Before everyone starts in on me, yes, I know that “it’s only spring training” and that “these games don’t matter.” Let’s also add “you can’t tell anything from spring training” (which I don’t necessarily agree with) and “their record in spring training can’t predict how they’ll do once the season starts.” Any more? Now that we’ve got all of that out of the way and taking all of that into consideration, I’ll cut right to the chase: so far, the Red Sox have been less than impressive in Ft. Myers.
For the sake of keeping this article manageable, let’s first focus on the span of 2016 to 2019 which is when the young homegrown core of this team (Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley, Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, and Christian Vazquez) blossomed together and had their greatest success.