2015-16, still a solid mark but not superhuman. In essence, he just got old.

That 2013 season was magical for a lot of reasons. The Red Sox were a team of cast-offs and underappreciated players like Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Stephen Drew. In other words, Koji was right at home. A return to the Red Sox this season was never really realistic — the Red Sox have more than a few right-handed relievers and his level of play isn’t where it once was — but it’s still bittersweet to see him leaving the league. Hopefully the Yomiuri Giants are prepared for some aggressive high-fives.

And somehow, it still wasn’t the greatest season we’ve seen from a reliever in recent seasons. That one came just last year.

1 — Craig Kimbrel, 2017

69 IP, 49.6 K%, 5.5 BB%, 0.78 HR/9, 1.43 ERA, 1.42 FIP, 1.89 DRA

The Red Sox paid a hefty price to acquire Kimbrel two seasons ago with a prospect haul beyond what you’d typically expect for a reliever in most situations, especially considering he was coming off a 2015 season in San Diego that wasn’t quite up to his typical level. While effective, his 2016 season wasn’t quite the performance you’d want to see from a player with such a price tag, either; he walked an enormous amount of batters en route to his first season with an ERA above 3.00. Some of the sheen started to come off one of the greatest bullpen arms in history.

Because of all this, I think it’s actually possible we collectively didn’t appreciate Kimbrel’s 2017 enough. It may well have been the best season of his career. Kimbrel struck out just shy of half the batters he faced — astonishingly not even a career-best in that regard — and he did it with the best command of the strike zone he’s ever shown. If there’s ever been some kind of weakness to Kimbrel’s game, it’s that he historically issued too many free passes (career walk rate of 9.5 percent), but it seems he finally just decided to… not do that anymore, I guess? Kimbrel he walked only 5.5 percent of the batters he faced, stranded 93.9 percent of the baserunners he allowed, gave up only 11 earned runs, and pitched 69 of the nicest innings from a reliever in Red Sox history.

While the 2018 Red Sox bullpen isn’t exactly a known quantity — Carson Smith and Tyler Thornburg are returning from long absences due to injury, while Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes are solid but unspectacular middle-inning guys — Kimbrel is money in the bank. He’s among the greatest relievers in baseball history, and he somehow still seems to be getting better. If he continues to limit his free passes like he did last year, it’s entirely possible he could replace his own spot on this list. Wouldn’t that be something?

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

The Red Sox have been tailing the Orioles and staying ahead of the Blue Jays for some time now, and even though they regained the divisional lead for a short while last week, they did a fine job of squandering it by losing four of their last five games – and unless they can beat Michael Fulmer and the Tigers today, five of their last six. What’s worse is that they’ve done so while playing at Fenway. With the road trip that’s coming up, that sort of mediocrity can’t be allowed to happen anymore. The Red Sox are facing an uphill battle when it comes to the next two months.

While the Red Sox have enjoyed 58 of their 98 games played at home, that leaves them having only played 40 games on the road. 41 of their remaining 64 games will be on the road. Fourty-one! For context: the Blue Jays have just 32 more games on the road, while the Orioles have slightly more, with 34. The Red Sox also don’t have a homestand longer than seven games for the rest of the season – two six-gamers, a seven-game stretch, and the final three-game series against Toronto at the very tail-end of the season.

Red Sox reality: 34-24 home, 21-19 road means 23 of 41 on road including trips of 11,10,9

— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) July 27, 2016

The worst part? The Red Sox haven’t even gone on one of their West Coast road trips yet. The first of two massive 9+ game ventures start Thursday, while the second one comes during the first week of September. This team has been historically meek when it comes to traveling cross-country to play baseball, and there’s been nothing to convince us that 2016 will buck the trend. The 2013 version of the Red Sox went 9-7 on their road trips – and it wouldn’t have been a winning record if they didn’t face National League competition on the second trip. Even the good Boston teams struggle on the road, especially if the road goes along the Golden Coast. All-in-all, it’s not looking good on the scheduling front.

But wait, there’s more! Remember the first series of the season? You know, in Cleveland, where one game got postponed twice? Yessir, it’s back. Thanks to that one game getting bumped all the way to August 15th, the Red Sox will have to play 23 games in 23 days in August, starting on August 9th against the Yankees and ending on August 31st, against the Rays. That massive stretch of no off-days also includes a 13-game road trip, which is comprised of three games against current first place teams (one at Cleveland, two at Baltimore), four games against Detroit (a second-place team), and four at Tampa Bay. Those games against first place teams? Yeah, they’re clustered at the front of the trip, too. What a doozy that’s going to be. The dog days of August are here, real, and they might just eat the Red Sox up.

The scariest part of this whole thing might just be how Toronto looks right now. They too suffered an awful June, and just like the Red Sox, they’ve picked it up in July. Thing is, luck hasn’t been going their way. The Blue Jays are an unlucky 10-18 in games decided by one-run. Now, there’s been a lot of talk about how a team’s record in one-run games can be attributed to just plain luck, but let’s face it: the Blue Jays are a good baseball team and aren’t going to be that bad at close games forever. With some luck and little bit of improved performance, those numbers are going to start reversing. They’re dangerous, and they’re poised to make a strong second-half surge, even more so than the Orioles.

But what this really means for the Red Sox is that they cannot continue to squander home games. There’s precious few of them left, and they naturally perform much better in Fenway, so they need to start capitalizing on what they have left. Luckily for them, they don’t face a team anywhere close to first place until the Orioles in mid-September. The Red Sox will see the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Royals, and Rays in Fenway over their next 12 home games. That’s where they’ve got to bear down. The Red Sox have a massive +66 run differential at home – which is more than Baltimore’s +55 and their incredible 37-15 record at Camden Yards – and they need to lean on that if they want to keep up with Baltimore and Toronto in the pennant race.

This all could just be pessimism. The Red Sox sloppily split a series with the Twins and have bumbled their way to a losing series against the Tigers, and look terribly unsettled right now. Will they bounce back from this? Probably. But there’s a lot to be said about having a half-game lead on the Orioles going into a four-game set hosting the worst team in the AL, and coming out of it 1.5 games behind. The Red Sox can’t let an opportunity like that slip away again, if it does happen again.

The odds don’t look good. Toronto and Baltimore have a lot more home games, and they only have two west coast road trips between them. The Red Sox have two on their own. This is where those home wins count just a little bit more. The Sox need to tighten it up while playing at Fenway, or they’ll be forced to win on the road, something that they haven’t been able to consistently do – even when they’ve won it all.

Photo by David Banks/USA Today Sports Images

As for 2016, our starting point, PECOTA, will tell you the Rays will win by three games over Boston, five over Toronto, six over New York, and 18 over Baltimore. FanGraphs has a different projection, featuring the Red Sox by four games over the Blue Jays, six over the Yankees, seven over the Rays, and nine over the Orioles. Look up other projections and they’ll tell you something different. That’s because there isn’t a clear consensus on who has the best team this season. Things are jumbled. I present this paragraph on the throwing spaghetti at a wall that is 2016 to indicate that, as we stand now, things are pretty equal as long as you aren’t Baltimore. If you are, well, sorry.

The most difficult thing to do in sports isn’t to win, it’s to predict the future.

Of course, team performance in 2016 won’t necessarily be indicative of team performance five years from now. Many of the players currently on AL East teams will be gone by then. Don’t believe me? Okay, who played shortstop for the Red Sox in 2011? Who was Boston’s top prospect back then? Right. This is hard. And we’ll never know for sure until the time has come and gone, but there are some ways to start to figure out how things might go in 2020 in the AL East right now. We here at BP publish a number of articles which may be of assistance, most notably the Top 10 prospects lists for each team and, within those, the 25-and-under lists. Those lists show us who the good young players are and what we might expect from them. We can combine the quality in those lists with what we know about the current state of the franchises going forward and that should give us our answer, or what will pass for it. Remember, this is guesswork. Intelligent (I hope!) guesswork, but guesswork.

Since this is BP Boston, let’s start with the Red Sox. We know the Sox have a strong farm system, but we also know it’s a very young farm system. Much of the strength of the system is in players that haven’t played above A-ball yet. That’s okay, though, as Boston also has Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Blake Swihart at the major league level, and some help on the pitching side of things as well. The next five years of this franchise will depend on two things. First, how well the top-tier prospects develop, like pitchers Anderson Espinoza and Michael Kopech, as well as bats like Yoan Moncada and Rafael Devers. Second, it will depend what kind of team GM Dave Dombrowski builds around the team’s already existing young core of stars and promising pre-star-level players. That, combined with the owner’s willingness to spend and Dombrowkski’s mostly smart (though kind of scary if you’re prospect-hugger like me) penchant for winning trades, bodes well for Boston in the long run.

The Blue Jays are in a far more precarious spot. They don’t have the system Boston does, though they do have some promising young players like Anthony Alford and Connor Greene. The depth of the system isn’t there though, at least not right now. That’s the bad news. The good news for Toronto is most of their good young talent is already at the major league level. Marcus Stroman shows signs of being a front-of-the-rotation stud, and Dalton Pompey, Aaron Sanchez, and Devon Travis all showed promising though varying degrees of ability. As currently constructed the Jays don’t have the Red Sox’s ability to spend, though that comes with it’s own curses for sure. The new front office also comes well regarded. The future is bright in Toronto thanks to a talented veteran roster, but unlike in Boston, the further you project out, the hazier it gets.

The Yankees are somewhat the opposite of Toronto in that the further you project out, the more promising they get. It’s right now that is hazy. That has less to do with the specifics than the fact that they are the Yankees and can bring in a Manny Machado or Bryce Harper should one of those players hit the market. As for their good young players, almost none are in the majors. The almost is Luis Severino, who throws gas and should break camp with the rotation, but after him the rest of the Yankees are grey beards, or would be if the Yankees allowed beards. The strength of the Yankees 25-and-under players is Severino and outfielder Aaron Judge, who wouldn’t look out of place on an NBA court. Those are nice players to have, but it takes more than a powerful right fielder and a single good young starter to make a franchise go. The Yankees are coming off an off-season that saw them be the only team to not sign a free agent to a major-league contract. That’s astounding. In the next few seasons older players and their contracts will fall away, and the way the younger Steinbrenner’s spend that space under the luxury tax threshold will dictate how good this team will be in five years.

In Baltimore it’s the Manny Machado show. Dude is crazy good and somehow still just 23. To put him in cotext, he’s Baltimore’s Mookie Betts, but if Betts had just put up a seven-win season instead of a five-win season. Jonathan Schoop is both good and promising, though in a step down from Machado kind of way. After that is when things start to fall apart. The Orioles’ inability to develop starting pitching, which has plagued them for over a decade now, needs to be rectified before Kevin Gausman, Hunter Harvey, and Dylan Bundy all explode like Spinal Tap drummers. The Orioles as currently constituted are a veteran-heavy team, led by Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and J.J. Hardy, 30 or older all. Machado and Schoop are a good start in the way that Severino and Judge are good starts (though they’re much better than Severino and Judge) (probably) but it’s not enough. With the Orioles lacking the desire and/or ability to bring in top of the rotation starters like David Price and Zack Greinke, they simply have to create the good pitchers themselves.

For the Rays, the challenge is to constantly reinvent themselves. This goes for the team but for the front office as well. Fortunately, they seem to have hit upon a strategy that works for them, and as long as they continue to scout well, they should have some level of success on the field. Their system now is probably the second-strongest in the division behind only Boston. Number one prospect Blake Snell could step in and help the Rays rotation this season. Beyond him, the upside might not be present but the low ceiling means lots of major league average players coming to Tampa, which means the team doesn’t have to spend money on the James Loneys of the world. Smart trading will also help and the Rays’ newish front office has bolstered the team by acquiring players like Corey Dickerson. Things look bright in Tampa, but as always, holding on to star players and continuing their good drafting will the difficulties going forward.

At the end of the day, we can’t know who will win in 2020, but the sheer tonnage of talent, from high-ceiling arms to power bats, in the Red Sox minor league system, combined with the will to win of ownership and a capable front office, give the Red Sox a powerful combination of smarts, money, and talent. That’s the total package, folks. Things aren’t perfect, but when 2020 rolls around, based on these crude data points, the Red Sox should have won more than their share of the division championships.

Now, please burn this article so there are no copies around in 2020 to throw in my face after the Orioles have run off five straight AL East Division wins. Thanks.

Photo by Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports Images

Dave Dombrowski has talked at length about the team’s need to add a “horse” to lead the rotation. Now the question becomes whether he’ll do so through free agency or by trading from the organization’s bundle of touted prospects.

Considering the depth currently in Boston’s rotation, most observers expect the club to acquire just one starter this offseason and piece together a solid staff behind him. Yet that reality shouldn’t necessarily keep Dombrowski from looking to add multiple starters if the right opportunity presents itself.

Indeed, the Red Sox front office shouldn’t hesitate to be aggressive in reshaping the team’s starting rotation. Given the uncertainty surrounding many of Boston’s starters after a disappointing 2015 campaign, the club could benefit even more by bringing in a couple of hurlers to improve the roster’s pitching outlook. That the Red Sox have both money to spend and numerous prospects down on the farm only opens up more possibilities for Dombrowski this winter.

For an executive who is celebrated for wheeling and dealing at the major league level and building deep, talented rotations, it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise if Dombrowski chooses to reshuffle a large portion of Boston’s starting staff. And considering he isn’t exactly known for holding onto young talent, perhaps Dombrowski will decide to get aggressive in improving the pitching portion of the team’s roster.

Yet just how would the Red Sox make room for multiple new starters this offseason?

They could go any number of routes, but Dombrowski may decide the club is best served by dealing one of the starters presently penciled into the rotation. Although Wade Miley has only been in Boston for a year, his team-friendly deal could make him a solid trade piece, especially if Dombrowski determines that he can bring in a better option this winter.

The same goes for Clay Buchholz, who has club options in each of the next two seasons that make the injury-prone hurler a far less risky proposition. If Dombrowski decides Buchholz isn’t worth the trouble, the righty could certainly be included in a package that either nets or makes room for another pitcher in return.

Additionally, Boston has two young, promising southpaws on the roster in Eduardo Rodriguez and Henry Owens. While Rodriguez is unlikely to be traded after an impressive rookie campaign, Owens shouldn’t be viewed in the same manner, even if his ability to garner whiffs makes his potential intriguing.

Much of what happens will depend on however the Red Sox obtain that frontline arm. If they sign a top free-agent hurler—be it David Price, Zack Greinke or Johnny Cueto—they could package one of their current starters with a couple prospects to bring in another dependable pitcher to fit into the rotation.

Determining just who might be available via trade is never easy, but names like Jose Quintana, James Paxton and Tyson Ross (all of whom have been mentioned as trade candidates) could be good fits. In addition, acquiring a mid-rotation arm in this way wouldn’t cost Boston nearly as much in terms of prospects as someone like Sonny Gray.

The big names on the open market have deservedly received much of the buzz, but there is plenty of depth in this free-agent starting pitching class as well.

Of course, if Dombrowski decides to pull the trigger on a bigger deal for an elite starter, the Red Sox could further bolster their rotation by signing a mid-tier free-agent pitcher. The big names on the open market have deservedly received much of the buzz, but there is plenty of depth in this free-agent starting pitching class as well.

Someone like Scott Kazmir could be a great fit, and so too could Yovani Gallardo or Hisashi Iwakuma, though signing either would require Boston to forfeit its first-round draft pick. Japanese righty Kenta Maeda, who could be posted within the coming weeks, is another option if the Red Sox want to add further stability to their rotation.

All of this is speculation for the time being, but the larger point remains. The organization is currently loaded with noteworthy prospects and has money to spend. And despite Boston’s rotation depth, the likes of Buchholz, Rodriguez, Owens and Rick Porcello mean the staff’s performance in 2016 is open to a wide range of variance and uncertainty.

As a result, the front office can afford to be aggressive in stabilizing the rotation without mortgaging the future. Given Dombrowski’s track record, moreover, allowing him to go to work with all that money and young talent at his disposal might just be the best option for the club’s 2016 chances anyhow.

Next year’s free-agent class doesn’t have nearly the level of quality or depth as this offseason’s, which means the time could be right for the Red Sox to make multiple moves and bolster their rotation. Obtaining a frontline starter is the first step, of course, but Boston shouldn’t just stop there.

With tons of assets in their arsenal and loads of talent potentially available, this winter presents a unique opportunity for Dombrowski and the Red Sox to strike in a big way and make multiple moves to improve the rotation.

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Now that we have the luxury of looking back on his entire first campaign in Boston, there are two ways in which we can view Porcello’s campaign. On one hand, his initial season with the Red Sox was a borderline disaster, and the fact he’s entering the first year of a four-year, $82.5 million contract in 2016 raises serious cause for concern.

On the other hand, one can view Porcello’s 2015 as a year in which he made some key adjustments after determining the reasons for his first-half struggles. The Porcello who pitched down the stretch for Boston, in other words, looked like the starter the Red Sox imagined they were trading for last winter.

No matter which theory you subscribe to, the alterations Porcello made to his approach over his final nine starts leave some room for cautious optimism.

Porcello’s performances over the first three months of 2015 were abysmal, in part, because he went away from what had made him successful in Detroit. As many have documented, the righty leaned on his four-seam fastball far more frequently and began pitching up in the zone in search of extra strikeouts. While Porcello garnered more whiffs, he also gave up harder contact. The sinker that had made him one of baseball’s best groundball pitchers with the Tigers was suddenly far less of a factor in his arsenal.

A Rick Porcello who keeps the ball on the ground with frequency, picks up his fair share of strikeouts and doesn’t surrender free passes is just the type of pitcher that Boston felt comfortable handing a four-year extension to last April.

Upon his return from the DL in late August, Porcello recommitted to his sinker. He threw the offering 49 percent of the time over his final nine outings compared to a usage of 34 percent prior to that. His four-seamer usage, in turn, dropped from 31 percent back down to 18 percent after he returned from injury.

Porcello’s numbers from that point forward are hard to argue with, even if they came over a sample of just 57.1 innings. The 26-year-old posted a 3.14 ERA and 2.85 FIP, striking out 57 batters and walking just 11. That 5.2 strikeout-to-walk ratio would stand as the highest of Porcello’s career by quite some margin if translated to a full season.

Even more encouraging, however, was Porcello’s renewed ability to generate ground balls. After posting groundball rates greater than 50 percent in five of his first six seasons, Porcello yielded grounders just 45 percent of the time prior to landing on the DL. Upon returning, his groundball rate rose to 51 percent over that final nine-start span, which is right in line with his career average.

A Rick Porcello who keeps the ball on the ground with frequency, picks up his fair share of strikeouts and doesn’t surrender free passes is just the type of pitcher that Boston felt comfortable handing a four-year extension to last April.

Yet how sure can the Red Sox be that Porcello’s improvements down the stretch are legitimate? How much credit for his stellar performances should be given to the adjustments he made? And, most importantly, how sustainable are his strong numbers going to be over a larger time span?

These are the questions Porcello will be facing heading into 2016, and they can’t be easily answered until he takes the mound again. That he’s never pitched as poorly as he did for long stretches this past year gives us, in a way, cause for hope. Still, we shouldn’t necessarily expect Porcello to post a sub-3.00 FIP over a larger sample like he did in August and September.

Although he made clear changes to his approach and enjoyed improved results, Porcello still has his fair share of limitations. Even during his best sinker-balling days in Detroit, Porcello was susceptible to giving up home runs, an issue that cropped up repeatedly this season. And despite his attempts to garner more whiffs, he’s also a pitcher who allows plenty of balls in play and depends heavily on the defense behind him. Given that Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez are both slated to start in Boston’s infield next season, that could bode poorly for Porcello.

With all the tinkering he did during the season, how good Porcello can truly be is still shrouded in uncertainty. In many ways, we know hardly anymore about him than we did back in early April, when BP Boston chief Ben Carsley characterized his extension as “not a bargain, not a disaster.”

Despite all this, Porcello found some success he can build on during his final outings of the 2015 campaign. Considering his track record, it would be hard to imagine him struggling to such an extreme extent once again.

And if the Red Sox can find that ace they’ve long been searching for, Porcello should benefit from a fair deal less pressure during his second season with the club. They hopefully won’t need him pitching like the frontline starter he was unfairly billed as any longer.

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What the Red Sox truly feel behind the scenes is anybody’s guess, and there’s some evidence that the club has no intention of bringing Ramirez back. They sent him home six weeks before the season ended, which isn’t exactly a good look for a player who has a long-held reputation as a clubhouse cancer. Also, Dombrowski didn’t sign Ramirez to his current deal, and perhaps he’ll be far less interested in contending with the 30-year-old’s baggage than Ben Cherington was.

No, Ramirez’s contract, which has three years and $66 million remaining on it, won’t be easy to move. But it’s not an impossible task either, especially if Boston foots part of the bill and throws in a couple of decent prospects for good measure.

Yet if Dombrowski does part with Hanley, who will play first base for the Red Sox in 2016?

Travis Shaw is the obvious in-house candidate, and his performance down the stretch likely earned him a roster spot next season. However, Shaw comes with plenty of question marks, including an inconsistent minor league track record and mediocre road numbers that suggest his true talent level might not be what he showed in the final two months of 2015.

For a squad looking to contend again next year, expecting 500 plate appearances of above-average offense from Shaw is likely wishful thinking.

All of these details make free-agent first baseman Chris Davis an intriguing proposition for the Red Sox. While Dombrowski has stated the team’s main offseason goal is to improve its pitching staff across the board, Boston could decide to trade for a pitcher rather throw money at a top hurler on the open market.

There are reasons to be skeptical about Davis, of course. His career strikeout rate sits at 31 percent, and he goes through his fair share of cold spells at the plate. Whether his home-run production will drop away from the hitter-friendly confines of Camden Yards is a legitimate question, too.

Still, he’s been among the best power hitters in the game over the last four years. Dating back to the start of 2012, in fact, Davis leads all major leaguers in home runs (159), ranks eighth in slugging percentage (.533) and second in ISO (.277). There may not be any hitter in the game with more raw power than Chris Davis.

His performance in 2015, when he batted .262/.361/.562 with 47 home runs, reaffirmed that, even with all the strikeouts, Davis can produce at a level that few hitters in the game are able to match. He’s also stayed healthy throughout much of his career, topping 500 plate appearances in each of his four campaigns with the Orioles.

What Davis can give the Red Sox, then, is a certifiable power threat, and a hitter who can guard against possible regression on offense. Despite Boston’s strong play in the second half, the team’s lineup isn’t certain to perform that well throughout 2016. Pablo Sandoval is a huge question mark, Dustin Pedroia is perpetually sidelined with injury, and the likes of Jackie Bradley Jr. and Rusney Castillo could easily prove incapable of full-time roles.

Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts and David Ortiz—at the age of 40—shouldn’t be expected to carry the offensive load by themselves.

Just what type of money Davis will command on the open market is the biggest question here. The Red Sox shouldn’t get into a bidding war over Davis, especially if he starts commanding a salary much beyond that $100 million mark.

But nonetheless, would Boston be better served throwing $200 million at Jordan Zimmerman or Zack Greinke, or spending much less than that on Davis? The question can’t easily be answered, but we all know the risks associated with aging starting pitchers as they move into their thirties. At 29 years old, Davis shouldn’t see his power suddenly decline overnight.

Signing Davis, moreover, wouldn’t prevent Shaw or well-regarded prospect Sam Travis from having a future in Boston either. One can imagine Davis fitting snugly into the DH role once Ortiz retires, and both Shaw and Travis need more seasoning before taking on everyday roles anyhow.

What makes this offseason so fascinating is the number of routes Dombrowski could take in fine-tuning the Red Sox roster. He might spend big money in free agency or use the club’s minor-league depth to trade for MLB-ready performers. If Boston’s brass ends up dealing for a starter, they could do worse than spending some money on Davis, whose offensive production is more dependable than his reputation might suggest. You’d have to think the Red Sox would better off with Davis at first than Hanley next season, even if it would take some creative maneuvering from Dombrowski.

Some may view Davis as an unnecessary luxury, especially when the team’s pitching staff needs an upgrade. To be sure, finding a frontline starter is the most important task facing the Red Sox this offseason. Yet the offense shouldn’t be ignored either, and Davis possesses the kind of power that isn’t easily attainable in the modern game.

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A little less attention has been paid to interim manager Torey Lovullo, however, who inherited a difficult situation when John Farrell stepped away from the team after being diagnosed with lymphoma. Few could have blamed Boston for simply limping to the finish line after falling out of playoff contention.

But the Red Sox have done just the opposite since Lovullo stepped in as manager. Over 44 games with Lovullo at the helm, Boston has gone 28-16 with a +81 run differential and climbed into third place in the AL East. The pitching has improved mightily in the last six weeks, and the offense has been among the best in baseball over that time span, averaging just under six runs per game.

Measuring a manager’s impact is notoriously difficult, and even the best need good players to succeed. Lovullo has certainly benefited from a starting rotation that is vastly better than its early-season incarnation, though he has done well handling a bullpen bereft of Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa.

For the Red Sox, the dilemma now becomes what to do about their managerial situation. Dave Dombrowski didn’t hire any of the current coaching staff, and when asked about Farrell’s future earlier in the year, he wasn’t ready commit to anything given the question marks about the manager’s health.

To be sure, the club shouldn’t just push Farrell out the door, especially considering all he’s faced over the last six weeks. Yet Lovullo, too, deserves to be treated fairly, and if he isn’t going to get an opportunity in Boston, he should be free to explore any openings elsewhere.

The big question mark, of course, is whether Farrell will be capable of managing the team next season. For someone going through serious health issues, that’s a huge commitment, and as others have suggested, perhaps a front office position will work better for both sides at this juncture. Farrell does have prior experience in such a role, having previously served as director of player development in Cleveland.

Is Lovullo the right man to step in for Farrell on a permanent basis, though? If you’re the Red Sox, there are plenty of reasons to like what Lovullo offers. He has experience working in Boston and hasn’t appeared at all fazed by the media scrutiny that constantly surrounds the squad (though much of the pressure has diminished since the team fell out of contention).

Lovullo has first-hand knowledge of the organization and has already established working relationships with the decision-makers in the front office.

In addition, he has first-hand knowledge of the organization and has already established working relationships with the decision-makers in the front office. He’s well aware, in other words, just how the Red Sox try to implement their progressive thinking onto the field. And there must also be a certain comfort level he’s established working and succeeding with the current group of players that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

For Dombrowski, who has made few big changes and chosen instead to maintain stability within baseball operations, all of these factors must make Lovullo appealing. Hanging onto Lovullo would be a decision that fits right into how Dombrowski has gone about his business in Boston thus far.

That doesn’t mean he’ll be satisfied without conducting a managerial search of his own, of course. Despite the club’s success over the past couple months, the Red Sox have underperformed on the whole this season, and the coaching staff’s culpability should be assessed. Perhaps Dombrowski decides that a new voice is simply needed for the best interests of the team.

Nevertheless, sticking with Lovullo would eliminate many of the unknowns that come with hiring a new manager you know less about than an internal candidate. Since he took over, Lovullo has succeeded in just about every way a manager’s impact can be measured. From his usage of the pitching staff, to his handling of the clubhouse and his comfort in speaking with the media, he couldn’t have done a better job. Given his multiple years of experience in the organization, he seems more than capable of acting as a bridge between the front office and the players on the field.

Most importantly, the Red Sox have won under Lovullo’s leadership. How much credit he deserves can always be debated, but he could hardly have performed better in an interim capacity.

Maybe this late-season success will prove to be a mirage, and the current confidence in Lovullo’s abilities as a manager similarly misplaced.  Judging by the facts we know, however, he’s shown all the qualities that Boston’s brass should want in the managerial role.

If Dombrowski views the Red Sox’s impressive stretch run as a sign of what’s to come in 2016, he might also realize that Boston currently has a capable manager in the dugout.

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Ever since Rodriguez made his major league debut in late May, he’s captivated Red Sox fans with his potential and early success in the big leagues. During a first half that saw Boston endure poor start after poor start, Rodriguez represented something of a tonic for those who had forgotten what a talented pitcher looks like.

Although he’s struggled at times in his rookie campaign, Rodriguez has done plenty to justify a spot on the team’s 2016 rotation, and has enabled Red Sox fans to dream about just how good he’ll be in his prime.

Over the first 19 starts of his career, Rodriguez has compiled a 3.94 ERA and 3.96 FIP in 109.2 innings pitched. And outside of two to three woeful starts, he’s been even better than that. In 15 of those 19 outings, Rodriguez has allowed three runs or fewer, an impressive level of consistency for a 22-year-old hurler facing major league hitters for the first time.

Still, there are aspects of Rodriguez’s performance that remain a bit puzzling. Take his strikeout numbers, for instance. Southpaws who average 94.8 mph on their fastballs don’t grow on trees, and one wouldn’t expect them to post pedestrian strikeout totals either.

Rodriguez’s strikeout rate on the season stands at 19.0%, which is below the league average of 20.3%. His swinging-strike rate (7.7%) also sits beneath the league average mark (9.8%). For one of baseball’s hardest-throwing starting pitchers, these mediocre results are baffling.

Even more surprising has been Rodriguez’s performance against left-handed hitters. So far in his young career, Rodriguez has posted stark reverse platoon splits. Lefties are batting a shocking .296/.333/.561 against him this season in 108 plate appearances. Righties, on the other hand, have hit just .240/.304/.338 versus the Venezuelan native.

So far in his young career, Rodriguez has posted stark reverse platoon splits.

So why is Rodriguez struggling to generate swings and misses? And why are lefties having so much success against him?

The answers begin with his pitch mix. Rodriguez has a tremendous fastball, one that, at its best, he can spot up and down in the zone and to either side of the plate. His changeup is also a valuable offering, but he uses the pitch far more often against righties, throwing it over 22.8% of the time, according to Brooks Baseball. Against lefties, Rodriguez’s changeup usage drops to just 8.2%, and he instead turns to his slider, which has been far less effective than either of his other two offerings.

Indeed, Rodriguez has had very little success with his slider in 2015. Opposing hitters are batting .311 with a .527 slugging percentage against the pitch, and those numbers jump even higher against lefties, who are hitting .387 with a .645 slugging percentage versus the offering.

According to FanGraphs’ pitch values, Rodriguez’s slider has been the worst in all of baseball this season (min. 100 IP).

No matter what way you spin it, Rodriguez’s slider lags behind his fastball and changeup, and succeeding in the majors with just two quality pitches is a difficult task. But how can Rodriguez find a third pitch that helps yield better results?

One intriguing idea would be for Rodriguez to try mixing a cutter into his arsenal, either by simply throwing his slider harder or using it as a different pitch altogether. A large number of pitchers have found success with cutters in recent years, most notably Shelby Miller, who similarly had two solid offerings and began using a cutter this season to give hitters a different look than his fastball.

Miller has vastly improved this year, and Rodriguez could benefit from a similar adjustment. The southpaw already has a power arsenal and just needs to find that third pitch to help give batters something else to think about.

Given his poor strikeout numbers and subpar performance against lefties, it’s clear hitters are simply sitting on Rodriguez’s fastball.

From a Red Sox perspective, the good news is that Rodriguez has still found success at the age of 22 despite these flaws. There’s little reason to feel anything but optimism about the southpaw’s future. These are the types of adjustments that nearly every young pitcher has to make, and you can be sure both the Red Sox and Rodriguez will be working hard to help fine tune that third offering come next season.

That Rodriguez has proven worthy of a spot in the club’s rotation provides cause for hope. The Red Sox have had little success developing pitchers of late, and with Rodriguez and Henry Owens showing potential in Boston this year, both look capable of giving the team valuable innings at a low cost for the next few seasons.

The Red Sox still have work to do in building their 2016 rotation, but Rodriguez will undoubtedly be a big piece of the puzzle for a staff that must improve a year from now. Considering the early promise Rodriguez has shown, he could be just an adjustment or two away from leading Boston’s rotation for years to come.

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Through Wednesday, the club’s starters have posted the second-worst ERA in the American League. During long stretches of the season’s first half, no Red Sox pitcher seemed capable of escaping the fifth inning. That Boston’s staff-wide FIP of 4.05 suggests some poor fortune has been involved provides little consolation for an organization that’s endured yet another disappointing campaign.

The worst part of all this is how nearly everyone saw these struggles coming. The Red Sox entered the season with a rotation that looked inadequate on paper and has proven to be just that in reality. Although the offense’s underperformance deserves a large piece of the blame pie, Boston was going to be hard-pressed to contend with such a woeful rotation.

Much like last winter, the predominant storyline surrounding the Red Sox this offseason will be the team’s need to add a frontline pitcher to an otherwise subpar staff. And with the hiring of Dave Dombrowski to run the show in baseball ops, many expect Boston to be aggressive in pursuing a top-level arm.

While adding an ace should be a big priority for Dombrowski, the club’s rotation outlook for 2016 might already be rosier than many realize. Since the All-Star Break, Red Sox starters have compiled a 4.30 ERA and 4.29 FIP, both of which rank right near league average over that time span.  This performance has come without the benefit of a healthy Clay Buchholz, who was pitching like an All-Star before he landed on the DL.

Boston’s staff has improved, in large part, due to a quietly strong second half from Wade Miley. The southpaw has a 3.25 FIP dating back to the All-Star Break, with a 20.1% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate. After an up-and-down start to his Red Sox career, Miley has pitched like the steady mid-rotation hurler the team traded for last offseason.

Even more intriguing has been the midseason arrival of two promising left-handers to Boston’s rotation. Neither Eduardo Rodriguez nor Henry Owens can be considered anything close to a finished product, but both have flashed loads of potential to begin their major league careers. Rodriguez appears more polished at this point, and with an average fastball velocity of 94.8 mph, is one of the hardest-throwing lefties in the game. He’s allowed two earned runs or less in 13 of his 18 outings this season, though his performances in those other five starts are certainly less worthy of praise.

Owens remains very much a work in progress, but he has the raw ingredients to succeed in MLB. The tall left-hander has command issues that need fixing, yet unlike most young starters (Rodriguez included), Owens has four solid pitches with which he can attack hitters. That he has shown the ability to succeed against good offenses is encouraging, even if there are growing pains ahead.

Perhaps the most significant development has been how well Rick Porcello has pitched since his return from the DL. With Boston in line to pay Porcello $82.5 million over the next four years, the club will need to get the right-hander back on track sooner rather than later. While he’s made just three starts since returning, Porcello has looked dominant in that stretch, striking out 22 batters and walking only three in 22 innings pitched.

You can argue all day about whether Porcello’s contract was an overpay, but throughout his career, he’s resembled an above-average starter far more often than the pitcher who posted a 5.81 ERA over this season’s first three months. That he’s decided to re-incorporate his sinker can only be good news for the Red Sox.

And finally, let’s not forget Joe Kelly, who must at least be giving Dombrowski some food for thought with how he’s pitched over the last six weeks. Even if his future is still likely in the bullpen, Kelly has looked the part of a back-end starter for a good chunk of the second half now.

Given all these positive outcomes, Boston’s staff has the potential to be much better next season than it performed in 2015. If Buchholz can recapture the form he showed when healthy this year, he’ll be another piece to add to the starting rotation puzzle that’s a little more crowded than one might expect.

To be certain, the Red Sox can’t enter 2016 and expect to contend without acquiring a reliable starter. There remains plenty of risk with this current group, even if the upside is much greater than what Boston entered this season with.

Buchholz can’t be counted on for 180 innings. Owens and Rodriguez have more potential than the likes of Allen Webster, Rubby de la Rosa and Anthony Ranaudo, but both still have tons of adjustments to make. Although Porcello and Kelly have performed well over small samples recently, their output on the whole this year has been woeful.

Nevertheless, the team can realistically hope for some internal improvements in the rotation in 2016, beyond whoever they obtain this offseason. Acquiring an ace would go a long way toward strengthening the Red Sox’s credentials, but consistency from the rest of the starting staff will be paramount if Boston wants to contend next season.

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