For all those teams’ success, there’s a notable local organization lagging behind in terms of hype: the Red Sox. Few people seem to be talking about them right now. It’s been an unusually quiet offseason across the MLB, but perhaps the only Red Sox talking point of note right now is the extended stare-down with free agent J.D. Martinez. After that, it’s… Mitch Moreland’s two-year deal? Yikes.

I’m not used to feeling so unenthused about the Red Sox. They were the team that brought me into Boston sports, after all. In a manner of speaking, I suppose I’m sort of a bandwagon fan, but it wasn’t one of the championship teams that brought me here. No, it was the 2009 team that did that — if you remember, that’s the one that got swept by the Angels in the ALDS.

It was a simple decision: “Maybe I’ll give baseball a shot.” I was in high school, and football wasn’t quite cutting it for me, so I felt it was time to branch out. The Red Sox and Angels were on, and it didn’t take long for me to get hooked. I loved Dustin Pedroia’s fiery demeanor, David Ortiz’s easy confidence, and most of all, Kevin Youkilis’ completely absurd batting stance. Jon Lester’s triumph over lymphoma was incredibly cool, and Josh Beckett looked liable to beat up an opposing hitter at a moment’s notice, which was also pretty cool in its own way.

The season ended too soon after, but it was a busy offseason for me; I needed to learn more about these players, this franchise, this city. I knew about The Curse and the legendary 2004 team that finally ended it. I didn’t know about the comeback against the Yankees, or Kevin Millar’s endless quotability, or Manny’s tendency to always be Manny. I didn’t know they went back and did it again in 2007 with plenty of new faces, including the undefinable Pedroia, the Laser Show and the Muddy Chicken, who I did know was a man after my own heart as soon as I read about his “Ask Jeff Francis who the fuck I am,” quote.

I’m on my ninth year with the Boston Red Sox now, and I’ve seen my fair share of highs and lows, from fried chicken and beer to getting a chance to watch a Boston championship myself. I got to see David Ortiz’s famed postseason heroics live before my eyes, as he was engulfed in flames against the Cardinals and drove the team of beards and Koji Uehara high fives to their third title in ten years. Those 2013 Red Sox rebounded from the worst record in the AL East the year before, which in some ways encapsulates what its been like to follow this team over that time.

If the Red Sox built my Boston fandom, then the Celtics cemented it. My timing wasn’t any better with them — I started following just late enough to miss the dominant 2007-08 championship team. Still, over the next several seasons, I was hooked. The “Big Three” Celtics were a team of dominant personalities — Paul Pierce’s unshakable confidence, Kevin Garnett’s frenzied barking, Ray Allen’s unflappable consistency — and even as they all began to grow old, there was a pridefulness to them. The decrepit Celtics were an annoyance, the team that would give too much effort every night and use their veteran saavy to frustrate younger, more athletic teams. They took LeBron James and the eventual champion Miami Heat to seven games in the 2011-12 Eastern Conference Finals, and it was sort of a last hurrah for the group. LeBron might have buried them, but they went out swinging.

Since the Celtics’ loss to Miami and the Red Sox win over St. Louis the next year, the two franchises have seemed to trend in different directions. The Celtics hit rock bottom in 2013-14, going 25-57 and finishing 12th in the Eastern Conference. They’ve made the playoffs and improved their record in every season since. Meanwhile, the Red Sox have been, to some extent, treading water. They’ve posted two losing seasons since the championship, followed by consecutive 93-win campaigns where they never really felt like a legitimate contender.

It feels as though there’s just more of a plan behind the Celtics than the Red Sox. Danny Ainge has spent years meticulously compiling and flipping draft picks, capitalizing on undervalued players, and finding the right opportunities to spend. The two most significant free agent signings in franchise history — Al Horford and Gordon Hayward — came in the past two offseasons. Ainge avoids panic moves and trades from a position of strength as well as any GM in professional sports, to the point where he’s often teased for his reluctance to part with his assets. This past summer, the Celtics passed on a number of potential deals for superstars who changed teams. Paul George was available, but is also on the final year of his contract, likely to bolt for Los Angeles this coming summer. It was a bad bet for Ainge to pay up for a player he couldn’t guarantee he could keep, so he didn’t.

On the flip side, the Red Sox have seen three executives in charge of baseball operations since 2011, and few baseball executives are more different than one another in terms of philosophy than the latter two — Ben Cherington and Dave Dombrowski. Cherington, though he had his own faults, was more similar to Ainge — building up the farm system and avoiding bad contracts that would kill flexibility… right up until he signed two awful contracts that destroyed his flexibility in Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez.

The Red Sox have seen three executives in charge of baseball operations since 2011, and few baseball executives are more different than one another in terms of philosophy than the latter two.

Enter Dombrowski, who, to a fault, loves the big splash. Dombrowski was hired in August of 2015, and by November, he’d already shelled out $217 million to David Price and shipped four prospects away in exchange for Craig Kimbrel. That’s not to say these deals were the wrong things to do at the time, but considering Dombrowski’s body of work, it’s a fair critique to say that he often opts to throw money and assets at problems until they go away.

Subsequently, this current offseason isn’t terribly surprising. Dombrowski is locked in a staring contest with J.D. Martinez, who is a player this lineup desperately needs. The Red Sox are starved for power, and previous deals have left the farm system depleted enough to make trades for top-end talent difficult. If Martinez ends up elsewhere, there may not be another move to be made right now.

And in some ways, that’s the point. Danny Ainge didn’t need Paul George. He was building on a team that made the conference finals the year before and months later is sitting in first place in the conference right now, all while sitting on a treasure hoard of draft picks and young talent. He’s a strong, independent GM who don’t need no blockbuster trade. There were dozens of pathways open to the Celtics this past summer, and all Ainge had to do was find the one he liked the best. The one he chose has the Celtics competitive right now without sacrificing virtually any long-term upside.

This kind of result is difficult to achieve without consistency, and, in essence, the Red Sox have been an organizational roller coaster. Cherington took charge and immediately had to address missteps by Theo Epstein, most notably the infamous Carl Crawford contract. Since his departure, Cherington’s carefully cultivated farm system has largely either graduated or been shipped off by Dombrowski. Conversely, Dombrowski has had to struggle with those albatross contracts for Sandoval and Ramirez, the latter of which is still owed $44 million over the next two years, assuming his option vests. They’ve been tying knots and challenging the next guy to unravel them. Is Dave Dombrowski the guy to lead a franchise to sustained, long-term success? Tigers fans of the past three seasons might have some thoughts on the matter.

This is all a long way of saying that, as a fan, the Red Sox don’t give me that feeling of utter confidence the way the Celtics do. Remember the feeling we all had when that large contract for Pablo Sandoval looked likely, even though the case against that signing was obvious? It’s certainly unrealistic to expect any team to operate as efficiently and with as high of a success rate as the Celtics have over the past 10+ years, but there’s an unavoidable aura of “I hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces” in place.

My point is not to predict doom and gloom with the current state of the Red Sox. Far from it. They’re more likely than not to win 90+ games again this season, and they have a collection of young stars like Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, and Rafael Devers that will be anchoring the lineup for years to come. They have two Cy Young winners in their starting rotation, and those guys aren’t even as good as their ace. If you’re going to have problems with your baseball franchise, these are probably the ones to have — it certainly beats being the Derek Jeter-led Marlins.

But following the Red Sox transformed my sports fandom, and not long after that, the Celtics did it again. It’s impossible not to compare the two. I love watching Mookie Betts and Chris Sale, but on the macro level, something’s just fundamentally off with the Red Sox right now, and it’s never more apparent than when the Celtics are on TV. With as much as the team has going for it right now, it’s telling that they’re receiving so little buzz — and that’s without mentioning how the Yankees appear to be rising fast.

I can’t say for sure how good the Red Sox will be this season — too much depends on Martinez’s status, first and foremost. Players like Price, Ramirez, and Pedroia are aging, Chris Sale has two years remaining on his contract, and younger contributors like Betts and Bogaerts are into their arbitration seasons. Jason Groome and Michael Chavis are nice prospects, but even Groome is still a-ways off, and the system around them is thin. Major roster decisions are coming in the next few years, and it’s hard to divine the greater plan in place here — if in fact there is one.

I know the Celtics will be very good, though. They already are, and there isn’t much reason to think they won’t continue to be for years to come. Danny Ainge has put together a well-oiled machine that has missed the playoffs only three times since the 2003-04 season. For a Red Sox franchise in need of some year-to-year consistency and sustained success, looking to their sibling franchise for some ideas might not be the worst idea.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper — USA TODAY Sports

Back then, Pablo Sandoval was one of the premier signings of the offseason, having inked a five-year, $95 million contract. This was to lock him into playing the hot corner in Boston until 2019 and force open the next window of contention for the Red Sox. Optimism was guarded, but high. After a injury-plagued, loss-filled 2014 season, we all expected a rebound for the team in 2015, and Sandoval would be one of the reasons why.

2015 was a dumpster fire, mostly. 2016 happened with very little Panda involvement. 2017 didn’t even come with a dead cat bounce for the third baseman. Sandoval barely made it halfway through his contract before being released, and three years post-signing, that contract is regarded as one of the worst in recent memory, and definitely Ben Cherington’s worst signing, if not the worst transaction of his tenure as general manager of the Red Sox.

So, now that we’ve started this off on a good note, let’s take a look at what Sandoval did this season!

What Went Right

Back when we still had hope for him, Sandoval did a thing!

And after he went back to the San Francisco Giants and continued to flounder for a while, he did another thing!

He wasn’t all bad — just 95% or so.

What Went Wrong

Saying everything else feels like hyperbole, but it really was everything else. The comeback from shoulder surgery never materialized, as Sandoval posted a paltry .215 TAv in 108 plate appearances for the Red Sox in 2017, and saw dwindling time in the field in lieu of guys like Josh Rutledge. His glove was still missing in action, couldn’t get consistent starting time, and was the recipient of some bad luck, even if his overall offensive output was a detriment to the team.

Sandoval went on the disabled list with an ear infection on June 20th, and never wore a Red Sox uniform again. The Red Sox kept him rehabbing in the minors as long as they possibly could, designated him for assignment on July 14th, and finally released him five days later. The Giants signed him to a minor league contract on July 22nd, and you can find my analysis for that move over at BP.

It’s really hard to overstate just how bad he was in Boston. Overall, his tenure saw him churn out an accumulated -1.8 WARP over 620 PA. Nothing about him was consistently good, with any aspect of his game ranging from mediocre at best to disastrous at worst. When Deven Marrero — Deven Marrero! — is keeping even with you offensively, you know you’re pretty abysmal at the plate. The difference between Sandoval and Marrero, however, is that Marrero is a wizard with a glove, and Sandoval — well, let’s just say he wasn’t very magical out there. Thus he became a $40 million benchwarmer, and the Red Sox ate the money to rid themselves of him.

It wasn’t a good signing to begin with, and it turned out even worse than anyone could’ve imagined. There’s no sugarcoating something that was this bad.

What To Expect

Nothing for the Red Sox, not anymore. He’s still with the Giants, and they have very little to lose by keeping him on the roster for now. Would it be cool to see him succeed again? Sure would! Is it likely? Not really, no. Sandoval wasn’t the type of player that would age gracefully, and at 31 years old, that shortened aging curve is really taking him for a downhill ride. There’s probably some decent baseball left in him, but if the Giants release him sometime next year, that’s probably it for the Panda. There’s not much else to say that hasn’t already been said, but you can only wish things had gone better with him.

Photo by Patrick McDermott – USA TODAY Sports

The Red Sox were playing the Orioles. Jonathan Papelbon, the man who has devolved from making history coming out of a bullpen to living in infamy for what he’s done in a dugout, gave up back-to-back doubles to Chris Davis and Nolan Reimold with two outs, and then Carl Crawford couldn’t handle a sinking liner from The Great (Robert) Andino. Reimold scored. Five minutes later, in a different east coast game, Evan Longoria hit a 317-foot liner into that weird little left field corner in Tropicana Field to cap a comeback from being down 7-0 to the Yankees, and that ended it all. The Red Sox were out of the playoffs.

The stunning part wasn’t that the games ended the way they did – the Red Sox were playing so terribly and the Rays were the exact opposite of that – it was how quickly how the roof caved in on that team. Boston had a 95% win expectancy in that final game! And it was all gone in an improbable instant.

After Mark Reynolds struck out, it took about 15 minutes for the Red Sox to lose everything. Ten minutes to the end of the game, and then five minutes to lose their ticket to October. Some say that’s still the best day of baseball ever, and I’d be inclined to agree with them, despite the debilitating mental trauma it gives me. Normally one game wouldn’t mean much in the long run, but this time, it was wildly different.

The effects of that night were shocking, yet oddly predictable. Apart from losing out on the postseason, the team’s 7-20 record in September probably torpedoed whatever chance Jacoby Ellsbury had at getting an MVP award, despite posting a 30-30 season with stellar defense and 7.91 WARP. Instead, the voters boarded the Justin Verlander hype train and rode it coast-to-coast, giving him and his 7.45 WARP not only the Cy Young, but the MVP award as well. To be fair, Jose Bautista outperformed both of them, but his team didn’t even sniff the playoffs, so that shows you what the voters truly valued here.

Then came the blame game. Smear pieces, chicken and beer, scapegoats, Tito Francona popping pills, you name it. Francona’s option wasn’t picked up either. Then the Cubs offered Theo Epstein the chance to be the greatest general manager in baseball history, and he took it. The Red Sox were handsomely compensated, of course, by getting Chris Carpenter. No, not that one. This one.

You know what happened from then on. Ben Cherington, Bobby Valentine, and whatever the hell 2012 was, for the most part. The Red Sox, who were so stable and so soundly built, just fell apart. Apart from the core of the team, nothing really seemed all that good.

The Nick Punto Trade and 2013 changed that. Cherington dumped a boatload of money on the Dodgers, used it to get useful players (no, not you, Ryan Dempster), and watched nearly half the 25-man roster have the best seasons of their careers. The Red Sox went and won a third title in 10 years with guys that made baseball so damn fun to watch, like Koji Uehara and Mike Napoli. It was exciting, magical, and most of all, it felt like redemption. It was also just one season, and one that wouldn’t be replicated. That isn’t an insult to a World Series-winning team, it’s a realization that it’s incredibly hard to do all of that again and still win it all.

While it’s been good since August 2015, everything between 2013 and that month was mostly bad. Since 2011, the Red Sox haven’t finished a season where they weren’t either first or last place in AL East. The worst-to-first thing was nice in 2013, but the oscillation in success really does a number on the guys in charge. After the 2014 campaign became an injury-plagued mess and the 2015 season crashed and burned in June, Cherington was replaced with Dave Dombrowski. It’s been a ride, to say the least.

The success of the Red Sox in 2016 feels different. The 2011 squad won 90 games, but that record feels hollow, and even more so when you’re looking back on it. This one, with the explosion of youth and the spectacular offense, is like a beginning. Guys like Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Xander Bogaerts, and Andrew Benintendi make this team feel like it’s only starting to do great things, and that says a lot when those four have already combined for 13.7 WARP this season. Hell, Mookie Betts does so many spectacular things that it’s hard to pick just one, but here goes:

David Ortiz, the last man standing from all those near-mythical World Series teams, is playing so well that the statement “he’s having the best final season ever” isn’t hyperbole. Dustin Pedroia didn’t hurt his hand for the billionth time, and now he’s hitting. Hanley Ramirez is barreling up every single thing. The old guard – well, relative to the young guys – is doing amazing stuff again. This is good. This is fun. The best part is that it’s likely to keep happening.

The 2011 Red Sox had a bunch of guys flounder during their tenure on the team, and the 2013 team was good thanks to a lot of short-term additions complementing the players left from the Epstein years. Neither of them looked like they were built for continued success. This year’s team bucks that trend. With all these good young players, these Red Sox are set to be good for a while. The foundation for future teams is there.

I said the 2013 season was like a redemption. The 2016 season is like a rebirth. There’s more here than just one good season. With any luck, they’ll be great again next year, and hopefully a for few years after that. The Red Sox are, truly and thankfully, back.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images

To some extent this isn’t an uncommon theme in baseball or even sports as a whole. The 2004 Red Sox were about doing something nobody thought they could do. They did it and were redeemed. The 2007 team was about domination, and they did dominate, but they were also about the new Red Sox way of doing things, about Theo Epstein’s plan for the franchise. And it worked. The 2013 team began about one thing but ended about something completely different. When beards and fun and unexpected joy gave way to horror and terror and sadness, the 2013 Red Sox became a vehicle to help the city of Boston begin the journey of healing. And they did it. And while the city will never be the same and those losses will never be unlost, the 2013 team showed the power of sports and, indeed the power of the Red Sox in New England to bring people closer, to help, and to give those experiencing grief a close shoulder and a strong hand. In a word: Redemption

This year’s Red Sox haven’t won the World Series. They haven’t even made the playoffs yet, though last night’s win goes a long way to helping make that a reality. But even so, the World Series is a long way off, and yet: Redemption.

This is a division-leading team led in part by the unwanted and over-paid, the under-talented and over-drafted. Just look at the duo of Hanley Ramirez and Rick Porcello. Last year Hanley was possibly the worst left fielder in baseball history, but even worse, after a torrid April his bat completely disappeared. He wasn’t just the worst left fielder in history, he was the worst left fielder in history who also couldn’t hit! And the Red Sox were on the hook for three more years of that. Worse was Rick Porcello, who had signed a huge contract extension before taking the mound for the Red Sox. Porcello did eventually take the mound and almost immediately we all wished he hadn’t. Nobody expected much from him after the disaster that was last season but, like Hanley, he’s made himself an integral part of the team. He probably isn’t their best pitcher (let’s be real, that’s David Price) but he has showed he can be a number two starter and recently he’s pitched even better than that. He’s showed he can be worth his contract and then some. Redemption.

This is a division-leading team led in part by the unwanted and over-paid, the under-talented and over-drafted.

Hanley’s game-winning homer last night might have been the bright beam of light radiating through the night pointing us to him and his season, but if we had looked a bit harder we’d have noticed sooner. Hanley has been crushing the ball over the past month, he has an OPS over .900 in the second half, and his season to date has been, if not spectacular, than every bit as good as we would have any right to expect. I recently found myself thinking, I know the trade for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell helped win the 2007 World Series, but wouldn’t it have been nice if the we’d had the chance to watch Hanley’s entire career here in Boston? Nobody was thinking that last season, or if they were they’d never had admitted it: Redemption

There are other stories of redemption on this team. Dustin Pedroia, the 33-year-old second baseman with declining power and increasing proclivity for injury, has been perhaps the hottest hitter in baseball over the last month, a month which has seen him play in his 140th game of the season, his most since 2013 and vie for the AL batting title. Pedroia is hitting over .442 over the last 30 days (not including Thursday’s game) and hitting line drives one third of the time he makes contact. Anyone who has watched his performance over that time would say A) that is incredible, and B) no way it’s only one third of the time.

Remember when the Red Sox were considering dealing Jackie Bradley to the Mariners for a relief pitcher? Already this season Bradley has been worth over four wins by WARP, five by Baseball Reference. He’s got 24 homers and a .350 on-base percentage and he plays Jackie Bradley-caliber defense in center field. He is everything he was supposed to be coming out of the University of South Carolina when the Red Sox took him in the first round, 40th overall. (By the way, the Rays had the 31st, 32nd, and 38th pick in that draft. They took Mikie Mahtook, Jake Hager, and Brandon Martin. Oops.) Bradley’s struggles in his first three seasons are well documented, but even after his breakout month towards the end of last season, he came back to earth hard in September. Was that just a random hot month from a player who still couldn’t hit major league pitching? It might have been a fair question to ask at the time, but Bradley’s performance this season has squashed that line of inquiry like a small bug under a large shoe. Redemption.

John Farrell won the World Series in his first season managing the Red Sox. Then he finished last the next two seasons. Then he got cancer and missed the last part of last season. But Farrell doesn’t give up. He beat cancer, got back in the dugout, and came into this season set to show the Red Sox he is still the man for the job. He has. There are always going to be bullpen moves we disagree with, and there are always going to be pinch hitters or lineups we don’t like, because that’s the case with any and all managers, but the truth is that Farrell does a pretty good job. If you’re looking for proof, teams don’t come back like this for bad managers. They don’t fight like the Red Sox have fought over the past week, coming back repeatedly against a desperate Blue Jays team and winning improbably and spectacularly against a resurgent Yankees club for bad managers. John Farrell won’t win the World Series every year, but he is the guy Ben Cherington worked hard to bring back to Boston. He is still that guy. We know that now. Redemption.

Speaking of Ben Cherington: Ben Cherington! Cherington’s reputation took a hit after he was fired in route to a second straight last place finish. Just as every move seemed to work in 2013, none seemed to work in 2014 or 2015. Pablo Sandoval was a disaster. So was Hanley and Porcello. Jackie Bradley couldn’t step in because he couldn’t hit major league pitching. Xander exploded onto the scene then struggled. The Jon Lester contract extension was bungled, leading to the loss of the team’s homegrown ace. Rusney Castillo, Joe Kelly, Allen Craig, and the return of Stephen Drew. Everything Cherington touched turned to crap. It all looked so hopeless. And now? Porcello is a Cy Young candidate. Hanley is the All Star-caliber hitter he was in Los Angeles. Bogaerts is having an excellent season at shortstop (despite a second-half slump). Bradley has blossomed along with Mookie Betts. Andrew Benintendi and Yoan Moncada have both already reached the majors. The team is winning again and winning in huge part due to the moves Cherington made and didn’t make during his tenure. Redemption.

There maybe more to come. David Price will likely have a chance to chase his playoff bugaboos away. Dave Dombrowski will have a chance to prove he can build a championship club, his first since the 1997 Marlins. But even if neither of those things happen, Hanley Ramirez’s home run last night off Yankees relief ace Dellin Betances highlighted the transformation that this team has undergone this season. It’s an exciting team, dotted with players we love, but mostly it’s filled with players written off at one time or another. They didn’t need Hanley’s dramatic homer to prove that they aren’t done, that they will be redeemed, that they are redeemed. You don’t get to first place with one swing of the bat in September. They’ve been doing it all year long. Redemption. For Hanley, Farrell, Cherington, Pedroia, Dombrowski, the whole lot. Redemption. We don’t yet know how this season will turn out, and I won’t go so far as to suggest the ending is irrelevant but some things have already been decided by the previous 140 games. Redemption. Let that be this team’s legacy.

Photo by David Butler II/USA Today Sports Images

Going Deep

Last week the Red Sox completed a 6-and-1 homestand in which they scored 73 runs. That’s right, they averaged more than 10 runs per game last week. The Oakland and Houston pitching staffs have not exactly been top-notch groups, but last week was still a remarkably dominant performance, and beating up on weak teams is something a good team should do. After last week’s drubbings the Red Sox’s offense led baseball in runs per game, hits and doubles. Putting all of their offensive components together, we find that by wRC+, the 2016 Red Sox have been the best offense group ever (since 1904). Now, obviously this is after the team has only played 38 games and a lot remains to be seen this year. But the point is that this group has been historically good so far, leading David Schoenfield of the ESPN Sweetspot Blog to suggest the 2016 Red Sox could be one of the best offenses of all time when everything is said and done.

Before going too far in praising the offense, it must be noted that some regression looms. As an example, they are currently carrying a league leading (and historically high) .348 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Matt Collins noted at Over the Monster that the Red Sox are doing things that can sustain a high BABIP (e.g., hitting line drives, hitting to all fields), but still, their current rate is going to come down at least 20 points and along with it some of their ridiculous run production will fall. The upcoming schedule will present a tougher test and likely contribute to the regression in BABIP. While four of their last five series were against teams with worse-than-average pitching staffs, the upcoming five series are against the Royals, Indians, Rockies, Blue Jays, and Orioles, four of whom have better-than-average pitching staffs thus far in 2016.

Regardless of the “greatest of all time” projections, the 2016 Red Sox offense has been great and therefore the architect of the lineup deserves some credit. So we must applaud ex-GM Ben Cherington for his work in building much of this team. Alex Speier of The Boston Globe notes that, other than fourth outfielder Chris Young, every player who has contributed to the team’s incredible offense was in the Boston organization before Cherington left the team. It is also worth noting that Matthew Kory wrote about this issue here at BP Boston just over a week ago. With Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Travis Shaw, Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart in the organization (all products of the Ben Cherington era), David Ortiz says he is confident the team will be in good hands after he retires. Ortiz’s sentiment was echoed by David Price (one of the few Dave Dombrowski roster acquisitions). Price told John Tomase of WEEI.com that he thinks the current Red Sox group bears a resemblance to the excellent Tampa Bay Rays teams of which he was a part. All told, it is clear that there is a lot of excitement around this team and while things tend to look better than they really are during long stretches of winning baseball, the blend of youth and veteran players should keep this team winning throughout the season.

Quick Hits

Xander Bogaerts has been a huge part of the dominant Red Sox’s offense. Through 38 games he has a .306 TAv and has accumulated 1.84 batting wins above replacement player (BWARP). Brian MacPherson of The Providence Journal outlines how Bogaerts’ success has come as a result of his mastering the bottom of the strike zone. This area of the strike zone has expanded more than any other in recent years, and can be a significant problem for players as tall as Bogaerts, but he is handling it well.

The transition to playing first base has been much smoother for Hanley Ramirez this season than was the transition to playing left field last season. Ian Browne of MLB.com notes that John Farrell has been impressed with Hanley’s work at first base. Ramirez has yet to be charged with an error this season, but advanced defensive measures have him as a below average contributor (-0.8 UZR, -2.5 FRAA). Nevertheless, his work at first base so far is a major improvement from his defensive contribution in 2015.

After seven turns of the Red Sox’s rotation, it is Steven Wright who has allowed the fewest runs. Wright’s emergence this season has been excellent, as is the story of how he came to be a knuckleballer. Kevin Paul Dupont of The Boston Globe details Wright’s turbulent path to the big leagues. Throwing the knuckleball in the big leagues leads to membership in the knuckleball brotherhood, so Scott Lauber of ESPN.com spoke with another member of the group, now-retired knuckleballer Tom Candiotti, about Wright’s success.

In the exact same number of innings pitched (45.2), Clay Buchholz has allowed more than twice the number of runs that Steven Wright has allowed (31:15). Not great, Clay. The good news is that, as Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald reports, Buchholz thinks he is close to being really good. Hopefully Buchholz is on to something because Tim Britton of The Providence Journal writes that despite Buchholz’s struggles and the impending returns of Joe Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez, the team is sticking with Buchholz in the rotation.

While Eduardo Rodriguez has an inside line on a spot in the Red Sox’s starting rotation, he has not been very good in his rehab starts with Pawtucket. In 21.0 innings he has a 5.14 RA9 (5.95 FIP) and has allowed 5 home runs. Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe reports that the Red Sox are not interested in rushing Rodriguez back to Boston and want to see him pitch much better before recalling to the big leagues. A reassuring part of this story is that Rodriguez has felt good health-wise, which hopefully leads to a streak of effective innings soon.

Three Good Game Stories

The Red Sox locked down a series win on Sunday in a sloppy, slugfest with the Astros. Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe has more on the game and how the weather conditions wreaked havoc on the outfielders’ defense.

Saturday afternoon’s game against the Astros provided more examples of David Ortiz’s ability to come through in critical moments. He tripled in the ninth to tie the game and doubled in the eleventh to walk it off, altogether providing .942 WPA on the afternoon. Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald writes about Ortiz rushing out of Fenway post-game to get to his daughter’s birthday party and about Ortiz feeling pressure to come through on Saturday after making the final out of Friday night’s loss.

Saturday’s game could have ended without the need for extra innings, but with David Ortiz standing on third base representing the winning run and two outs, Hanley Ramirez tried to bunt for a hit. It didn’t work. Jen McCaffrey of MassLive.com has details on Hanley’s decision and John Farrell’s thoughts on the play.

Photo by Dan Hamilton/USA Today Sports Images

The Red Sox are off to a good start, and there are many who deserve the credit for the way things have gone so far for Boston in 2016. The list starts with Dave Dombrowski and goes on to David Ortiz and on to other players and front office members, as well as ownership. It’s a long list, but even so, one man has escaped any credit even though he rightly deserves more than just about anyone. That man is Ben Cherington, and now you understand the previous sentence.

These Red Sox have Dombrowski’s name on the trunk lid, but they’re full of Ben Cherington’s engine parts. By my count 21 of the 25 guys on the 25 man roster are Cherington guys. That means, as presently constructed, this team is 84 percent Cherington’s and 16 percent Dombrowski’s. That’s no knock on Dombrowsk who a) hasn’t been here that long and b) is smart enough to know a decent core of players when he sees it, and c) secure enough to not blow the thing up as soon as he walked in the door.

And yet, a year after his departure, this is still mostly Cherington’s team. The particularly odd thing is that this is also still mostly last season’s team. The 2016 Red Sox have David Price and Craig Kimbrel, but they’re also mostly the 2015 Red Sox, and that team finished in last place with a 78-84 season that was even worse than that final record indicates. The Red Sox padded things with a 15-12 August and a 17-10 September (and an 0-4 October), but the season was lost at that point. After July the Red Sox were 46-58,  and that cemented Cherington’s fitting for cement shoes.

As presently constructed, this team is 84 percent Cherington’s and 16 percent Dombrowski’s.

Almost all of Cherington’s big moves in and for 2015 backfired. His acquisition of Rick Porcello for Yoenis Cespedes became laughable, as Cespedes made a case for the NL MVP award despite only playing half the year in the senior circuit. Meanwhile, sinkerballer Porcello was forgetting to throw his sinker and putting up some of the worst stats of his career. Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval, the Red Sox’s two prized free agent recruits, were busy putting up seasons worth -1.4 and -1.1 WARP, collectively costing the Red Sox 2.5 games. This was a disaster and unlike 2014 when 2013 had just happened, in 2015, the Red Sox were coming off of 2014 so there was really no where for Cherington to run.

Now though … this is a bit weird. The Red Sox are a team dependent on Porcello and Ramirez, but at least so far, they’re both coming through with flying colors. Sandoval is out for the season with a mysterious shoulder injury, but he’s been more than adequately replaced by ex-minor leaguer and Cherington draftee Travis Shaw. Shaw’s ascendance was unexpected but the fact that he was in Boston’s system and not, say, the Angels, is a feather in his cap.

By FIP-based metrics Porcello has been the second best starter behind Price, but if you look at more traditional metrics, Porcello has been substantially better. He’s not better than Price, of course,, but his results sure have been, and for a team looking to win right now this minute, that’s got substantial value. The point is the Red Sox wouldn’t be where they are now without Rick Porcello and that’s a credit to Cherington rather than a detriment.

The other big success story this season is Hanley Ramirez. Ramirez has learned to play an adequate first base when many of us (including myself) thought his complete ineptness in left field last season rendered him unable to do much beyond saunter to and from the dugout for occasional at-bats. Instead, Hanley has taken to first base and though he’s not a Gold Glover out there, he’s made most of the plays a major league first baseman should make. This is likely what Cherington and his brain trust envisioned when they signed Hanley and put him in left field. It was a massive failure, but now we see the fault wasn’t that Cherington found a player who simply couldn’t play the field anymore, but one uniquely unsuited for the outfield. In any case, Ramirez looks like he could play first for a few more years at least, which puts a whole new and positive spin on what was looking like a bad contract.

Cherington has left the Red Sox, but he’s left them with perhaps the best system they’ve had in modern memory.

Better yet is the farm system. Cherington has left the Red Sox, but he’s left them with perhaps the best system they’ve had in modern memory. Anderson Espinoza just struck out 11 hitters in Single-A, Yoan Moncada, another of Cherington’s big free agent signs, has been destroying Single-A, as has Cherington’s final first round pick, Andrew Benintendi. The system isn’t perfect (the upper minors are devoid of impact talent at present) but it’s one of the better systems in baseball and that’s after graduating Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, and to a lesser extent Blake Swihart and Jackie Bradley.

Assessing Cherington’s post-2013 tenure with Boston looked to be an easy task as recently as a season ago. Almost without exception the major league talent he’d assembled had cratered, from Porcello to Sandoval, to Ramirez, to the John Lackey trade and the Rustney Castillo signing. As of a year ago, that’s was an almost historically bad record. But this season things aren’t that way anymore. Now we can see a bit more clearly what it was that Cherington saw in some of these moves, what he’d hoped to accomplish. We can see it more clearly because it’s actually happening on the field.

Cherington’s record will never be perfect unless Allen Craig remembers where his power and hitting ability went, Joe Kelly turns into an actual starting pitcher and Rusney Castillo becomes a major leaguer of really any kind whatsoever. Those things aren’t likely to happen now and nobody is expecting them to. But perfection isn’t the goal, at least not in the aggregate. The goal is to put a good team on the field, and last season for numerous reasons that didn’t happen. This season, the Red Sox are in first place and, even though he’s gone now, Ben Cherington’s imprint is all over this team. For the first time since last season, we can see that that’s a good thing. The Red Sox wouldn’t be where they are now without lots of people, but one of them is Ben Cherington and it’s time he got the credit he deserves.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

My final game in Fenway Park was amazing. The emotions from the first at-bat and a standing ovation to the moment Nick Punto, one of my closest baseball friends, came out to run for me is indescribable. Red Sox fans that day gave me the most amazing sendoff a player could ever ask for because it was not scripted. No speeches or pregame ceremonies were needed. It was just the beauty of a fan base showing theirappreciation and I wish I could’ve shown them more love, but the game had to go on.

Fenway Park, a departing icon, standing ovations, emotions, history, reverence, and, somewhere somehow, Nick Punto.

Punto announced his retirement from baseball on Wednesday, making official what was suspected after he sat out the 2015 season. Because players don’t sit out seasons when they have decent offers on hand, and teams don’t give good offers to players in their late-30s who just sat out a season. But still, Punto is hanging them up, and as such, it’s time to offer a retrospective of what Nick Punto meant to the Boston Red Sox. Here. Let me sum up Nick Punto’s time with the Red Sox as best I can in a single word.

Nothing.

That was the essence of Nick Punto’s contribution to the Red Sox. During his 65 games with Boston, Punto came to bat 148 times. With those chances, Punto amassed a slash line of .200/.301/.272. And yes, before you ask, that slugging percentage really is lower than the on-base percentage. His entire contribution was worth -0.2 WARP. In other words, he actually cost the Red Sox a fifth of a win. As for highlights, well… he had one home run. It came on a 2-0 count in the ninth inning of a game the Red Sox were leading 6-4.  Even his high points almost literally didn’t matter. He was utterly expendable, replaceable, inconsequential.

That’s not to say Punto had an inconsequential career. On the contrary, he played in the majors for almost a decade and a half! Sure he was only worth a total of 5.2 WARP during that time, but a decade-plus in the majors in and of itself, regardless of any measurements or statements of quality, is impressive. So why did he last so long if he wasn’t very good? There are two reasons. The first is his versatility. Punto was the guy you wanted on your team because he could play all over the diamond. During those paltry 65 games with the Red Sox, Punto played every single infield position. He even played shortstop (all of 44 innings!). (Yikes!) He was short, squat, and powerless, but you could put him just about anywhere in the infield and your team wouldn’t automatically lose the game, and that had value that maybe wasn’t captured in his WARP total. That was the first reason then-GM Ben Cherington gave Punto a two-year contract.

The second reason Cherington signed Nick Punto was that he was a great teammate. If you were trying to build a good clubhouse, Punto was a positive step towards that goal. So it was all the more ironic when he was traded to, among many other reasons, improve Boston’s clubhouse chemistry. The 2012 Red Sox were managed by Bobby Valentine. Also, there were clubhouse problems. Those two things may have been related! Come July, the team was struggling and Valentine was awful and some of the players weren’t happy and attempted to go over Valentine’s head to fix the situation. This didn’t work, unless the goal was to make everything worse. If so, then it was a resounding success! But otherwise, nope.

If you were trying to build a good clubhouse, Punto was a positive step towards that goal. So it was all the more ironic when he was traded to, among many other reasons, improve Boston’s clubhouse chemistry.

We go round and round for another month or so with the team not improving on the field or in the clubhouse, and it became clear that something had to be done. What was done was huge. Then-new GM Ben Cherington took a box of dynamite to the roster. It was like a plan conceived by Wile E. Coyote, except this one worked. The end result was one of the biggest trades in team history. Gone were franchise cornerstones Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett to the LA Dodgers. In return, the Dodgers sent the Red Sox young pitchers Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. But most importantly they agreed to pay every penny of the the almost $270 million owed to those three players. $270 million!! And LA took it all! Oh my gosh!

Oh, and they took Nick Punto too.

It was an amazing trade. It completely reset the Red Sox roster, giving the team flexibility they hadn’t dreamed was possible. It allowed them to supplement the roster that coming off-season with a whole bunch of upside plays, nearly every single one of whom was a smashing success, like a David Ortiz World Series at-bat. This led directly to the improbable, cathartic, and just plain fun 2013 World Series win the following season.

All that was amazing, strange, wonderful, but what about Nick Punto? He may have been the strangest, the most bizarre aspect of it. Of Beckett, Crawford, and Gonzalez, all were multi-millionaires on multi-year contracts paying them tens of millions of dollars per season. All were stars, Beckett from the ’07 World Series win with the Red Sox, and before that, the ’03 World Series with the Marlins, both of which wouldn’t have been won without his dominance on the biggest stage. Gonzalez was perhaps the preeminent first baseman in baseball, a player the Red Sox had just traded almost their entire farm system for before bestowing a massive $20+ million-per-season contract on him. He was to be the centerpiece of the Red Sox. Crawford combined superior speed and defense with surprising power. He, along with Gonzalez, was the big, sexy pillar of the new Red Sox.

And Nick Punto who signed for $3 million over two years and was balding and pudgy. He was the coaster hastily shoved under the drink minutes after the fact. He was completely an afterthought.

Ned Colletti [Dodgers GM]: We really want Gonzalez, Ben.
Cherington: You can have him, but like I’ve been telling you for months, you have to take Beckett and Crawford too.
Colletti: You know what? I’ll do it!
Cherington: Great! We’ll have the paperwork drawn up and we’ll notify the commissioner’s office. Talk to you soon [goes to hang up phone]
Colletti: Wait Ben!
Cherington: What?
Colletti: Throw in Pinto too, wouldya?
Cherington: You mean Punto?
Colletti: Yeah, Punto.
Cherington: Uh… sure?
Colletti: Great! Can’t wait to make this official!

It was the biggest trade the Red Sox ever consummated, both in terms of total dollars and in terms of the 180 degree directional change of the franchise that it not only symbolized but engineered. It led directly to the team’s third World Series championship in a decade, a thought that would have been unimaginable in August of 2012. It featured three All Stars, and a local World Series hero. And what do people call it? The Punto Trade. Because of all the significance dripping from the deal, what sticks out perhaps most of all, is Punto’s inclusion. It’s just so… strange, such an afterthought, so utterly inessential, replaceable, inconsequential. And yet, there he is, on a private jet  with Beckett and Gonzalez, a two-time World Series winning ace and perhaps the best first baseman in the league. In a time of great seriousness, here was Nick Punto in this trade, and it was… funny.

#dodgers doing it first class! pic.twitter.com/DRPr2HH7

— Nick Punto (@Shredderpunto) August 25, 2012

In a way, Nick Punto was the great artist who died young and unknown. Decades later his work is discovered tucked away in a dusty attic somewhere and his genius is recognize and appreciated. Nick Punto meant nothing to the Red Sox while he was in Boston. He was by definition replaceable by any run-of-the-mill Triple-A middle infielder. It was only by leaving that he became important. But by going, he became more than important; he came to symbolize the first chapter of the rebirth of a franchise, and the first step towards a World Series win. He took with him the distrust, animus, and backbiting of the Valentine era, and wiped it away with the efficacy of an industrial strength cleanser.

As a player with the Red Sox Nick Punto is meaningless, that is, except for what his name connotes. But it is that very implication that, as far as Boston is concerned, is the most consequential thing he ever did.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images

The baseball season is over, and as it falls into history, the new season steps forward to take its place. This process is essentially instantaneous. The Red Sox went from nothing during the playoffs and World Series to the center of the baseball world in a single click of a second hand. Boston is in the unique position of having a stacked farm system, a talent-laden roster, and a GM who had no part in assembling any of it. As such, he’s not nearly as attached to the players in Boston now, thus making it much easier for him to make them players who used to be in Boston. Dave Dombrowski is here to shake things up.

While there is likely to be much wheeling and dealing, the free agent market hangs over Boston’s head like an axe at a beheading. The reason is simple: the last two Red Sox general managers (generals manager?) lost their job due to their failures in the market.

In 2011 John Lackey was coming off his first season in Boston, a 2010 season that saw him throw 215 innings of 4.40 ERA baseball. His strikeouts dipped and his walks jumped. But improvement was expected! It was then not delivered. In fact, Lackey was even worse, throwing 160 innings with an ERA of 6.41 before getting shut down for Tommy John surgery. Lackey had been GM Theo Epstein’s big addition to the pitching staff and now it looked like the Red Sox would pay Lackey three seasons worth of top-of-the-rotation money for a bit under two seasons of awful pitching. What’s more, had Lackey been anywhere near good the Red Sox would have made the playoffs instead of missing in excruciating fashion on the last day of the season.

Then there was Carl Crawford. Crawford showed up to Boston with a new seven year $142 million contract having forgotten how to hit and field. In April Crawford hit .155/.204/.227 and there was no looking back. He wasn’t exactly horrible with the bat after that though he wasn’t fantastic either, but he the overall appearance was a shell of the player who had played All Star-caliber baseball in Tampa just the season before. This was Theo Epstein’s big addition to the offense. Then Crawford got hurt, which, purely from an on-field standpoint, was probably for the best. It was those failures along with some others that signaled the end of Epstein’s time in Boston and with him fellow 2004 hero manager Terry Francona.

Epstein was the GM who had ended the curse not once, but twice. He’d bested the Yankees, he’d built the team and franchise he’d set out to build, and he’d made the Red Sox the greatest organization in baseball from the time he’d taken over to then. But after Crawford and Lackey showed up and sucked horribly, he was gone. That’s a bit of a simplification of course, but it’s roughly correct. Without Epstein’s failures in the free agent market, it’s entirely possible he might still be here.

Time waits for nobody, and in fact, it speeds up like hell when you’re a GM who just gave $90 million to a guy who can’t hit or field.

But he left and was replaced by assistant GM Ben Cherington. Cherington’s Red Sox finished in last place in his first season in charge. Then he hit the market hard. He brought in Stephen Drew, Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes, Shane Victorino, Mike Carp, David Ross, Ryan Dempster, and Koji Uehara. That team won the World Series. Cherington didn’t hit fully on each player, but he got something productive out of each, and in the world of free agency that’s no sure thing. Cherington had turned to the market, supplemented the talent on hand with free agents, and won a World Series. Then 2014 happened and the team failed on the field once again.

Following that failure, for the 2015 season, Cherington decided he needed to upgrade the talent on hand. He went back to the free agent market to bring in Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval and Justin Masterson. As it turned out, all were horrific failures on a scale that seemingly couldn’t be predicted (maybe Masterson could have). The team cut Masterson mid-season but Sandoval and Ramirez were and are on long term contracts. And they were and are both awful. And the Red Sox finished last again. And that was it, the GM lost his job. Again. Less than two seasons removed from mastering the market and winning a World Series, Cherington had been given the boot hard.

Like Epstein before him, that was it. Unlike Epstein, there wasn’t really any other reason. Epstein squabbled with team president Larry Lucchino, had recently failed in the draft, and a few of his contract extensions were looking like expensive busts. Cherington had no such baggage. He was put out on his backside mostly because Pablo Sandoval went from above average hitter and above average fielder to downright awful at both as soon as he put on a Red Sox uniform. Hanley Ramirez, beyond April when he crushed homer after homer, stopped hitting and put on a display of fielding in left that would make little league teams look away.

Over the next few weeks and months you’re going to hear the Red Sox connected with just about every free agent there is. There will be David Price rumors, Zack Greinke meetings, Johnny Cueto whisperings, anonymous mentions of Jordan Zimmermann, and outright discussions of Chris Davis, Darren O’Day, and anyone else who plays baseball and has no contract. Dombrowski has his preferences and he will try to remake Boston’s roster in that image over the off-season and as he’s already said, that image includes a top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. He may want to upgrade the offense with something more certain at first base than Hanley Ramirez, who it just seems like the Red Sox would rather pay to explore water on Mars than to play first base for them next season. It’s possible Dombrowski can do all this through trades but that seems unlikely. He’s probably going to have to sign a free agent or two. Or six.

If Dombrowski is going to give $200 million to David Price or $150 million to Johnny Cueto or whoever or whatever, he had better be certain. No, scratch that. He’d better be whatever word means three times the power of ‘certain’ before doing so. He just got here, and guys who just arrived typically get some time before being held to the fire, but Ben Cherington won a World Series two years ago. Two years ago! Two! And he’s now a visiting professor at Columbia University. Time waits for nobody, and in fact, it speeds up like hell when you’re a GM who just gave $90 million to a guy who can’t hit or field.

If Dombrowski wants to remake the roster and win now at the expense of tomorrow, he’d better be sure about the choices he makes when it comes to free agents. What I’m saying is Dave Dombrowski had better be immune to iocane powder.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images