The Boston Red Sox remained somewhat competitive for much of the 2023 campaign, but when all was said and done, they finished with a 78-84 record, and missed out on the playoffs by quite a big margin. Changes will be made this offseason, and in a sense, they have already been made now that Chaim Bloom has been fired as the team's President of Baseball Operations.

The Red Sox weren't necessarily a bad team last year, but the gaping holes on their roster that had been identified before the season even started came back to kill them. While the lineup always seemed to run extremely hot or cold, the pitching staff was piecing things together for pretty much the entire campaign. Boston was in the wild card hunt through August, but completely fell apart in September, which wasn't totally surprising given the state of their roster.

Truth be told, the Red Sox are probably a few competent pitchers, and maybe another solid bat or two, away from being a real playoff contender. Finding a way to add to their decent core group is attainable, and the new general manager of this team will have a lot to work with. What the team shouldn't do, though, is go out and make a massive push for superstar two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani.

The Red Sox should not pursue Shohei Ohtani in free agency

Ohtani's pending free agency is the biggest storyline in the MLB after the Los Angeles Angels opted to not trade him at the 2023 trade deadline. Ohtani very likely just picked up the second American League MVP Award of his career thanks to his best season at the plate (.304 BA, 44 HR, 95 RBI, 20 SB, 1.066 OPS) and another dominant year on the mound (10-5, 3.14 ERA, 167 K, 1.06 WHIP).

All the big name squads are going to make a push for Ohtani, but considering how the Red Sox are in the middle when it comes to the rebuilding/contending scale, it didn't seem like it would be wise to expect them to be all-in on Ohtani. As it turns out, though, several reports have come out recently indicating the opposite, and it looks like they could be players for Ohtani after all.

The allure of adding Ohtani is clear as day. There isn't another player in the MLB that is more valuable on an individual basis than Ohtani, not just because he can hit and pitch, but because he's an MVP caliber talent at the plate and a Cy Young candidate on the hill. What Ohtani has done over the past three seasons has never been seen before in the modern era of baseball.

And yet, making a run for him is precisely what the Red Sox do not need to do this offseason. Boston is not a team that is one big star away from immediately becoming a World Series contender. This is a team with several holes on the roster that need to be filled this offseason, and while it may not immediately yield a playoff squad, it's going to benefit this team in the long run if they are addressed sooner rather than later.

Ohtani fills some of those holes, but not all of them. Boston's biggest need this offseason is pitching, and while Ohtani is an ace when he's pitching, he won't be taking the mound at all next season after suffering a torn UCL late in the 2023 season. Whether Ohtani returns to the mound at all in his career is a big question mark right now, and it diminishes his value substantially right off the bat.

There's no doubt that Ohtani's bat would be a big help to the Sox lineup, but even he isn't capable of solely lifting the offense to a new level. Boston desperately needs help at their middle infield spots, particularly second base, and that is a more pressing concern than upgrading Justin Turner, who had a really good season, with a two-way player who won't be pitching in at least the 2024 season.

Adding Ohtani would be a move that would surely quell the irritation from Red Sox fans over the front office's recent desire to not make big moves. But this is the sort of move that Boston needed last offseason and failed to make. You can make a case that this move still would be wildly beneficial for the club, but after deciding not to spend on homegrown fan-favorites like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, why would the checkbook suddenly open up for Ohtani?

Nobody is saying Ohtani isn't a good player, but based on the Red Sox needs entering this offseason, this just isn't the sort of move that would be beneficial for them. A duo of Ohtani and Rafael Devers leading the lineup would be outrageously good, but beyond that, they wouldn't have much considering hundreds of millions of dollars would be going to just those two guys. Boston's best path forward is to try to add multiple good to great players to shore up their roster depth, which is why passing up Ohtani makes the most sense unfortunately.