Amid pivotal offseason, what is Red Sox's next move?

It was Red Sox chairman Tom Werner who said at the start of the offseason that the Sox were going “full throttle” on acquiring the kind of players who would get the team out of last place, where it had just finished for the third time in four years.

The Sox have a new head of baseball operations in Craig Breslow and he has been tasked with making the kind of big moves necessary to get them back to the top of the AL East.

But for now, the only major acquisition that the Red Sox have made since the end of last season is trading for Tyler O’Neill from the Cardinals. It means that here is what really hasn’t changed, at least not for Red Sox fans:

This is the most important offseason in recent Red Sox history, and it might be as important as any they’ve had since they were forced to pick up the pieces after their heartbreaking loss to the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series.

Everything changed, of course, for the Red Sox after that. Now their fans want that sort of change, and they want it now.

This, by the way, was the full quote from club chairman Tom Werner after the Red Sox hired Breslow:

“We know that we have to be competitive next year. So, we’re going to be competitive next year. We’re going to have be full throttle in every possible way.”

Now Red Sox fans, still early in the baseball winter, wait to see exactly what that is going to mean. And, more importantly, who it is going to mean. The Yankees just traded for 25-year-old Juan Soto, one of the most complete hitters in the game, whether he turns out to be a one-season rental or he stays longer at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees have also made no secret that they are going hard after star Japanese righthander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the way a lot of teams are, including Boston.

The young, upstart Orioles are coming off a season in which they won 101 games. The Blue Jays made a big run at Shohei Ohtani before he settled on the Dodgers. And even though the Rays have traded Tyler Glasnow to the Dodgers, they will be in the thick of things in the AL East for the simple reason that they always are.

The Red Sox got passed by everybody last season, including a disappointing 82-80 Yankees team. But Red Sox fans are now every bit as frustrated by what has happened to their squad over the past few seasons as cranky Yankee fans are that their team hasn’t made it to the World Series since 2009.

We can all see how fast perceptions change in baseball. It was just five years ago, in 2018, when the Red Sox produced the greatest single season in franchise history, winning 108 games and knocking off the defending champion Astros on their way to winning it all. It was just two years ago -- somehow seems like more now -- that they beat the Yankees in a Wild Card playoff and had a 2-1 lead on the Astros in the American League Championship Series before their offense completely shut down.

Nothing has been the same for them since. Kyle Schwarber left for the Phillies and ended up making it to the World Series with them. Chaim Bloom was replaced as general manager by Breslow, a relief pitcher for the Red Sox in 2013 when they won the third of their four World Series in this century, still more than anybody else.

Now here they are, not defending a title any longer but fighting to get back near the top of their division, their fans wanting to see that ownership and the new general manager are going to get after it the way the Dodgers and the Yankees are these days. Those are iconic franchises but so, too, are the Red Sox, after the most amazing two decades they have ever had, all the way back to when Babe Ruth had them on top.

This summer the Red Sox will celebrate the 20th anniversary of that ’04 team, the one that changed the course of Red Sox history and baseball history because of the way they came back from 0-3 down against the Yankees in the ALCS. Red Sox fans used to obsess about the distant past because their team hadn’t won anything since Ruth left for New York. Now the same fans are obsessing about the recent past, wondering when they might be on top again, and not just in the AL East.

Mostly they wait to see exactly what full throttle means and where the Red Sox are going, now that the only way for the team to go is up.