FORT MYERS, Fla. — It is impossible, when strolling around Red Sox spring training, to avoid David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez.
Ortiz? You hear him before you see him. His bellowing laugh stretches around hallway corners, echoes off ceilings. The Hall of Fame DH strolled into Boston’s clubhouse on Thursday morning wearing baseball pants and a navy team hoodie. A wooden fungo bat dangled from one of his oversized paws. He looked like a coach and knew it.
Advertisement
“I look like a coach, this s*** will make you old quick,” he hollered to nobody in particular, before making a quip about how Boston manager Alex Cora had hair when he first took the job in 2018.
Martinez is a less overtly convivial presence, but still an omnipresent one. On Thursday, the 54-year-old jogged around the Fort Myers backfields in a shimmering silver weight loss shirt made of PVC. He looked like a strip of tin foil floating in the gentle Florida morning breeze. Eventually he sauntered back toward the batting cages to pet a dog, chat with media and take pictures with eager, starstruck minor leaguers.
The duo is everywhere, in both actuality and render. A gigantic muraled windscreen directly outside the Red Sox clubhouse features a host of franchise greats, including Ortiz and Martinez, under the word “LEGENDARY.” Oversized statues of their retired numbers sit outside jetBlue Park. They are omnipresent, grander than their shadows. A reminder of what this organization, at its very best, can be: an icon maker, a creator of memories, an institution.
Advertisement
The 2025 Red Sox were a good baseball team. Skilled enough to make the postseason, flawed enough to begin vacation on Oct. 2. The 2026 team might be better. It might also be worse. Nobody is really sure.
[Get more Red Sox news: Boston team feed]
At the very least, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spent his winter transacting up a storm. He added Ranger Suárez, Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo to back up Garrett Crochet in the rotation. Willson Contreras (first base) and Caleb Durbin (assorted infield responsibilities) are the lineup upgrades. Alex Bregman, famously, is no longer in town.
Boston’s pitching staff, helmed by Cy Young runner up Crochet, should be a real strength. Suárez and Gray are bona fide, trustworthy playoff starters. Their arrivals mean Brayan Bello doesn’t need to be a frontline guy. Top prospects Connelly Early and Payton Tolle should show up and contribute at some point midseason. Aroldis Chapman, somehow, was the sport’s best closer last year at age 37. Garrett Whitlock, leaving camp soon to pitch for Team USA in the WBC, is better than you think. It’s a good group.
Advertisement
The offense is less settled, with a host of questions raised by Bregman’s departure. Quite a bit is being placed on Roman Anthony’s broad shoulders. The 21-year-old shined in a 71-game debut stint last season, making good on his status as the game’s top prospect. Boston needs him to be a true difference-maker, a legitimate MVP candidate. He’ll leave camp soon, joining Whitlock on Team USA.
Boston’s lineup could be good, which might be enough. Barring a Jarren Duran bounceback or a Marcelo Mayer breakout, it’s difficult to envision another Red Sox hitter joining Anthony at the All-Star Game. Maybe that doesn’t matter and the pitching is sensational enough to carry the day. Teams with hazier outlooks have won it all. Teams with sexier rosters have crashed and burned. It’s Feb. 26.
The only certainties right now are the expectations. Four titles in 15 years from 2004 to 2018 made this once-despondent fan base understandably greedy. Winning will do that. But in the seven seasons since their 2018 championship, Boston has won just one postseason series. Over that span, they have the 16th-best winning percentage in MLB, right below the Minnesota Twins.
Advertisement
That all makes 2026 a crucial year at Fenway. Breslow, who took over in October of 2023, has had ample time to craft the roster. The Red Sox have an ace in Crochet, a starlet in Anthony, an experienced skipper in Cora and yet, a whole lot to prove. Meanwhile, Ortiz and Martinez float around spring training, comfortable in their legacies, enjoying the carte blanche of their accomplishments.
Garrett Crochet is working on a splitter/circle change hybrid this spring. (Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
(Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox via Getty Images)
A rare outing for Garrett Crochet
Crochet made his spring training debut Thursday, tossing two scoreless innings against a less-than-full-strength Rays lineup. Notably, the two-time All Star didn’t strike out a batter, though nothing was amiss with his velocity or pitch data. Crochet joked afterward to reporters that he couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t punch anybody out.
Advertisement
The behemoth southpaw is coming off a banner year; 205 1/3 innings with a 2.59 and 255 strikeouts. He made a brilliant start in Boston’s Game 1 wild-card win in the Bronx before the season went belly up in Games 2 and 3. There aren’t many pitchers on the planet better than Crochet, but he knows exactly who they are: last year’s Cy Youngs, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal.
“Last year, I kind of put myself in that conversation,” he said after his outing, his cheeks still red from the Florida heat. “On the two guys that I feel like are ahead of me, you know, it’s not like I’m looking to dethrone those guys because at the end of the day it’s a team game.”
Crochet tested a new pitch Thursday, a splitter/circle change hybrid that he learned over the winter. It might become a regular part of his arsenal, he said, depending on how hitters react to it. The four-seamer and cutter will remain his bread and butter.
Advertisement
Maybe next outing he’ll even strike somebody out.
Read the full article here