Foreword by Ben Drevitch

Alex Hinton will explain in his piece that he is a Mets fan so we should probably cut him some slack but he claims that the Red Sox have no future, which disagrees with almost every sports analyst today. (I felt I needed to say that).

Boston Red Sox fans have had some tough times, since the team traded away Babe Ruth, through the day first baseman Bill Buckner allowed a ball go threw his legs to let the Mets win the 1986 World Series, and all of their many painful defeats to the Yankees.

I have much respect for Red Sox fans, and recently things have looked better for them, with the team winning championships in 2004, 2007, and 2013. It’s been less than two years since Big Papi was last spraying Champagne.

At that moment, all over the team’s locker room and across Red Sox Nation, it seemed like Boston was unstoppable, baseball’s next dynasty. Fast forward a whole season and the Red Sox seem to be heading into another 80-plus-year slump. They finished 71-91 last year, dead last in the AL East, and 11th overall in the American League. They have now paid more than $60 million to sign Yoan Moncada, a 19-year-old who hasn’t had an at bat in a major league game. As our high school baseball coach and health teacher says, “He’s a bust.”

The Red Sox need to focus on where they need to improve instead of just signing players to big contracts. They have four players ( Dustin Pedroia , Pablo Sandoval , Hanley Ramirez , and Rusney Castillo ) signed to contracts worth more than $70 million each, and are paying two 39-year-olds ( Ortiz and Koji Uehara ) a combined $25 million this season.

The Red Sox can blame last season being a letdown due to a lack of clutch hitting, a poor bench, no one to hit leadoff (though Pedroia could possibly do it this year), and an awful pitching staff (once you take former ace Jon Lester out of the equation). It’s a lot to improve, I know. The Red Sox still have the bases to form a playoff team but do not seem to be heading that way. The team needs to play “moneyball” and add depth to their team. For God’s sake, they should be offering Billy Beane a $30 million signing bonus, not Moncada.

As a Mets fan I have felt a lot of pain from my team and I now am itching to pass the baton back to the Red Sox. Manager John Edward Farrell faces the challenge of bouncing back a team which has come back from a lot of adversity before.

This time, the Sox might have bit off more then they can chew.

-by Alex Hinton