Martinez also leads the MLB in BABIP (batting average on balls in play), the infamous harbinger of regression, with a .402 mark. A BABIP in the .400s almost always signifies oncoming regression, but Martinez may avoid that because he’s hitting the ball hard more often than any other player and he’s been spraying the ball across fields.

Let’s also recognize that while .402 is a crazy high BABIP, it’s down from .427 just a week ago. The dip didn’t affect his counting numbers at all. In that week, Martinez racked up nine hits, five homers and eight RBI.

Martinez’s standard numbers aren’t dipping with his BABIP in part because he hits the ball very hard, very often. According to MLB.com Statcast data, Martinez hits the ball 95 mph or higher 59.1 percent of the time, the top mark in the MLB. He also hits the ball with an average exit velocity of 95.8 miles per hour, good for fourth in baseball behind Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge and Miguel Cabrera.

Additionally, Martinez barrels the ball up in 14.9 percent of his plate appearances, second in baseball only to teammate Mookie Betts (15.6). His line drive percentage is 23.6, on pace for his career-high for a full season.

In short, he hits the ball really hard. But also, he doesn’t hit the ball soft. This might seem redundant at first, but seriously, his soft-contact rate is glaringly low compared to the rest of the league. I included Betts in the chart to show some perspective.

Courtesy: Baseball Info Solutions

This means that Martinez is hitting the ball at a medium- or hard-contact rate over 95 percent of the time he makes contact.

Not only is the 30-year-old outfielder hitting the ball hard, he’s hitting them to the opposite field, too. Now, I won’t say all fields, because he’s not hitting it into centerfield as much, but his opposite-field percentage (36.2) is second in baseball to Cincinnati’s Scooter Gennett (37.7). Over the last couple of years, Martinez has steadily leveled out his field distribution.

Martinez’s opposite-field percentage took a five percent leap in his career year last season, when he batted .303 with 45 home runs and 104 RBI. The percentage has seen yet a larger increase in 2018, where he’s on pace to eclipse all three of those figures.

And while Martinez’s BABIP is high, that figure can be neutralized with sky-high hard contact numbers and effective field distribution: two figures that display much more skill than luck. If Martinez continues to hit the ball hard and spray his hits, he’ll likely be able to avoid regression and surpass his outstanding 2017 campaign.

Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski uncharacteristically decided against acquiring a third baseman at the trade deadline and instead, chose to bring up Boston’s top prospect Rafael Devers to the big league club. Devers impressed at just about every level of the minors. BP’s senior prospect writer Jeffrey Paternostro noted this in The Call-Up, Rafael Devers edition:

“He came stateside the following summer after just 28 games in the DSL. In 2015, he was given an aggressive assignment to the South Atlantic League as an 18-year-old. He held his own—batting .289/.323/.443—and jumped up our 101 from No. 90 to No. 35. He almost xeroxed his line in 2016 as a 19-year-old in Advanced-A, and that was after an ice cold start to the season.”

Devers then kick-started an incredible beginning to his 2017 season in Double-A Portland, slashing .300/.369/.575 with 18 homers in 77 games before being moved up to Triple-A. In Pawtucket, Devers slashed .400/.447/.600 in nine games. His rapid improvement coincided perfectly with Boston’s decision to stand pat on trading for a third baseman.

Since joining the Red Sox, Devers has somehow outperformed his Triple-A numbers. Now, the 20-year-old lefty is slashing .429/.500/.714 in his first seven games at the big league level. Devers is more than filling the third base void that has pained Boston all season long. His minor league scouting report has translated to the big leagues in a big way. That power to all fields? Let’s look at his two home runs so far.

Devers’ first career blast was 427 feet, as projected by Statcast, and to dead center. His second wasn’t quite 427 feet, but it scraped atop the Green Monster for an opposite field shot.

Devers has sprayed the ball as advertised; he has only pulled two of his 12 hits, with five going to center and left field apiece. His sweet swing has been everything Sox fans have hyped it up to be. In just seven games, Devers has already accumulated a 0.6 WARP. He’s been a questionable defender in the past, but a 1.3 FRAA mark thus far has shown that Devers has not yet been a liability at the hot corner.

In being realistic, major league pitchers will be able to scout Devers better as more data comes in. His .500 BABIP will obviously drop. Seven games is a minuscule sample size to say the least. But hey, it’s been about as good a seven games as Sox fans could hope for, right?

Photo by Winslow Townson – USA TODAY Sports

But who is the culprit? Matthew Kory took a look at Boston’s low power trends in April and noted the losses of both David Ortiz and Travis Shaw, two productive power bats. He also brought up the early season flu bug that went through the Red Sox clubhouse and impacted some power producers. It was tough to grab a large enough sample in April to conclude that the Red Sox simply didn’t hit for much power anymore. But 95 games into the season, that notion is coming into fruition.

The logical assumption would blame Boston’s power drop off on the losses of Ortiz and Shaw, who combined for 54 homers in 2016. But if we take a look at Boston’s consistent starting hitters from both 2016 and 2017, the decline in individual power numbers is evident.

As shown above, this group of players is underperforming this season against its 2016 ISO averages. Mookie Betts is on track to almost exactly match his 2016 home run total, while Hanley Ramirez is set to fall a couple of homers short. Bradley missed 12 games earlier this season, setting him back a bit, but PECOTA projects him to finish six homers shy of his 2016 total.

That trio doesn’t pop off the page as power letdowns, but Boston’s middle infield pair has sharply declined its power output. Neither Pedroia nor Bogaerts have come close to amounting to even a third of their respective 2016 home run totals. I took a look at some Statcast data to see if something has changed.

Pedroia is an interesting case, because his fly ball rate has actually risen from 26.8 percent in 2016 to 31.3 percent this season. But his infield fly ball percentage has seen a corresponding uptick. As evident above, Pedroia was hitting many more line drives in 2016. The ultimate killer is his HR/FB rate, which has split in half this season. The downfall of Pedroia’s HR/FB ratio translates over to Xander Bogaerts’ batted ball data as well. His ratio is down from 11.4 percent in 2016 to 7.4 percent in 2017.

Bogaerts is loading up on ground balls, which accumulate nearly 50 percent of his batted balls. His fly ball rate is down five percent from 2016, and his hard contact rate is hovering just around 30 percent. That being said, Bogaerts and Pedroia still hold batting averages around .300 and TAv’s around .280. After all, in scouring the leaderboards, both players land among the top 15 singles hitters.

Overall, the combination of individual numbers from Boston’s core and the loss of two power producers leads to an intriguing case. The Red Sox have enough weapons on offense to produce MLB’s eighth best VORP (186.6), but they can’t seem to put the ball over the fence.

Another interesting point is the factor of Fenway Park, a widely recognized bandbox for both righties and lefties. Baseball Prospectus runs a stat called Ballpark Factor (BPF), which is centered around 100, with numbers above and below representing the percentage that run-scoring was increased by the mix of parks a team has batted in. The Red Sox consistently rank in the top 10 of this list. In 2016, Boston ranked first with a 112 BPF. This season, they rank 16th with a 100 BPF, which notes that the Red Sox’s run production hasn’t increased nor decreased because they play at Fenway.

The lack of power hasn’t killed them to this point, but come playoff time, the Sox will inevitably be facing better pitching. Time will tell whether Boston can turn around its power numbers, but a new third baseman would almost certainly lead the Red Sox in that direction.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports