Some Things I Think I Think: Red Sox’ needs are obvious as offseason gets underway

∗ Thanks to the specter of a lockout next month, there will not be any winter meetings on baseball’s calendar this year. Thus, the importance of the GM meetings, which begin Monday, becomes magnified.

Teams have a little more than three weeks to conduct business before the curtain comes down on Dec. 2. How long the lockout lasts is unknown, but it’s not expected to be short.

In one sense, the Red Sox are right back where they were a year ago at this time: in need of an upgrade to their lineup. Willson Contreras, good as he was, wasn’t enough, and for various reasons, neither Curtis Mead nor Adley Rutschman, two in-season acquisitions, were either. The Red Sox need at least one more impact bat.

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