It has been eight years since the Red Sox won the American League East, an achievement that came along with 108 victories and a dominant postseason run culminating in a 2018 World Series title.
Both of the team’s playoff appearances since that point have come as an AL Wild Card, including in 2025, when Boston went 89-73 but finished third in the division behind the 94-win Blue Jays and Yankees. So now the question is whether this team is ready to level up in '26 and get back to the top of the East.
The projected standings released earlier this week over at FanGraphs say: Not so fast.
The Sox are projected third in the division, but really, it’s projected as a wild four-team race among New York, Toronto, Boston and Baltimore. FanGraphs' model has each falling in the range of 84-86 wins (if you round to the nearest win), with somewhere between a 19-32% chance to finish atop the East.
Projections are only a starting point, though, and there are innumerable ways a given team can wind up far above -- or below -- that point. Here’s a look at the glass-half-full view for Boston, with four ways the club can beat its projections and reclaim AL East supremacy in 2026. (Note: One way would be for the Red Sox to make a late-offseason splash, perhaps by acquiring an infielder. But for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll stick to evaluating the current roster.)
1. Roman Anthony becomes a superstar
Anthony was MLB Pipeline’s No. 1 overall prospect -- and was less than a month removed from his 21st birthday -- when he was called up to Boston last June. He delivered on the hype.
While Anthony’s impact was blunted by a slow start and a season-ending left oblique strain that kept him out for nearly all of September, he absolutely looked like a star while slashing .292/.396/.463 with a 140 OPS+ and 2.7 FanGraphs WAR in just 71 games. It may have been a small sample, but the results and some of Anthony’s impressive underlying metrics were indicative of a player with MVP-level upside. The history of batters who have been that good that young says the same.
Now all Anthony has to do is go out there and prove it over 162 games. Projections are, by their nature, conservative. That means it’s no surprise that Anthony is slated for somewhere between 2.5 and 4 WAR, depending on the system. But the ceiling is much higher than that, if Anthony can stay healthy and put it all together against a league that is going to adjust to him.
2. Jarren Duran recaptures some 2024 magic
If we’re talking about a talented, lefty-hitting outfielder putting it all together for a star-caliber season, that’s exactly what Duran did in 2024, when he was the All-Star Game MVP and an AL MVP candidate who led the Majors in both doubles and triples. His 6.8 fWAR ranked seventh.
It’s not as if Duran’s 2025 follow-up was some sort of disaster -- most players would gladly take a .774 OPS and 3.9 fWAR over 157 games. Still, Duran did take a bit of a step back in all phases of the game, then weathered an offseason of trade rumors that so far has not yielded any movement.
The projections see a bit more regression from Duran in 2026, and it seems exceedingly likely that '24 will prove to be a career year. But even if the 29-year-old could land somewhere between his production from the past two seasons, that would be a big plus for a Red Sox lineup whose only significant changes have been swapping departed free agent Alex Bregman for Willson Contreras.
3. Marcelo Mayer breaks out
Even early this offseason, Mayer looked like a key to Boston’s 2026 season. But his importance has only increased as the offseason has gone on, with Bregman departing in free agency and Craig Breslow’s front office thus far being unable to land another impact player to handle second or third base.
The Red Sox did sign the slick-fielding Isiah Kiner-Falefa to bolster the infield depth, but the way things look, Mayer is going to be counted on heavily to produce at one or both of those two positions. Mayer’s offensive performance as a 22-year-old rookie in 2025 -- .228/.272/.402 in 44 games -- didn’t give the projection systems a whole lot to get excited about. But there’s also a reason Mayer was the fourth overall pick in the 2021 Draft and a very well-regarded prospect who put up an .826 OPS in the Minors.
With some big league experience under his belt and better health (Mayer also sustained a season-ending right wrist injury in 2025), the 23-year-old could take a significant step forward in ‘26 and provide the Sox with some much-needed infield stability.
4. An unexpected stud emerges in the rotation
The Red Sox are projected to have the best rotation in baseball in 2026, so in the big picture, there’s not much room for growth. But most of that anticipated success is due to an enviable top four of Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez and Bryan Bello.
The thing about this rotation, though, is that not only is there depth, there is depth with upside. Boston acquired Johan Oviedo from the Pirates because he showcased some intriguing changes after returning from Tommy John surgery last summer. Neither Kutter Crawford nor Patrick Sandoval pitched in 2025 due to injury, but both have been stellar big league starters in the recent past. Payton Tolle and Connelly Early are two of the top eight left-handed pitching prospects in baseball, per MLB Pipeline, and both have MLB experience under their belts. Fellow lefty Kyle Harrison is still just 24, and it wasn’t long ago he was thought of in that same way.
This depth protects the Red Sox in case one of the top four goes down, but it’s also possible that one of those other arms seizes an opportunity and gives the club yet another strong rotation option.