Welcome back to our 2025 Red Sox Postmortem. After talking about the things we loved and hated, grading Craig Breslow and Alex Cora, and reevaluating the Rafael Devers trade, today we hand out team awards.

Garrett Crochet. The difference between the 81-81 team from a year ago and the 89-73 team from this season was a result of having a dominant ace of the staff and a dominant closer to finish off close games. Crochet gets the nod over Chapman because he threw 205 1/3 of those innings, ten more innings than anyone else in the American League.

— Bob Osgood

Garrett Crochet. He truly elevates the pitching staff in every way. He gives the bullpen much needed rest on a regular basis, puts up league-leading stats in every category there is, and, in turn, legitimizes the entire rest of the pitching staff. I’ve said this a few times, but Crochet has reached Pedro Martinez “use the bathroom during the offensive half of the inning” status.

– Dean Roussel

Ceddanne Rafaela. Best defender on the team, or perhaps, any team. Made gold glove plays at both second base and center field. Contributed several walkoff wins himself. This totally goes against actual fact, but those are likely losses but for Nuf Cedd.
— Mike Carlucci

Garrett Crochet. Felt a brief urge to be an edgelord and say that it’s actuallyyyyyyyyyyyy Trevor Story because of the amount of runs he drove in while playing up the middle, or that it’s actuallyyyyyyyyyyyyy Alex Bregman because of the intangibles or whatever. Both fine choices, of course. But le’ts not kid ourselves, folks. Oink oink.

– Fitzy Mo Peña

The answer is Garrett Crochet. But in attempt to avoid the fate of being basic, let’s make a case for Roman Anthony. Anthony showed up and almost immediately proved himself to be not only the best hitter on the post-Rafael Devers Red Sox, but one of the best hitters in the American League. Without his call-up and subsequent performance, the Red Sox don’t make the postseason. And while you can certainly say the same thing about Ceddanne and Trevor Story and Garrett Crochet (and, again, the actual answer here is Garrett Crochet) I have a feeling that we’ll one day look back at 2025 and see that the most important thing that happened to the Red Sox that year was that the club’s next great superstar arrived. So let’s just go ahead and say it now: The Sox are already Roman Anthony’s team, and have been since July.

— Dan Secatore

Aroldis Chapman. Remember when Chapman and Liam Hendriks went into spring training in a battle for closer? Chapman had walked 5.97 batters per nine from 2021-2024 combined. He walked 2.20 per nine in 2025. Chapman’s ERA entering play on September 10 was 0.98 after not allowing a run or a hit since July 23. Pure and utter dominance.

— Bob Osgood

Aroldis Chapman – I was not thrilled about the Red Sox signing a 37-year old reliever whose best years were behind him given how lights out Chris Martin had been just a year prior. It seemed like an obvious downgrade. Aroldis answered by being even more automatic, retiring 40 straight batters without allowing a hit at one point. His fastball that always looked fearsome had never looked so unhittable.

— Dean Roussel

Garrett Whitlock. He put up 31% strikeout rate and came in game after game to set the table for Aroldis Chapman to get the save. He made 62 appearances — that’s 38% of all Red Sox games that he appeared in. Whitlock got a raw deal in Game 2 against the Yankees, but he did about as well as could be expected. He doesn’t get the closer glory and fancy entrance, but the Red Sox don’t have their 2025 season without him.

— Mike Carlucci

Brayan Bello (the pre-September version). Consider this my appeal to a positive mindset. I believe that Brayan Bello’s output in 2025, despite of how rough the ending was (and yes—yanking him in game 2 in New York was the right move), is something we can appear to be excited about. Bello’s 2025 was very strong; he was less prone to letting small mistakes mount up and ruin his day, he was more composed on the hill, he limited walks a bit more—it was essentially the step forward that you’d practically hope he’d take in 2K25. Considering he’s going to (likely) be on the books for the next five seasons on some team-friendly money, I think we can get ambitious going forward. If he’s our number two in 2026 and beyond………..eh, fine, I suppose. But if he can be the platonic idea of a number three—this generation’s version of a Rick Porcello—then I’m going to be very excited. You can do a lot worse than a guy who can give you a 123 ERA+ as your third starter.

– Fitzy Mo Peña

What Fitz said. You can certainly make a case for Lucas Giolito. But since Giolito’s time in Boston is likely done while Bello’s is decidedly not, let’s give the kid his flowers.

— Dan Secatore

Carlos Narvaez. Much like the Chapman vs. Hendriks battle for closer, there was a time in the offseason that Narvaez vs. Blake Sabol was a battle for back-up catcher to Connor Wong. Not only did Narvaez win that spot, but he also became the primary catcher by May and produced nearly a 3-WAR season. He showed power from the catcher position at the plate, handled a significant workload while playing through a knee injury, and was beloved by teammates, delivering some of the best interviews of the season.

— Bob Osgood

Brayan Bello is really finding his way following some uncertainty to begin 2025. While he might not have had the best last start of the season against the Yankees in the Wild Card round, no one can deny that he found his presence and confidence stemming from that complete game shut out, the first 9-inning game of his career.

— Dean Roussel

Romy Gonzalez. A lefty masher who also started to hit righties? Can play second and first? I also considered Nate Eaton here. I think we were all expecting essentially nothing and we got really pleasant surprises when the team really needed it.

— Mike Carlucci

Carlos Narvaez – I wasn’t really aware of who he was 365 days ago. He is now our starting catcher—and probably will be for some time. It has to be him.

– Fitzy Mo Peña

I changed this category from “Rookie of the Year” to “Best break-out performance” in order to bring more players into the discussion, because I was afraid we’d just end up with bunch of people typing Roman Anthony over and over again. And then somehow no one picked Roman Anthony. Come on, people: at this time last year, Anthony was still using a fake ID and pretending to be 27-year-old Dwight McInglesby from Tacoma to get into bars. Today he’s one of the most exciting players in baseball. It’s Anthony.

— Dan Secatore

Romy Gonzalez handling an everyday role in the second half of the season with confidence. Gonzalez was on the roster to be a utility player who could hit left-handed pitching but, due to injuries in the infield, ended up with more at-bats against RHP than LHP. His OPS was an incredible .978 against left-handers, but he also held his own against righties, hitting for a .286 average. While Romy’s 341 plate appearances did not qualify for the batting title, he hit .305 on the season, which was seventh in all of MLB for those who had 300 PA’s or more.

— Bob Osgood

Trevor Story post-June 1 was every bit the player who the Red Sox hoped they had signed before the 2022 season. While it was worth asking where that player had been for the previous three and a half years, it was awesome to have a veteran guiding the younger guys, especially one with a dependable glove (if not a dependable arm).

— Dean Roussel

Masataka Yoshida’s September and October. I’ve always liked Masa as a player for his amazing bat control. I don’t understand what the Red Sox were thinking in giving him those dollars and years when Kyle Schwarber was right there, but Masa is fun to watch when he’s right. And he was to end the season.

— Mike Carlucci

The new City Connect jerseys not sucking – Hey, they’re 2-for-2! Usually Nike sucks at this…

– Fitzy Mo Peña

It’s pretty hard to go from quad-A guy to one of the most important players on the team, so go ahead and take a bow, Romy. But I’m giving this one to Connelly Early. Absolutely no one saw him coming out of nowhere to claim a spot in the 2026 rotation, but that’s exactly what he did.

— Dan Secatore

Running out of starting pitching as the playoffs started. The Red Sox traded Quinn Priester in April, as the Brewers were barely staying above water due to injuries throughout their entire staff. Since Boston had an abundance of pitching depth, they moved Priester, acquiring Yophery Rodriguez and gaining the 33rd pick in the draft in the process. While Priester was going 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA for Milwaukee, the Sox lost Hunter Dobbins, Richard Fitts, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, Dustin May, and Cooper Criswell to injury. Presumed second-half savior Patrick Sandoval never returned, Walker Buehler was so horrid that he was outright released, and once Lucas Giolito went down at the start of the playoffs, the team was basically down to two starting pitchers on the entire roster. Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, and Kyle Harrison gave the team nine decent starts in September and handled the difficult situation as well as they could, but eventually it became unsustainable.

— Bob Osgood

Connor Wong was primed for a great follow-up season after 1) becoming the only piece of the Mookie Betts trade remaining on the team and 2) the threshold of expectations for a high-performing catcher at the plate shrinking. (Hey, no one knew one AL catcher would hit 60 home runs!). He was disappointing, taking well into the summer to even hit an RBI or extra base hit, and his defense also left much to be desired. Luckily, Carlos Narvaez played well enough for most of the season to mitigate the risk of carrying a player punching way below his level. Honorary mention to Tanner Houck, who looked like a fringe ace in 2024 primed for more positive trajectory, although some of that unpleasantness was due to his season-ending injury.

— Dean Roussel

Walker Buehler. Look, he was bad in 2024 but had some flashes. And he had a few flashes in 2025 as well. And there is basically no such thing as a bad one-year deal. But I figured if he wasn’t hurt he’d have been better than what they got from him. Which was very little.

— Mike Carlucci

Walker Buehler – If you don’t have anything nice to say…

– Fitzy Mo Peña

Rafael Devers playing 163 games. (Come on: I couldn’t possibly go one of these season recap articles without bringing up his name.) Since the Giants had played one fewer game than the Red Sox at the time of the trade, Devers reached this nearly impossible feat. While the last player to play 163 games was Justin Morneau in 2008, his came as a result of a “Game 163” tiebreaker. Todd Zeile in 1996 was the last to do so because of an in-season trade. Oh, and Devers homered in that 163rd game, his 35th, along with his 109th RBI.

— Bob Osgood

I’m well aware the dangers of cherry picking stats, because Bobby Dalbec, as electric as he was for two weeks, is not a generational player. Much love to Bobby, though. Here’s one: if Roman Anthony’s wRC+ of 160 in his last 40 games of the 2020 season qualified, he’d have trailed just Aaron Judge in 2025. And over the last decade, that mark would’ve trailed just Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Yordan Alvarez. Obviously, we can’t extrapolate that for sure and claim that Roman Anthony would be one of the best players in baseball based on 53 games. But, based on how he played after some very short growing pains, he’s on track to be one of the very best in 2026.

— Dean Roussel

The Red Sox started the year with a 6-17 (AREA CODE BAYBEEEEEEE, SHOUTOUT QUINCY) record in one-run games. They did improve, to their credit, but I simply can’t help but think what could’ve been had they gone even 11-12 or some shit. That’s five wins on the Blue Jays right there, no? Guess how many games we lost the division by?

I’m just sayin’…

– Fitzy Mo Peña

3.93. Brayan Bello’s ERA during day games. In 2023 it was nearly 7.00 raising the question: is Brayan Bello a vampire? He’s been developing into a solid contributor to this team.

— Mike Carlucci

Ceddanne Rafaela doubled the number of games in which he walked at least twice from 2024 to 2025! Ok, sure, he only doubled it from 1 to 2. But when it comes to Ceddy’s approach at the plate, we’re just looking for progress here. As we saw in the summer, if Ceddanne can figure out how to consistently hit at the plate, he can be one of the best players in the game. I’m going to spend the next few years micro-analyzing his chase-rate.