From Dominance to Mediocrity: The Red Sox

By Jayan Gandhi

Analyzing the Red Sox’s Ownership and its Role in the Team’s Lack of Success

It has been fair to say that the Red Sox have been disappointing since the 2018 World Series team in a year where they won 108 baseball games, the most in franchise history. Since that World Series year, the Red Sox have had a 500-win percentage, something that is frankly embarrassing for a team with the status and decorated history of the Red Sox. But how did a team loaded with stars in 2018, Mookie Betts, JD Martinez, Chris Sale, David Price, and Xander Bogarts, just to name a few, go from complete dominance to mediocrity? What has happened over the last five years, and will anything happen to fix it? The answer lies in a shift of approach from Red Sox ownership.

John Henry bought the Red Sox in 2002, and at that time, the Red Sox were a priority for him. The Red Sox spent loads of money going into the luxury tax eleven times since John Henry bought the team, a number behind only the New York Yankees. In doing so, they were rewarded with four World Series championships in a span. Spending money doesn’t guarantee success in the MLB, but it is often correlated with the team winning world championships. Boston in 2018 had the highest payroll and they ended up winning the world championships. The Red Sox went from spending among the highest in the league and often being in the top 3 spenders each year, to today being 12th in spending in the MLB. That number might not sound terrible on paper, but for a team like the Red Sox, who are worth 4.5 billion dollars, the third most in major league baseball, that number is way too low. This begs the question of why the Red Sox went from spending so much to now being one of the lowest-spending teams. The answer lies in a shift of attitude for John Henry.

There is not much concrete evidence on why John Henry is spending less, but there are two hypotheses that come to mind. The first is that John isn’t viewing the Red Sox as a top priority anymore and is investing in golf and other sports, as he just recently bought the Pittsburgh Penguins. Before the past few years, the Red Sox were John’s top priority, but it now seems that his resources are getting spread to multiple different teams. John has already won four World Series, maybe he is just content with that. The second hypothesis is that John and ownership make more of a profit by not spending. Fenway Park is great, but the only downside is that people will still go to games even if the Red Sox aren’t good. Fenway has seen a lot of opposing fans at games involving big-market teams. Because Fenway is such a good tourist destination, people will come no matter what generates revenue, so the incentive to make the team good is not high. Ownership is unlikely to make a 180 and spend on the team, but while that may be the case, all hope is not lost for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox have some great young prospects in the form of position players. Marcello Mayer, Roman Anthony, and Kyle Teel are all great young players. If they develop well, they can be significant contributors to the Red Sox. There is some optimism in the air for the future of the team, and the Red Sox can certainly become great again in the future but without money, the margin for error becomes razor thin and the Red Sox must rely on mainly developing their young talent.