Should the Red Sox be in on Juan Soto?

It sounds as if we may be hours away from learning what uniform 26-year-old superstar outfielder Juan Soto will be donning next year.

Everyone knew Soto would be a free agent after the season ended. Boston fans weren't very interested in following the news, though. They knew better. They had seen players like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts leave because the Red Sox weren't willing to give them big money extensions.

Fans had seen the Red Sox shopping at bargain basement stores and in the clearance section. They had gotten accustomed to the Red Sox signing or trading for players like Alex Verdugo, Tyler O'Neill, Adam Duvall, and Hunter Renfroe.

The Red Sox tried bolstering their pitching staff in recent years with reclamation projects like Michael Wacha, Corey Kluber, Garrett Richards, Nick Pivetta, and James Paxton.

Red Sox fans had gotten used to this. They weren't foolish enough to buy any player jerseys because they knew the player wouldn't be here long enough.

Fans had lowered their expectations for offseason moves, They knew to skim past the top tier of free agents on online baseball sports blogs and look for the diamonds in the rough lower in the free agent rankings.

Maybe Josh Bell, Paul DeJong, David Peralta, Aaron Hicks, Jason Heyward, or Alex Bregman would be a good fit? We could afford Bregman, right? Meh, maybe not.

Old friends Yoan Moncada, Manuel Margot, and Jose Iglesias are free agents? If nothing else, that would be a cool story to bring back one of those once very highly touted Red Sox prospects.

Fans had become trained to think this way. Owner John Henry had become too cheap, the vast majority of Red Sox fans and media had come to believe. He had become more interested in pouring money into other business ventures like buying soccer and hockey teams.

So imagine the surprise of Red Sox fans as they sat in Walmart or Target parking lots, looking at their phones on, or around, Black Friday and saw posts on social media that the Red Sox were meeting with Juan Soto.

No way. This is a cruel joke, right? Maybe it is true.

Honey, put away your shopping cart and come back to the car right now. I have a surprise for you. We're going to Saks Fifth Avenue and then to Bloomingdale's.

We are back, baby!

But wait – Red Sox fans have fallen for this before. Maybe the way they handled Jon Lester was the first sign the Red Sox were yanking fans' chains about making "competitive offers" to free agents. That "competitve" offer wasn't even half what Lester wound up getting from the Cubs.

Ever since then it has been sit and watch, year after year, as one superstar free agent after another signed with the Yankees, Mets, Rangers, or, usually, the Dodgers. Often you would hear reports that the Red Sox made a decent run at a free agent but came up just short.

Just last year, the Red Sox were, supposedly, in on Shohei Ohtani. Did any self-respecting Red Sox fan believe it? Not really. It was a fun pipe dream for a few weeks. Believe it when I see it.

There were other teases. Remember when Xander Bogaerts left and the Red Sox made it seem like they made a competitive offer for Carlos Correa to replace him at shortstop? They overcompensated on missing out on Correa by signing oft-injured Trevor Story.

So Red Sox fans, rightfully so, were cautious and guarded about the news that the Red Sox were "seriously" interested in Soto. Mostly though, fans and media were dismissing these rumors as a publicity stunt by Red Sox ownership to save face when Soto signed elsewhere.

Soto is sure to fetch upwards of $700 from whatever team he signs with, even though he says money won't be the deciding factor in where he decides to go. The belief was that the Red Sox would probably offer him $550 million just to be able to tell fans, "Hey, we tried."

But as the days have passed, and the calendar switched from November to December, and now that we are mere hours away from the start of the winter meetings in Dallas on Monday, talk of Soto signing with the Red Sox are at a fever pitch. In fact, the consensus is that the race is down to just the Mets and the Red Sox. The Blue Jays and Yankees have also been pursuing Soto hard and have offers of $700+ million on the table, but it sounds like they may be out of the running.

No doubt that the Red Sox interest in Soto came out of left field, or is it right field in Soto's case? What is it about Soto that woke John Henry out of his decade long slumber?

I think I know what it is. Soto is that rare superstar who is a free agent at the young age of 26. The Red Sox in the past have spoken about their team philosophy of not giving expensive contracts to players who are nearing the 30-year-old mark and who will end up playing out most of their contract while in the their 30's.

They believe players' performances drop off, dramatically, after the age of 30. That is why they didn't give Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts extensions. They were wrong on Betts and may have been right on Bogaerts.

They also got burned when they gave a 30-year-old Chris Sale a $145 million contract extension in 2019. Sale would be injured for a large portion of that time – pitching in only 56 games over those five years. He missed the entire 2020 season. He did rebound and win the Cy Young Award in 2024.... with the Atlanta Braves.

The Red Sox did give Rafael Devers an 11-year, $331 million contract extension in January of 2023. So they let Betts and Bogaerts walk, but kept Devers. What does that tell ya? The difference is Devers was 26 – the same age as Soto now – when the Red Sox decided to give him that lengthy, lucrative contract.

That is why, in hindsight, it should have come as no surprise that the Red Sox were willing to pursue Soto.

Give a free agent superstar in his mid-2o's over half a billion dollars? Sure. Give a 30-year-old that same contract? Nope. Not gonna do it.

But should a .500 team like the Red Sox – that has so many holes to fill – sink so much money into one player? If you are the Dodgers, it doesn't matter how much money one player gets. Their ownership group has plenty of money to go around.

Does John Henry have that deep of pockets? And if he does, how much more money is he willing to spend on other players to adequately surround Devers and Soto for the next decade and give them a legitimate shot and winning the World Series?

Soto has bounced around a bit in recent years. He has been earning a lot of money while playing for San Diego and the Yankees. He didn't help them win any championships.

In San Diego, he had Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Bogaerts as teammates. With the Yankees, he had Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Neither of those teams won the World Series.

What makes you think Devers and Soto, by themselves, could deliver a trophy back to Boston? There is no way. This team needs pitching help, defensive help, and more than just one power bat, preferably right-handed.

That is why I believe the Red Sox would be better served passing on Soto and doing the hard work of scouting and scouring for second-tier players that will mesh well together to form a winning team.

I am thinking back to the Red Sox championship team of 2013 that assembled some ragtag misfits like Kevin Millar, Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, and Jonny Gomes.

None of those guys were superstars. That is what made the job GM Ben Cherington did that year absolutely masterful. He didn't spend a boatload of money on any All Star players or future Hall of Famers.

Sure, the Red Sox had David Ortiz, but he was already an established pillar of the franchise. Cherington surrounded Ortiz with a team that loved playing the game of baseball and who loved each other. They all had their roles. There were no egos. Winning was the priority.

That is the task before Craig Breslow. Find players that mesh together. Find players that love to play the game – players like Dustin Pedroia and Trot Nixon. Find that right blend of defense and offense, speed and power, and lefty/righty pitching.

The Angels had two of the greatest players of our generation, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, for six seasons and never sniffed the playoffs. Star power does not guarantee championships. Spending money, haphazardly, does not guarantee championships.

The Red Sox top target should be starting pitcher Corbin Burnes. Back him up in the rotation with someone like Walker Buehler or Max Fried. Add a power bat like Pete Alonso or even 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt. Address the second base position with Gleyber Torres or Brandon Drury. Make the move they should have made last year and sign free agent right-handed, power-hitting outfielder Teoscar Hernandez.

That is how to build a championship team, but it will take hard work. In the long run, successfully making all those moves would be cheaper and better than bringing in just Juan Soto. Forget about left-handed bats.

Get back to stacking the line up with right-handed power bats like the old Red Sox were always known. Get players like Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Manny Ramirez, Kevin Millar, Dustin Pedroia, and Jonny Gomes. Those guys would punish the Green Monster. There are dents in that wall to prove it.

The Green Monster is your home field advantage. Listen to it. Coddle it. Honor it.