There's the saying that the playoffs are a whole new season, and teams just hit a switch when it comes playoff time. Well, that saying was true for the 2016 Boston Red Sox. This team was literally a new team.

No, not in a good way like it usually should be but, this team just looked completely different and off. Some people may say the reason this team collapsed or changed (depending on what you want to say) is when they won the division against the Yankees in that awkward walk off grand slam loss. That has to be one of the if not the most awkward division-clinching games in all of baseball, but, hey this team didn't care, they won the division!

What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, right? Well, actually there was a few things that went wrong. This team was on an 11-game winning streak before the Yankees series but once they clinched, they decided to go into cruise control for the rest of the way only winning 1 of 8 games to end the year. The Red Sox, unfortunately, could not shift out of cruise control and it cost them, big time. This series sweep had to have been one of the more painful series losses for the Red Sox, since like the saying I mentioned earlier, it's a whole new season and this could not have been anymore accurate to describe the Red Sox this postseason.

Now where did it all go wrong?

Here are my three theories:

1) the disappearing act of the 'mighty' offense

2) the so-called ace pitchers, and last but not least

3) John Farrell.

Going into the playoffs, the Red Sox had the highest scoring offense in all of baseball with 878 runs. Many people said going into the playoffs that a key for the Red Sox was their offense and you can't get into close games with this team because they will out score you. Maybe with the regular season Red Sox that could be the case, but with the team we saw this postseason, you can get in any run differential game with them and your team would still find a way to win because this team could not score.

In the three games the Red Sox played, they only scored 7 runs...7 RUNS! If you are considered one of baseball's offensive powerhouses, this is just unacceptable. A few notable players that stood out to me during this offensive slump were Xander Bogarts, Mookie Betts, and Jackie Bradley Junior (JBJ).

First, let's start with Bogarts. Going into the year many people were worried about if Bogarts can be a strong offensive shortstop as he is defensively and he answered the call. In the regular season, Bogarts hit .294 with 21 Homeruns and 89 RBI's and just seemed like he figured it out and had it all put together. Once the postseason rolled around, Bogarts completely changed and looked like a deer in the headlights. Bogarts hit .250 but he just took multiple bad swings and seemed like a rookie called up from single-A out there and it was just uncomfortable to watch at time with the type of pitches he swung at.

Next is Mookie Betts who is a strong contender for the American League MVP and with these stats can you blame him? Betts hit .318 with 31 Homeruns and 113 RBI's, sounds pretty good right? Someone you can rely on during the postseason? Someone should've reminded Betts he was this guy because in the playoffs he hit .200 and like Bogarts, he just looked lost. Going into the playoffs, Betts hadn't struck out in many at-bats and what does Betts do in his first postseason at-bat, strikes out. I understand that he's young and hasn't had this experience but when you're someone who put up MVP like numbers, you are expected to perform like one and Betts just did not do that.

Onto our third player and that is JBJ. During the regular season JBJ started out scorching by having a 29 game hitting streak and just continued throughout the year to show he has definitely improved on his hitting by going .267 with 26 Homeruns and 87 RBI's and you'd think JBJ finally turned a new leaf and was going to the complete outfield. Like the other two players, mentioned we were wrong and this one may be the most frustrating (up there with Bogarts). Even though JBJ was going into the post season with being 0 for his last 11, he would mostly be a good out but like these other young players (notice a pattern?) he just seemed afraid of the spotlight. During the three games, Bradley hit .100, which was one of the team worst. While he may have been a bottom of the order kind of guy, JBJ just seemed like he'd be a different kind though because of how well his regular season stats looked but just could not seem to figure things out in the playoffs. It took him until the 9th inning of game three to get his first hit in the ENTIRE series, and if you want to make an impact and help your team, this clearly isn't the way to do so.

Coming into the year, critics of this team said we need an ace, this team needs pitching and so on. Since the ownership botched the Jon Lester negotiations and let him sign with the Cubs, this team was lacking the pitching power it once had. Fast forward to December 4, 2015, I go onto Twitter and what do I see? I see many baseball and Red Sox reporters saying we signed David Price and like other Sox fans, I was ectastic by the news because we now have our ace! Sure the contract was a little iffy (7 years and 217 million) but hey since we missed out on Lester, this was a descent Band-Aid.

After Price though, who else was there? The Red Sox never signed anyone else to bolster the starting rotation and in the end, good thing. Minus Clay Bucholtz (except toward the end), this pitching staff held their own and gave us the potential AL Cy Young winner in Rick Porcello.

Hearing all these good things about the pitching should be encouraging right? Wrong. Allow me to explain. Lets start with Porcello since this will be quicker than what I have to say about Price. After 2015,you couldn't go anywhere to hear people say Porcello is overpaid, why'd we get him, and the complaints go on and on. Porcello put all that to rest though (with dominance I might add). Pretty Ricky as some fans call him, finished the regular season with a 22-4 record to go with a 3.15 ERA and I can say, this was definitely the biggest surprise from the Red Sox pitching rotation since nobody saw this coming (if you said you did, then you're a liar and no one likes liars). B

ut like Porcello's regular season we never saw coming, we never saw his awful post season performance coming. In game 1, Porcello onlasted 4.1 innings with five earned runs and an ERA of 10.38 which made him the 37th best pitcher in the post season (there was only 40 spots). Like I said, this was something we did not see coming and it just sucked because Porcello had a great road record too going 9-3 with a 3.31 ERA so how can you not feel confident with him going into game 1? If you are going to be the ace of the staff, you need to perform better plain and simple. Porcello just seemed rattled and went back to 2015 Porcello and we all know how we feel about him.

Onto my favorite pitcher, David Price. Oh David, David, where to begin with you? At first, I was excited about this signing because Price was considered one of the top pitchers in baseball and now we got have him be apart of our team. During Price's press conference he joked "I guess I'm saving all my post season wins for Boston". That made everyone at the press conference laugh and stand up and clap (no seriously, they did watch from 8:25-8:33 and I'll address this later). Once the regular season started, Price was not pitching like the ace we paid him to be but eventually toward the end he figured it out and finished the year going 17-9 with a 3.99 ERA. Even though Price is notoriously awful in the post season with a record of 0-8 with a 5.74 ERA, Red Sox fans convincend themselves hey this year will be different, he said he was saving all his wins for us we'll be fine. Wow, were we off. Price was the 39th best pitcher in the post season (remember there's only 40 spots) and he went 3.1 innings with 5 earned runs, and one of those runs was 3 run homer run. What really set me over the edge with Price was the fact he just showed no sign of accepting responsibility for defeat. Price was quoted after the game saying “I take a tremendous amount of pride in what I do, and in the way that I work, the way that I prepare myself, and haven’t had good results yet,” he said after the game. “But they’re coming. I promise you that.” Are they coming David? Are they really? When you give a response in the tone of 'hey I tried but don't worry it will happen, just wait it out'! We don't have patience for that, we need these wins now but the fact you go out there and lay an egg like that, should not have surprised any Sox fan. While some were confident Price could figure it out, I had my doubts because of that dreaded post season record. Nice try David, I wasn't falling for your little joke at your press conference since I mean come on, 0-8...whoops I mean 0-9 now in the playoffs, how is that supposed to make feel good about your post season career? This guy just does not seem to get it, he needs to accept resonsiblity and stop trying to take pressure off himself. His attitude is something that doesn't help either, when asked about his post season record after game 2 he responded saying "I actually have two wins". Yeah out of the bullpen David, not as a starter which is what you're supposed to do. One more thing about his attitude that annoys me, by having this soft attitude he is easily able to get rattled and this is probably why he has trouble in the post season. A fan told Price on Twitter to pitch up to your contract and can you blame him? Price's response to him? He corrected the Twitter troll on his contract number and saying don't change him. Hey David, instead of responding to trolls on Twitter, why not just stay off social media for a little since you clearly can't handle it and focus on why you did not pitch well and what you can do better.

Now, onto my final reason what cost the Red Sox this post season. Hey what do you know, the reason is in the picture above! It's John Farrell, and it is solely because of his questionable decision making. As most Red Sox fans know, John Farrell has been suspect to poor decision making throughout last season and this past season (that's a story for another day). What makes this even more frustrating is that for a second when Farrell was able to turn this team around and get them into the playoffs and win the division, you'd think maybe Farrell turned a new leaf. Sure, he still had some questionable decision making in the last two series' against the Yankees and Blue Jays to end the year, but still, maybe, just maybe he figured it out. Unfortunately that was not the case and Farrell went back to his old questionable ways which ultimately cost this team. While there was multiple questionable decsions, I will highlight a couple that stood out to me. First, lets start with his quick hook with Clay Bucholtz. Throughout the year, many of us had our doubts about Bucholtz and reasonably so with how awful he pitched during the regular season. Farrell for once made a smart call, and put Clay in the bullpen and once he got out of there he was pitching well. For some reason during game 3, Farrell decided to take out Bucholtz who was having a nice start for Drew Pomerantz who ended up giving up a two run Homerun to Coco Crisp and if you give up a Homerun to him, you know the series is over. I can't say I am sure why Farrell ended up doing this because Bucholtz seemed comfortable out there and if you are in a must win situation, you do what you can. Having Bucholtz go longer than 4 innings would have given this team a chance and it is isn't like Clay was going to be pitching on a short days rest, Clay could've gone longer than four innings. Farrell compleltely messed up by being quick with Clay and this cost them.

My final complaint with Farrell is deciding to pinch hit young phenom Andrew Bennetendi Chris Young. This one just made no sense, I get that you're trying to have the best matchup, but Bennetendi had the second best batting average on the team hitting .333 and you just don't take that out of a struggling lineup. If Farrell wanted Young in there so bad, why didn't he pinch hit JBJ or Sandy Leon? Those two were both struggling big time but yet you take out your second best hitter? Farrell's explanation is a head scratcher too "The number of pitches he's (Miller) thrown, if we wait to get to Jackie in that inning, we may never get there," Farrell said. "And then they're going to go to (right-handed reliever Bryan) Shaw with the right-handers coming in the next inning. That's the shot we took with him. He draws the walk, starts with the potential of getting something going. Either Benintendi or Jackie is going to have to get an at-bat if that inning gets extended. But if it's not, not going to get left with the pinch-hit starting the next inning, and then they go to Shaw to lead things off". Just reading that is a head scratcher because the person that needed the at-bat was Bennetendi, not the struggling JBJ! Would having Bennetendi hit that inning given the Red Sox a win? Who knows, but what I do know is, if you want a rally to start you have the guy hitting .333 stay in the game not the guy who's hitting .100.

Now we're in the offseason stage, and I can't say many of us were expecting this to happen so soon. Where can this team improve? Is it getting someone who can bolster the offense? Is it going out and getting another number one or two starter? Or could it be getting a fresh face in the clubhouse and firing the manager (even though Dave Dombrowski says otherwise). Time will only tell what this team looks like coming into next year, and we can only hope they have learned from their mistakes. In the meantime, go Patriots, Celtics and Bruins!