The Boston Red Sox enter Thursday at the bottom of the American League East with a 6-13 record, but despite the disappointing start to the 2019 MLB season, team president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski hasn't reached the point where seismic roster moves are being considered.
Dombrowski stressed Thursday on WEEI's "Dale and Keefe" show that the Red Sox are not close to blowing up the roster.
"I didn't see David's comments," Dombrowski said. "No, we're not in a position to blow things up at this point. But we do have to play better, there's no question about that. I think his point was probably to people, that, hey, we can't keep playing this way, things end up happening. But we're a long way away from being in that type of situation."
The topic of making wholesale changes came up after David Price told The Boston Globe that J.D. Martinez, Mookie Betts and potentially himself might find themselves on new teams if the Red Sox don't turn around their season.
"If we don’t start playing better, J.D. Martinez, Mookie Betts, maybe myself, we could get traded. We’re, what, 30th in minor league systems?” Price noted, referencing Baseball America’s recent organization rankings that did indeed feature the Red Sox with the No. 30 farm system. “We’re dead last. We don’t play better, Mookie Betts will be traded, J.D. Martinez will be traded. It will be tough for a while here.”
The Red Sox still have 143 games remaining in the regular season, but they're already 8.5 games out of first place in the AL East. Boston needs to go 89-54 (.622 win percentage) over the rest of the season to reach 95 wins. Last year, 95 wins wasn't enough to clinch either of the two wild-card playoff spots in the AL. That said, this Red Sox roster has way too much talent to just give up. Boston won the World Series last year after a 108-win regular season, and relievers Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly were the only notable depatures over the offseason.
There's no time to waste, though. The Sox need to show drastic improvement ASAP or the 2019 season could soon be lost.
Boston Red Sox
Find the latest Boston Red Sox news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Boston.
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Celtics easily on your device.