Predictions: Is 2025 the year the Sox return to the playoffs?

Baseball is my favorite sport. The Boston Red Sox are my favorite team. With those two statements in place, it feels like a complete shock that Opening Day is right around the corner.

In one sense, it's not, as it's my job daily to research and report on the Boston Red Sox. At the same time, I look out the window to see the ground blanketed in white with nothing but basketball on the mind.

But baseball season is upon us, or so it will be in just over 48 hours. The Red Sox play their final spring tune up game tonight in Monterrey, Mexico before jetting to Arlington for Game 1-of-162 on Thursday.

We used the poll yesterday to iron out some statistical projections for the year:

- 52% think Jarren Duran will lead the team in AVG.

- 40% think Alex Bregman will lead the team in HR.

- 63% think Roman Anthony will have the most impactful year of the "Big 3" prospects.

- 78% think Garrett Crochet will have at least 15 wins and 225 strikeouts.

- 56% expect Walker Buehler to have the next-most wins after Crochet in the rotation.

Today, the focus is on the big picture - team success. It's been many years in the basement or bottom half of the AL East for the Boston Red Sox and that ends this season.

Look around the rest of the division and make a case for another team. I'll wait. The Yankees? They had an excellent off-season despite losing Juan Soto. They signed Max Fried to deepen the rotation, acquired Devin Williams to lock down the back end of the 'pen, and shored up the lineup with professional hitters like Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger.

But since camp opened the Yanks have been the walking wounded. Gerrit Cole's season ended before it began while much of the depth around the diamond is already getting stressed.

Baltimore lost their ace (Corbin Burnes ---> Arizona) and their 44-homerun cleanup hitter (Anthony Santander ---> Toronto). As for the Jays, they look good on paper, like always, yet it just has not materialized north of the border in recent seasons.

While the winter wasn't spent acquiring top billing talent, Craig Breslow was busy strengthening the bonus of the organization. It wasn't sexy, it didn't grab headlines, but Boston is built to sustain the marathon of 162 games as well as anyone else in the East. With the additions of Crochet, Bregman, the emergence of homegrown talent and the "greatest position-playing prospect trio in a generation" as ESPN's Jeff Passan called Anthony, Mayer and Campbell, the Sox have all the makings of a division winning squad.