This big move stabilizes Red Sox's bullpen

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne's Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It is obvious that Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom took to heart the woes and the lack of structure of his team’s bullpen last season.

By far the most productive thing the Sox have done this winter is revamp that bullpen with three key pieces that should give manager Alex Cora a much more cohesive unit.

The big centerpiece of that new ‘pen -- closer Kenley Jansen -- was unveiled to the Boston media at a Fenway Park press conference on Tuesday.

After four straight Spring Trainings of being coy about who his closer would be once the season started, Cora will be straightforward this coming spring.

When the Red Sox have the lead in the ninth inning, Jansen is going to get the ball.

The last time Cora had the luxury of going into a season knowing for sure who his closer would be was 2018, with Craig Kimbrel.

In 2022, the Sox had a bullpen ERA of 4.59, which was 14th in the American League and 26th in the Majors. The club converted just 39 of 67 save opportunities. Looking at those numbers, it is no mystery why the Red Sox faded fast and were never truly in contention during the final six weeks of the season.

The biggest thing Jansen provides -- with his 41 saves last year and 391 for his career -- is stability.

That will allow other pitchers to settle into their roles. Righty Chris Martin, another key acquisition, will be asked to get a lot of big outs in the seventh and eighth innings. The same goes for John Schreiber, last season’s surprise story.

Joely Rodríguez, who was signed on Nov. 23, will be the key lefty in the mix, and the hope is that Josh Taylor can bounce back from his back woes after not pitching at all last year. Taylor was one of the best left-on-left pitchers in the Majors in 2021.

And the Sox still have Matt Barnes, who rebounded nicely from a prolonged slump to notch a 1.59 ERA after the All-Star break.

“Obviously the bullpen is very important. I’ve been on some teams with some good ones,” said Martin. “They were explaining to me how many times they lost late in the games. When you lose that many games late, the record's not going to show. Those things can be fixed, and those are actually, in my mind, minor things that can be fixed. Just go out there and throw zeroes and the bullpen feeds off each other, and get in a good groove and run with it.”

Could it be that Boston’s much-maligned bullpen is on the verge of going from a weakness to a strength? The pieces are in place.

“We like who we have,” said Bloom. “We think we're in a much better position. I hope that we're able to add more. I don’t know necessarily if that will be established guys, maybe some under-the-radar pickups. I wouldn’t rule out further additions of veteran players. I think we’ve got to be opportunistic there. You can never have enough.”