Presenting the full list 2017 Roster Recaps, listed with the authors that wrote them. An asterisk denotes a player who has, as of March 13th, dearly departed the Red Sox. We’ll miss them all terribly.

Catchers

• Sandy Leon (Cam Ellis)
• Blake Swihart (Jake Devereaux)
• Christian Vazquez (Brett Cowett)

Infielders

• Xander Bogaerts (Chris Teeter)
• Chase d’Arnaud* (Matt Kory)
• Rafael Devers (Kory)
• Marco Hernandez (Cowett)
• Brock Holt (Devereaux)
• Tzu-Wei Lin (Cowett)
• Deven Marrero (Cowett)
• Mitch Moreland (Cowett)
• Eduardo Nunez (Teeter)
• Dustin Pedroia (Kory)
• Hanley Ramirez (Devereaux)
• Josh Rutledge* (Cowett)
• Pablo Sandoval* (Cowett)
• Sam Travis (Teeter)

Outfielders

• Andrew Benintendi (Ellis)
• Mookie Betts (Kory)
• Jackie Bradley Jr. (Cowett)
• Rajai Davis* (Daniel Poarch)
• Steve Selsky (Ellis)
• Chris Young* (Cowett)

Pitchers

• Fernando Abad* (Ellis)
• Matt Barnes (Cowett)
• Blaine Boyer* (Cowett)
• Roenis Elias (Poarch)
• Doug Fister* (Kory)
• Heath Hembree (Kory)
• Brian Johnson (Teeter)
• Joe Kelly (Ellis)
• Kyle Kendrick* (Poarch)
• Craig Kimbrel (Cowett)
• Austin Maddox (Ellis)
• Kyle Martin (Poarch)
• Drew Pomeranz (Ellis)
• Rick Porcello (Teeter)
• David Price (Ellis)
• Noe Ramirez* (Poarch)
• Addison Reed* (Ellis)
• Eduardo Rodriguez (Cowett)
• Robbie Ross* (Cowett)
• Chris Sale (Cowett)
• Robby Scott (Cowett)
• Carson Smith (Teeter)
• Ben Taylor (Cowett)
• Hector Velazquez (Devereaux)
• Brandon Workman (Ellis)
• Steven Wright (Kory)

Header photo by Winslow Townson — USA TODAY Sports

In the meantime, Austin Maddox would love your attention. If you’ll recall, Maddox sort of showed up out of nowhere in September, and was good enough to beat out Matt Barnes, Brandon Workman, and Heath Hembree for a spot on the ALDS roster. He apparently almost made the Opening Day roster out of camp last year, but the tail-end of Spring Training is a dystopian hellscape full of four-hour, split-squad nightmares that I try to forget. If the Red Sox made a decision on one of their 1,000 okay-ish right-handed relievers on the last day of Spring Training, I certainly missed it.

Nonetheless, the team was clearly high on Maddox heading into the 2017 season. Over 36 innings in Triple-A, Maddox posted a 3.70 FIP and was striking out over a batter an inning. While those are certainly good enough to warrant a promotion, Maddox also struggled mightily with control. He was walking 14 percent of the batters he faced, far and away the highest rate of his minor league career. Still, everyone ever drafted by the Red Sox and all the season ticket holders get a shot at making the roster for September call-ups, and Maddox took advantage of that.

In 17 innings of work for the Sox, Maddox carried a 2.64 FIP while posting a stellar strikeout-to-walk ratio that settled a shade below 18 percent. A Brian McCann dinger in a late September blowout was the only run scored against him all year, so that’s kind of impressive. He’s doesn’t really have a third pitch, but he does have a fastball that lives in the mid-to-high 90’s, so I can live with that. Predictably, an overwhelming majority (14) of his 17 innings last season were in low-leverage situations. His .150/.190/.150 slash line against righties is bursting at the seams with intrigue, but it’s hard to take any numbers seriously with such a small sample size. His fly ball percentage sitting at 60 percent is alarming, but again small sample sizes blah blah blah baseball writing is just making a point and then copping out of it.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Maddox made the ALDS roster. Just walked right in and beat out, like, three pitchers the Red Sox had been relying on all year despite only throwing a handful of innings.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Not making the roster out of Spring Training, I guess? Getting taken yard by Brian McCann probably isn’t that fun. The team he’s employed to play for got thoroughly overwhelmed in the playoffs. His cable bill probably increased.

WHAT TO EXPECT

It’s hard to know who ranks above who now that Alex Cora is making the decisions. If the team still views him as a better option than Barnes, Hembree or Workman, he’ll be a prominent member of the bullpen. He’ll be a part of the thrilling right-handed middle relief competition that goes on during Spring Training, and I, for one, cannot wait.*

*that’s untrue.

Photo by Patrick McDermott — USA TODAY Sports

If you pitch a perfect 8th inning in the clinching game of a World Series – as a rookie – you’ve officially bought my everlasting affection. Them’s the rules. I don’t really know where this is going – I just wanted to prepare you for a slightly unrealistic overview of Workman’s 2017 season.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

For starters, Workman successfully returned from Tommy John surgery after a year and a half of recovery. Tommy John isn’t quite the career roadblock that it used to be, but being able to return to throwing baseballs 90+ miles per hour after having a tendon surgically grafted onto your elbow to replace the previously torn one seems like an overall win. His first action for the Sox came in May, but after a couple disastrous appearances, was sent to Triple-A for a couple months. He reemerged in August and was excellent for a long stretch of time. In fact, he was one of the team’s best bullpen options until mid-September.

From July 15th – the day he was recalled from Pawtucket – to September 15th, he posted a 2.35 ERA over 30.2 innings of relief appearance. He was tagged for only eight earned runs over that stretch. Also worth noting: Workman stranded 92 percent of the runners he inherited during that time. During that same stretch, Addison Reed, de-facto setup man, posted a 4.07 ERA, allowing 11 runs over 24.2 innings. He also “only” stranded 80 percent of the batters he inherited. While that’s still above the 2017 league average (73 percent), as any 5th grader will tell you, 92 is better than 80.

During that two month stretch, Workman was also piling up strikeouts. He carried a 25.2 percent strikeout rate over those eight weeks, four percentage points higher than his career average. He also walked batters less, posting a 6.7 percent walk rate, down two percentage points from his career norm (8.2 percent). His velocity was back up, and was getting more swing-and-misses. He was a dominant, albeit lucky, reliever for two months. At the time, I was the conductor, and possibly only passenger, of the Workman For The Setup Role hype train, and while hindsight is 20/20, I regret nothing.

WHAT WENT WRONG

First and foremost, fatigue set in. It takes a while to build up arm strength, and after an 18-month absence from major league games, Workman burned out at the worst possible time. After two great months, his final five outings of the year were a disaster. Workman imploded, posting a 9.64 ERA over the final two weeks of the season while on his way to being left off the postseason roster. My guess is that the team made the decision to include Austin Maddox over Workman knowing that the latter didn’t have anything left in the tank. That’s not to say it’s the wrong decision, but I just can’t imagine the team ignoring the first two months of results in favor of the last two weeks as the only factor.

Like I briefly mentioned earlier, there were also signs throughout his dominant stretch that Workman was benefiting from a fair bit of luck. Workman posted a much uglier 4.10 FIP over his dominant eight weeks, and anytime ERA’s and FIP’s are that far apart, something’s not right. Workman had a home run problem all year, posting a HR/FB rate of 16.1 percent. The league average for relievers in 2017 was a touch over 12 percent, so clearly Workman struggled to keep the ball in the park. His BABIP from mid-July through mid-September was .250, which is nowhere close to his career average (.305) or league average (.295). His soft contact fell while hard contact against him skyrocketed. Essentially, he got hit harder, and farther, while benefitting significantly from luck. Even if you just look at his two-month stretch of successful results, signs of good fortune jump off the page.

WHAT TO EXPECT

This is where I’m most torn. Workman has done a lot for the Red Sox over a relatively short amount of time. He’s shown the ability to be a pitcher that’s reliable in the postseason and equally effective against both righties and lefties. With that said, the team doesn’t seem too keen on relying on him in high-leverage situations – only 16 of his 166 career innings have been spent in such scenarios. There’s also almost certainly regression coming down the pike. With that said, there’s no question that there’s a place for him in this Red Sox bullpen. Personally, I’d love to see Workman get some of Matt Barnes innings, at least early in the season. I still believe there’s a late-inning arm hidden somewhere in Workman, and if worse comes to worst and he’s just okay in that role, it’s fine, because so is Matt Barnes. Assuming Carson Smith takes over for Addison Reed, the 7th inning battle is going to be one of the more interesting Spring Training storylines.