Is this anything more than a bridge year for the Red Sox? Maybe.

The Red Sox open the regular season on March 30.The straggling, possibly delusional optimists among us might be able to glance at this 2023 Red Sox roster, squint a little, and say, “Hmmm, looks a little like 2013 to me. Give ‘em a chance. Let’s see how this plays out.”

The rest of us – heretofore known as The Reasonable and Sane – do recognize, albeit with a lot of squinting, how the optimists might wish-cast their way to such a conclusion.

The 2013 Red Sox were following Bobby Valentine’s tired act from ‘12, when the team won 69 games, the manager alienated half the roster before they even had departed Fort Myers, and the optimists were trying to talk themselves into BABIP-king Pedro…