John Henry’s biggest mistake with the Red Sox keeps costing the team

Through the first few weeks of the regular season, one thing holds true in MLB: The AL East is an absolute juggernaut. All five teams in that division are currently at or above .500, including the middling Boston Red Sox. While New York and Baltimore look like the class of the division, Boston should be more than nipping at the heels of Tampa Bay and Toronto. It all comes back to defense...

This has to be maddening for Red Sox fans everywhere. While this was not supposed to be a year where Boston contended for much of anything, check this stat out. Through the Red Sox's first 20 games this season, they are 2-9 when they commit an error and 8-1 when they do not. They lost at home on Thursday afternoon to the Cleveland Guardians 5-4 on account of a pair of errors made.

Shortstop David Hamilton and third baseman Pablo Reyes each committed their third errors of the season. Yes, Cleveland had a pair of errors yesterday with third baseman Gabriel Arias and second baseman Andres Gimenez fumbling in the field. However, Boston's defensive struggles have played a huge part in why they have not been a competitive for roughly half a decade now. This needs to stop.

Fixing the defense is one of the simplest things owner John Henry could do, but he chooses not to.

Let's discuss why this ongoing problem needs to be rectified before we can say this is a serious team.

John Henry's refusal to fix the Boston Red Sox defense is costing them

While I don't claim to know everything under the sun about the current state of the Red Sox, I know that they have had a bad defense the last few years. Of the five areas of the game (batting, bullpen, base-running, defense, rotation), this is the one that drives me insane. A team may not have the players to out-slug or out-pitch the opposition, or the foot speed, but defense is all about focus.

Handing a team of quality an extra out or two a game is a great way to ensure your team is going to eventually lose the ball game. Improved defense gives the starting rotation more confidence and can save the bullpen, allowing the offense to not press as much at the plate or on the base paths. At the end of the day, it all comes back to defense, as the opposition only gets a certain amount of outs.

While I wouldn't say that defense has been completely devalued in this era of baseball, but it is not going to cost as much as a power bat or a rocket arm in the rotation. People get so infatuated with star players' awesome power that they tend to forget that baseball is a skill game of great strategy. Outs are precious commodities, so you don't want to be handing them out like fliers on a sidewalk.

To me, defense is the easiest way to improve a ball club, but that is not a priority for John Henry at all.