Welcome to the 2024 Red Sox.

Are you excited? Likely not. It’s been a tough stretch (by Boston sports standards in this century, anyway). There are valid complaints to be made about the state of the Sox.

But if you think you know how this is going to end, you don’t.

In this day and age, the last team standing is rarely the one people expect.

ESPN thought the 2004 Red Sox would win 102 games and the AL East, but cautioned that the team “may not respond well to new manager Terry Francona.”

Meanwhile, Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s “2004 Baseball Preview” issue alongside the words, “Hell Freezes Over / The Cubs Will Win the World Series.”

They were right about hell freezing over, they just got the cursed team wrong.

In 2013, Bleacher Report predicted that the Sox would go 77-85 for their second consecutive last-place finish. They went 97-65, won the division, and the World Series.

Most evaluators thought that the Yankees would be better than the Sox in ’18, including MLB.com. Boston ‘did damage’ to those projections, winning 108 regular-season games and bulldozing their so-called postseason competition en route to championship No. 9.

Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections had the ’21 Sox finishing fourth in the division with an 80-82 record. Instead, Boston went from a last-place finish the year before, to a near-upset of the Astros in the ALCS.

All this to say, anything can happen in 162 games. And seeing as the Sox are about to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that historic ’04 run, Bostonians should remember that they know better than anyone how quickly the impossible can become possible. As evidenced by the predictions listed above, the Red Sox are at their best and most memorable when they come out of nowhere.

Besides, in Boston sports, being the best is almost boring at this point (I recognize the Title-Town privilege in that). It’s far more fun to be underdogs, shocking the world, as Kevin Millar so presciently said twenty years ago this October.

I’m not saying the 2024 Red Sox are a postseason team. I’m just not going to decide they aren’t one on Opening Day morning, either, because I don’t know one way or the other, and neither do you.

And I’m certainly not saying you should give ownership a free pass for setting their own meager-by-their-own-standards budget. They ran out of excuses a long time ago.

What I’m suggesting is that you keep an open mind, because why not? What do you gain by ruling the Red Sox out before they’ve played a single regular-season game?

Of course, if you expect nothing, you can’t be disappointed. However, I think many members of Red Sox Nation still have hope, because what I see on social media and hear from you in my inbox is not apathy. You’re angry and frustrated, which means you still care.

Remember that the players aren’t the ones trying to pinch pennies that don’t need pinching. In fact, several players have been quite vocal over the last two years, publicly calling for reinforcements. This is also an intensely competitive, hungry group with strong team chemistry and good energy. They want to win and they’re eager to prove the doubters wrong. Why not give them a chance to do so?

What do you have to lose?