No team needs a big winter more than Boston

Occasionally, but only occasionally, you can win the offseason in baseball and then go on to win the real one. The Dodgers just did that. They won the last offseason when they signed Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And even though Ohtani had a bum shoulder at the very end, Yamamoto won them two postseason games -- one in the World Series -- and the Dodgers finally won it all.

Now, less than a month after the Dodgers closed out the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, we wait to see which team is going to have the best offseason this time -- one that might help take the title away from the Dodgers, unless Los Angeles steps up to the plate and swings for the fences like Ohtani all over again.

But a better question might be this:

Which team needs to have a big offseason the most?

You know the Yankees, trying to keep Juan Soto, want it to be them after finally making it back to the World Series for the first time since 2009. The Mets, who also are set to meet with Soto, sure want it to be them, because they’re in the same league as the Dodgers, and they just played them a lot tougher in the National League Championship Series than the Yankees eventually did.

The Phillies, knocked off by the Mets in what they once thought was finally going to be their year, want to show that their window as a Series contender isn’t closing. The Astros, who had played in seven straight American League Championship Series, want to show that the Tigers upsetting them in the Wild Card Series was a fluke. The Padres, who have been knocking on the door for a while and have shown they’re not afraid to take big swings, finally want to knock that door down. The Orioles, with all that young talent, finally want to do something with it at playoff time.

But there is no team, not one, that needs to have a game-changing offseason than the Red Sox do, just because their last World Series -- the fourth for them in this century and the fourth in 15 seasons at the time -- in 2018 is starting to feel to an increasingly ornery Red Sox Nation like a long time ago, especially since the star of that team, Mookie Betts, keeps winning rings with the Dodgers after Boston traded him a year and a half after its last title.

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That happens to be the biggest reason of all why they need Soto every bit as much -- and perhaps even more -- than either the Yankees and Mets do, as owners Hal Steinbrenner and Steve Cohen set themselves up for their own Subway Series.

Have Sox fans been spoiled by everything that has happened since October 2004, when they came from 0-3 down in the ALCS against the Yankees to change their history and change baseball history? They have. It is difficult to believe sometimes that it was just three years ago -- October 2021 -- that the Sox were two games to one ahead of the Astros in the ALCS and were that close to making it back to the Series until they stopped hitting, became one more postseason team that didn’t start hitting again until the following spring.

Then the Sox finished last. And they finished last again. This past year, they managed to get back to third place in the AL East with a record of 81-81. And other than a midseason run that started with a series win over the Yankees at Fenway Park in June, they still ended up five games behind the Tigers and Royals for a Wild Card spot and 10 behind the Orioles.

Here is what manager Alex Cora said when the season was over:

“I truly believe this is the last struggle. I do believe we’re going to turn the corner in the offseason.”

The Red Sox have to turn that corner, as a serious contender and with their fanbase, if they are serious players for Soto. What they might want to consider, when they do have their meeting with Soto and his agent, Scott Boras, is to bring David Ortiz with them. The Yankees always sell winning, of course. Ortiz, who was the greatest star of three World Series-winning teams in Boston, has known as much about winning in the 21st century as anybody in baseball.

Do the Red Sox need pitching, both starting pitching and relief pitching? They do. Does Soto alone move them past the Orioles and past the Yankees in their division? He does not. But what he does do is send the message to Red Sox fans that they mean the business of winning another World Series. And what is more of a blessing for Red Sox fans than doing something this dramatic to help their team and hurt the New York Yankees?

Are the Red Sox a longshot here? They probably are. But it was just over 20 years ago that they acquired a young left-handed hitter from the Dominican named Ortiz, who really did change their history and baseball history. This is their chance to do it again with another star out of the Dominican. Ortiz only cost $1.25 million at the time. Soto will cost a lot more than that. But at this particular time in Red Sox history, he just might be worth it.