Smart teams will trade any player if the return is right. You wouldn’t say Mookie Betts is available but if the Angels called and offered Mike Trout for Betts, you’d make that trade immediately. Swihart isn’t Trout and Swihart isn’t Betts either, so of course, listen to the offers. Swihart is 26 (has been for almost a week) and has played in just 116 games over the last two seasons due to injuries, with most of those coming in the minor leagues. He’s also out of options, meaning the team can’t send him to the minors without risking losing him for nothing to any team willing to snap him up. It seems, based on McAdam’s reporting, that there are many teams who would do just that. Swihart, then, will have to stay on the major league roster, or the Sox may as well deal him.

Depending on the return, perhaps they should. The roster is certainly set up to handle being Swihartless. Between Brock Holt and Deven Marrero, the entire infield and outfield are accounted for — not that Holt would play center or right field, but the team has three outfielders who could move around if someone was hurt, necessitating Brock Holt: Outfielder. Also, there’s Marco Hernandez, whose shoulder is still hurt but who should be back from the DL at some point. Probably. Maybe. We hope. When he does, he’s capable of playing all over the infield and hitting some as well. So what do the Red Sox need with a player like Swihart who offers more of the same?

Pardon me for getting all metaphysical and stuff on you, but maybe it’s not depth that the Red Sox should be searching for after all. The Red Sox possess perhaps the best and certainly the most versatile outfield in baseball. All three guys, Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley, and Mookie Betts, can play any outfield position, thank you very much. That means as long as two of them are healthy, all the Red Sox need is a left fielder, and they have that in J.D. Martinez. The numbers tell us Martinez is an atrocious outfielder, but he’s also relatively young and athletic, and has suffered from various injuries through the previous few seasons which could and likely did negatively impact his performance in the outfield, injuries which he’s since recovered from. But even if you can’t blame it on injuries and Martinez is that bad, if he’s that bad in the smallest outfield in baseball and only very occasionally then that’s fine.

In the infield, the Sox have two first basemen in Hanley Ramirez and Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez who can play second, short, or third, Xander Bogaerts who plays short but could play third if something catastrophic happened, and Rafael Devers who plays third so he can do catastrophic things to Yankee relief pitchers. Then there’s the aforementioned Marrero, Holt, and, eventually, Hernandez. But wait there’s more because when Dustin Pedroia comes back, that frees up Nunez to play all over the place as well.

Clearly the Red Sox have depth. They have depth for their depth. What I’m saying is their depth is deep. While they don’t lack in quality starters however, and they have all the deepest depth, the quality of that depth is questionable. Hernandez is out and will be out for a while with no return date yet known. Pedroia should be back in May, but maybe not, and as long as he’s out Nunez will be stapled to second base (hopefully not literally), limiting his ability to provide depth. Marrero’s hitting is the inverse of his fielding, and as his fielding is very good, that makes his hitting very bad. Holt was once the poor man’s Ben Zobrist, but that was three-to-five concussions ago. How comfortable would you be with Marrero playing 30 games at third base, or Holt playing 45 at second? Or both simultaneously? Probably not very comfortable, nor should you be because, while they’re probably super nice guys, neither is good enough to be starting.

What I’m saying is their depth is deep. While they don’t lack in quality starters however, and they have all the deepest depth, the quality of that depth is questionable.

The point is there are questions, perhaps too many questions to feel comfortable. Swihart is yet another question mark, but he’s a talented question mark, more talented than the rest of the group. Also, the Red Sox don’t have to hit on all their question marks. They only need one or two and they’ll have a very strong bench.

There’s two more reasons to hold on to Swihart, the most important of which is the utter lack of catching depth in the organization. The Sox don’t have a single catcher anywhere in their top 30 prospects and nothing playable in the upper minors. That means it’s Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon all the way, all year long. If one of those guys gets hurt, then the replacement is likely going to be someone who doesn’t have any business playing in the majors. Swihart offers something more than replacement level behind the plate.

That brings us to the last reason to hold on to Swihart: upside. This is the main argument often cited by Swihart fans. He was a top prospect as recently as April of 2015, when Sox Prospects had him ranked above Yoan Moncada, Manuel Margot, Rafael Devers, and Michael Kopech. He’s potentially an above average hitter, not just for a catcher but for the major leagues. He offers a bit of everything: power, speed, and average. It’s an enticing package.

He’s not 22 anymore though. He might yet attain what the prospect writers hoped for him, though his spring training heroics aren’t as much the biggest sign of that as the fact that his name can be penciled into the lineup for the first time in two seasons.

The great thing for the 2018 Red Sox is he doesn’t have to be better than Moncada and Kopech this season. If he can hit a bit while playing a bit, that’s enough. He’s likely a better hitter than Holt, and definitely a better hitter than Marrero, and certainly a better hitter than Leon. If he stays healthy, shows something at the plate, then he’s probably still an upgrade over Leon long term. That’s a valuable guy, and one the organization shouldn’t be rushing to get rid of, especially for a Triple-A reliever, a C+ prospect, or whatever small return they might receive.

If the Angels call about Mike Trout, though, they probably should do that one.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

You may recall that in my article last week I looked at three primary factors/indicators that bode well for a Red Sox offensive bounce back. The first was age. The Red Sox lineup is mostly young and aging towards their peak seasons or already in their peak seasons. That means improvement is in the offing, very generally speaking. The second was 2018 projections. We will return to this. The third was under/over performance last season. I took the members of the 2018 Sox lineup, looked at what they did last year, and then compared that to what they were projected to do in 2017. This was an attempt to look at how the 2017 team hit compared to what a reasonable expectation would have been at the time. I found that, unsurprisingly, the team under-performed what was expected of them almost across the board.

Two of those three items — the players’ age and their under-performance relative to expectations last season — were true at the time and will remain so after this article. Now to the second item, the 2018 projections. Here’s what I wrote last week about what FanGraphs’ projections said about the Red Sox lineup:

Going by those same rough estimates, of the Red Sox starting nine, FanGraphs projects seven of the Red Sox to improve, five of which significantly. Only Pedroia and Mitch Moreland are projected to improve only slightly from their 2017 performances. Rafael Devers is projected to perform just as he did last season, only to play a full season’s worth of games, which would be a large upgrade over what the Red Sox have been getting from third basemen over the past half decade or more. Only Christian Vazquez is projected to put up a worse performance.

So that’s what FanGraphs has to say. PECOTA, however, sings a very different tune. Of the Red Sox starting nine, which at the moment includes Hanley Ramirez, only two are projected to improve on last year’s WARP total. Those two are Andrew Benintendi (projected to go from 1.8 WARP to 2.5) and the aforementioned Ramirez, who is projected to go from -0.1 WARP to 1.5. Other than that Rafael Devers and Christian Vazquez are both projected at about what they did last season (within 0.1 WARP either way). For Devers that’s problematic because he’s projected for most of a full season in 2018 where as last year he came up in late July. This means he’s projected for less value per plate appearance despite, well, everything about him. For Vazquez, it’s the same story, but in his case it makes more sense. His offense last season had the whiff of unsustainability about it, so should he come back to earth a bit, and thus he would need more playing time to achieve the same value.

The scary part of the projections comes when you look at the meat of the lineup. Mookie Betts is projected to drop a half win. Xander Bogaerts is projected to drop a win. Jackie Bradley is projected to drop 0.2 WARP but he was at 1.2 last season — a number I don’t agree with considering his defense. Mitch Moreland is projected to be worth 0.0 WARP. So that’s your 2018 Red Sox lineup. Only one guy over 2.5 WARP, and just two over 2.0.

This is probably a good time to point out a few things. Firstly, PECOTA doesn’t know Moreland and Xander played through injuries that very much impacted their performance. It only knows their performance, but presumably, with some health, there’s more performance in there for both those guys. It’s a similar story for Jackie Bradley’s knee injury at the start of the season.

Furthermore, these are only projections and conservative projections at that. To pull from another somewhat notable team, Aaron Judge is projected to drop three wins from last season’s total, and Giancarlo Stanton is projected to drop 4.5. So, you know, things could be worse.

On the whole, these will probably be solid projections, but no set of preseason projections is going to be wholly 100 percent correct. The Red Sox offense could be vastly improved over last season’s output, and if I had to guess, that would be where I would go. I still think last season was a dip in what was and is an overall good offensive team. I think more players are closer to their peak-age seasons, and with some more health, a more modern hitting approach implemented by the new hitting coach, and a bit more luck, the team should be better and far more productive in 2018.

That all said, PECOTA’s projections offer a different viewpoint, and indeed, a greater argument for signing someone like J.D. Martinez. Replacing or augmenting Ramirez’s production by adding Martinez could go a long way if indeed the offense falters in the way PECOTA is saying it will.

Then again…

Given the sheer number of free agents out there, all projections, depth charts, and fantasy predictions are kind of moot, aren't they? Either 100-plus guys' careers are over or they're going to sign and kick over all the dominoes. (Pardon my nihilistic mood.)

— Steven Goldman (@GoStevenGoldman) February 8, 2018

Photo by Bob DeChiara — USA TODAY Sports

Players get hurt, players have bad runs, and teams hit patches where it seems every single player can’t do something for a month or more. The crazy thing about baseball is that that stuff happens and it doesn’t mean the team isn’t any good. There was a period of time where, over an 82 game span, the 2004 Red Sox went 41-41. That’s more than half a season of the greatest, most important Red Sox team of all time playing like an utterly forgettable also-ran. In a more specific and urgent sense, none of the stuff that has happened to the 2017 Red Sox is disqualifying for overall success, and indeed it isn’t difficult to see how this team could end up being really good. So let’s look at that!

How could the 2017 Red Sox be really good? To me, this all starts with Chris Sale. Sale isn’t peak Pedro, but he’s as close as Boston has come since the greatest of all time left town. By FanGraphs WAR, the top two seasons ever by a Red Sox starting pitcher are Pedro’s 1999 and 2000 in that order. The next four are by Roger Clemens and the four after that are all by Cy Young. Pedro’s best begins at 11.6 WAR and Young’s worst of his best is 7.7 WAR. Sale is at 6.5 now, and on pace for roughly two more wins between now and the end of the season. That would put him in fourth place all time, ahead of all of Young’s seasons and ahead of three of the Rocket’s four. That’s the kind of amazing season Chris Sale is having: better than any season Cy Young ever had in Boston and better than almost every season from maybe the greatest pitcher ever in Clemens. Now, imagine that guy (Sale) pitching twice in a best-of-five series, or three times in a best-of-seven series. There is a very real opportunity for Sale to have the kind of post-season impact previously reserved for Madison Bumgarner.

After Sale, imagine a healthy David Price! Yes, Drew Pomeranz has been fantastic this season, as good as anyone could’ve hoped, and he’d be fine starting game two, but he’s no healthy David Price, and neither is Rick Porcello or Eduardo Rodriguez. I said at the beginning of the season that David Price’s regular season almost didn’t matter. What mattered is how he pitches when the playoffs come around. His latest arm ailment throws that into question but if Price can get healthy enough to be the Red Sox number two starter, Boston can get three Sale/Price starts in a five game series and five in a seven game series. In other words, the only way the Red Sox lose a playoff round is if someone beats either Sale or Price. While you’re thinking how beatable Price is, remember we’re talking about a pitcher who put up a 2.52 ERA in July while striking out 25 percent of hitters and walking just 6.5 percent. That’s a heck of a number two. Cleveland’s starting staff can’t compete with that and neither can Houston’s, and that’s before we’ve even discussed what Eduardo Rodriguez or Drew Pomeranz can do.

The main competition for the Red Sox in the AL this season comes from the Indians, Astros, and Yankees. You could argue that the Red Sox advantage in starting pitching isn’t so big because the Indians have Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco (and they do), while the Astros have Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers (and they do). Except neither first starter is in the same league as Chris Sale (though Kluber isn’t far off), and neither second starter is nearly as good as a healthy David Price. If Price comes back healthy, he represents a huge advantage for the Red Sox in the post-season.

The same could also be said of Craig Kimbrel. We’ve all seen the impact relievers can have in the post-season, and with Kimbrel authoring one of the best reliever seasons we’ve seen in Boston in a long time, the opportunity for him to have an out-sized impact on the Red Sox’s postseason fortunes exists. The fact that manager John Farrell has occasionally been willing to use Kimbrel for longer outings and earlier in games when the leverage is higher during the regular season, and that bodes well for the same strong usage patterns in the playoffs. The fact that the Red Sox bullpen has been so good this season doesn’t hurt either, as they are equipped to cover for Kimbrel in the ninth should he be needed earlier in the game.

Finally we get to the offense which, there’s really no other way to put it, has underwhelmed this season. Coming off a July that saw Boston collectively hit a profoundly mediocre .248/.315/.367 (and honestly I’m shocked it’s that high), the mood surrounding the offense was understandably pessimistic. However, in the seven games since July ended (with six of those admittedly coming against the garbage White Sox), Boston has hit .288/.357/.559. They’re not that good they’re absolutely able to get that hot for periods of time, such as, oh I don’t know, five or seven game stretches.

Individually, we’ve seen odd seasons from Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts featuring less power than we know is there. The same could be said, in fact, of Jackie Bradley, Dustin Pedroia, Mitch Moreland, and even though maybe unfairly, Andrew Benintendi. That’s quite a group of players for whom a collective small bump towards career average could mean a substantial uptick in team offensive production.

Put it all together and you’ve got a team with a potentially dominating top of the rotation, a fantastic bullpen (and imagine, if Price does get healthy, how adding Pomeranz to the pen would look), and offense that’s over due for a break out. The ’04 team’s comeback against the Yankees, the ’07 team’s comeback against the Indians, and pretty much every damn thing about the 2013 team teach us that in the baseball playoffs you never know what can happen. But it’s not all luck, despite Billy Beane’s famous statement. Having Madison Bumgarner can help. Having Keith Foulke doesn’t hurt. The Red Sox have reasonable facsimiles of those guys, and a lineup with the capability to get moving at a more productive clip. It’s not hard to squint into the sun and see this Red Sox team doing something we haven’t seen since the august October of 2013. So when it happens, if it happens, you can be shocked, you can be surprised, you can be euphoric, but don’t say nobody ever saw it coming.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports

Alejandro De Aza
Grady Sizemore
Scott Podsednik
Darnell McDonald
Blake Swihart
Hanley Ramirez
Mike Carp

Along with third base, left field has been perhaps position the Red Sox have had the most difficulty filling permanently since Manny Ramirez was traded to the Dodgers in 2008. The leader in games played in left for Boston since then is Daniel Nava. After him? Hanley Ramirez, then the previously mentioned McDonald. If the 2017 season looks to be both the year of Chris Sale and the year without David Ortiz, it holds one further and potentially more fulfilling promise as well: the year Andrew Benintendi takes over in left.

It’s always exciting when a young player breaks into the big leagues, and the Red Sox have certainly had their fair share of recent young stars, so perhaps Benintendi’s permanent presence in Boston’s lineup has been a bit undersold this off-season. Or perhaps we’ve all been in a constant state of “OMG CHRIS SALE.” Either way though, Benintendi’s ascendence not only fills a hole on the roster as old as my kids (one of whom told me yesterday, “Daddy, you’re not so cool.” How quickly they learn!), it puts the finishing touches on what could be the very best outfield in baseball. 

Many teams have one good outfielder. Some have two. Very few have three. Last season the Red Sox, with Jackie Bradley in center and MVP runner-up Mookie Betts in right, had two. By WARP they were the two most valuable position players (i.e. hitters) on the roster. But as I said, having two good outfielders isn’t wholly uncommon. So while it’s true Boston had Mookie in right and Bradley in center, the 2016 Red Sox also sported a left field combination of Brock Holt (324 PAs), Chris Young (227), Benintendi (118), Swihart (74), Bryce Brentz (64), Rusney Castillo (8), and (yes there’s still one more) Ryan LaMarre (6). The Red Sox are to left field what the Dodgers are to starting pitching. 

The (hopefully) permanent addition of Benintendi promises to correct that issue, but that leads to another more hopeful question: namely, how good an outfield will the Red Sox have with Benintendi replacing (mostly) Brentz/Castillo/LaMarre/etc?

The first answer to that question should probably go to PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’s projection system, which thinks Benintendi will be good for 4.3 WARP in 2017. It has Betts pegged at 4.9 and Bradley at 1.8. You could argue that while Benintendi’s projection seems perhaps optimistic, Betts’ and Bradley’s projections represent sizable steps back. Even so, PECOTA shows a Red Sox outfield total of 11.0 wins above replacement. That would be extremely good! Especially so when you consider PECOTA’s innate conservatism. Last year Bradley was good for 3.7 and Betts for 6.9 so, if you’re straight up buying PECOTA’s projection, perhaps 11 WARP from three guys doesn’t sound that impressive.

Is it? Let’s take a look around the AL East to see. Start with the Orioles. They have Hyun-Soo Kim in left field (PECOTA projects 1.0 WARP), a soon-to-be-32 year old Adam Jones in center (2.2), and Mariner cast-off Seth Smith (1.1) in left. That’s three guys who don’t add up to Mookie’s projection alone. How about the Yankees? New York has what’s left of Jacoby Ellsbury in center field (0.9 WARP), Bret Gardner in left (2.0), and Aaron Judge (2.1) in right. That just barely beats Betts alone but doesn’t come close to Boston’s outfield total. Toronto has Kevin Pillar (1.3), Jose Bautista (3), and a left field platoon featuring Ezequiel Carrera (0.2) and Melvin Upton (0.1). So again, no. I could do the Rays too, but I’ll be kind and not. 

So perhaps the 11.0 projection is really good. I went through the other teams and eyeballed their roster projections to see how Boston’s stacks up and I think there’s a good argument for the Benintendi/Bradley/Betts outfield as the best in baseball, at least as we sit here now.

Here’s a list of what, to my eyes, look to be the best 10 outfields in baseball, alphabetically by team. 

Angels
Cardinals
Cubs
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Marlins
Nationals
Pirates
Rockies
Royals

I then went through Roster Resource and picked out each team’s three starting outfielders, then went through Baseball Prospectus 2017 (buy it!) and collected the added up their PECOTA projected WARPs. Remember, the Red Sox three outfielders project to exactly 11.0 WARP. Here’s how the other 10 outfields stack up:

1. Angels: 10.9 WARP
2. Marlins: 9.1
3. Pirates: 7.9
4. Nationals: 7.6
5. Cubs: 7.1
6. Dodgers: 6.6
7. Royals: 5.8
8. Cardinals: 4.8
9. Diamondbacks: 4.5
10. Rockies: 3.6

The Angels outfield of Mike Trout, Kole Calhoun, and Cameron Maybin is the only one that comes close to the Red Sox. And look how close they come! They’re effectively even, at a difference of 0.1 WARP. It should be pointed out that, since becoming a regular in 2012, five seasons ago, Trout has never put up a season with less than 8.5 WARP, so 7.7 is a conservative projection for him too. I’ll take the over. Always take the over on Mike Trout. Calhoun has beat 2.2 WARP two of the last three seasons, though last season was the one season he didn’t. Maybin is Maybin, and 1.0 WARP seems as reasonable as anything. In the end here, we can see that perhaps Trout puts up 11 WARP by himself, and maybe Calhoun has another three win season in him, but the Angels are capped out not far beyond their projection. The Red Sox though, well, it doesn’t take a huge leap to see Betts putting up a season as good or even better than he did last year. As fantastic as he was last season, the aging curve says he should be getting better. The same can be said of Bradley.

That leaves Benintendi, who could struggle in his first full season in the majors. It wouldn’t be unheard of, certainly. The player we keep hearing him compared to is Michael Conforto of the Mets, a similar player who came up early, had success toward the end of the season, and then struggled in his first full season in the bigs. And that may happen for Benintendi. But Benintendi, even if similar, isn’t Conforto. They are different people. 

But even if Benintendi does struggle this season, like Conforto, that doesn’t obfuscate the long-term outlook for the Red Sox. In essence, every team would love to have Mike Trout. But there is only one Trout. The Red Sox have the next best thing in Mookie Betts, and then they go two better by surrounding him with Bradley and Benintendi. That’s what PECOTA says is the best outfield in baseball. In 162 games we’ll see if PECOTA is correct. But from here, right now, where we sit, it’s hard to say it’s wrong. 

Photo by Evan Habeeb/USA Today Sports Images

Kid: One box of popcorn, please.
Vendor: Four dollars, kid.
Announcer: It’s gone!
Crowd: [looks bewildered]

So 108 runs more than second place is pretty incredible when you think about it, or even when you don’t. It calls to mind the other three World Series winning teams of recent vintage. The Red Sox led the league in runs scored in 2013, were tied for third in 2007, and first again in 2004. So you can see that a top offense has been a commonality between the Red Sox championship-winning clubs. But is this 2016 offense better? Let’s see how they all stack up! We’ll go position by position to see which team is the best, then total up the scores at the end. 

Catcher

2004: Jason Varitek
2007: Jason Varitek
2013: Jarrod Saltalamacchia
2016: Sandy Leon

The best offensive season here might be Saltalamacchia’s 2013, wherein he hit 14 homers and appeared, not un-Leon-like, out of a fog of irrelevance to become a championship-caliber starter at catcher. Still, Salty’s defense was never very good, a fact that ended up getting him replaced during the World Series by David Ross. Varitek had one of his best seasons both offensively and defensively in 2004, so I’ll give it to ’04 Varitek.

Nod: 2004

DH

This one is David Ortiz, David Ortiz, David Ortiz, and of course, David Ortiz. Ortiz had his best year in 2007 by OPS+ (171) but he’s not far off as he currently sits at 161. This season Ortiz stands as one of the best hitters in baseball, ranking first, second, third, or whatever depending on the stat you pick. Regardless he’s never far from the top.

Nod: 2007

First Base

2004: Kevin Millar
2007: Kevin Youkilis
2013: Mike Napoli
2016: Hanley Ramirez

The similarities are pretty remarkable here. Aside from Millar, all are converted from other positions. Youkilis from third, Hanley from shortstop with a stop in left field, and Napoli from catcher. Also, all had very consistently good offensive seasons, about 20 percent above average. Hanley’s actually had the best offense of the bunch, but weighing the combination of offense, defense, and total sweat output, the winner has to be Youkilis.

Nod: 2007

Second Base

2004: Mark Bellhorn
2007: Dustin Pedroia
2013: Dustin Pedroia
2016: Dustin Pedroia

Again, remarkable similarities in offensive output from all these seasons, all falling in the 10-15 percent above average range. Bellhorn was a great Theo Epstein find, as he came from nowhere and gave the Sox a great offensive season at a position at which they had nothing (Pedroia had just been drafted out of Arizona State months before). Still Bellhorn wasn’t much with the glove. Given the similarities in offensive seasons, I’ll give this to the 2013 squad based on beard quality. 

Nod: 2013 

Shortstop

2004: Nomar Garciaparra/Orlando Cabrera
2007: Julio Lugo
2013: Stephen Drew
2016: Xander Bogaerts

Garciaparra was done as a regular shortstop even if Boston didn’t know it at the time and Cabrera, while a good fielder, wasn’t much over an above average hitter. Lugo was the one regular on the 2007 team who wasn’t actively helping the team win, so they’re out. That leaves Bogaerts whose fall in the second half has dropped his season numbers well below the more defensively stout Drew. It sounds strange to say, but I think Stephen Drew is the answer here. [Editor’s note: wrong and bad opinion]

Nod: 2013

Third Base

2004: Bill Mueller
2007: Mike Lowell
2013: Will Middlebrooks
2016: Travis Shaw

I remember Mueller winning the batting title hitting ninth for the 2004 squad, and he did put together a great slash line, but offense was so bonkers during that era that it wasn’t really that far out of the ordinary. Middlebrooks and Shaw are both weak links in their teams, so the answer here is Lowell, who put together a season in 2007 every bit as good as his teammate Manny Ramirez did. Not bad for a throw-in on the Josh Beckett deal. 

Nod: 2007

Outfielders

2004: Manny Ramirez/Johnny Damon/Gabe Kepler (Trot Nixon was injured a lot that season)
2007: Manny Ramirez/Coco Crisp/J.D. Drew
2013: Jonny Gomes/Jacoby Ellsbury/Shane Victorino
2016: Holt/Bradley/Betts

The current outfield probably comes in second in this group, even if you add Benintendi, which you can’t because Holt has played the most there. The 2004 group had a prime year Manny who basically hit .300/.400/.600 with 43 homers. Damon was good if not great and Nixon was an above average player when he was healthy while Kepler looked a lot better than he played. Still, even with Kepler in there, Manny was just SO good. 

Nod: 2004

Totaling it up, the 2007 team is the winner with wins at DH, first base, and third base. Oddly the 2016 team didn’t win anywhere. Or maybe that isn’t odd. We are comparing it to three World Series winners. Still though, the current team is the league leader in runs scored so maybe I did this wrong, I don’t know. Or maybe what this points to is the tremendous balance that the 2016 offense features. There isn’t anyone who stands out tremendously with the exception of David Ortiz who has been on all the other teams as well. Beyond him, Betts is the standout, but I got seduced by Manny. 

Perhaps that’s the point though. The 2016 Red Sox offense is both very good and very deep. There really isn’t an easy out when Travis Shaw is hitting well and when he’s not, well, eight good hitters is pretty impressive for one lineup. Maybe that will serve them better in the playoffs than it did here.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

Which was true. In two years on the JV team I never had smoke blown up my ass, not once. I never saw smoke machine, a lit cigarette, a pair of rubber gloves, or anything else that might be necessary to get the unsavory job done either  during or after practice. The origin and history of such a line has always escaped me, perhaps because I’ve studiously avoided googling “blow smoke up ass” but, assuming you’re not a practicing proctologist, perhaps it’s best we move on, except to say this. Red Sox fans: I’m not here to blow smoke up your asses.

This has been an awful month for the Red Sox. In addition to a lousy record, they’ve lost repeatedly in painful fashion, showed a complete inability to pitch, hit in the clutch, field at crucial moments, and, adding injury to injury, endured injuries to key players. So it’s not been good. And because of all that, and because of the resulting anger, sadness, and general negativity surrounding the Red Sox, I thought it might be time to focus on happier things. Because while we’ve been so busy being angry, throwing things, swearing, and writing really mean things on Twitter about the team before reconsidering how silly it would look at the last second and deleting it, there are actually a lot of very good things going on with this team. Right now even! It’s true. Let’s look.

The Youth

Of the nine players who have comprised the most common lineup, five of them are 26 years old or younger. They include the starting shortstop, center fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and catcher, who collectively average 24.6 years. That’s incredible. And the amazing thing is there looks to be three long-term All Stars in that bunch too. This isn’t a group of random young players assembled because there weren’t other better choices, this is the group you’ve been waiting for as long as you’ve been a Red Sox fan. Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, and Jackie Bradley are the core of a multi-pennant winning franchise. This could be the start of something great.

Remember those incredibly annoying Yankees teams from the late 90s and early 2000s? The ones winning division title after division title and racking up World Series trophies? They were built on a foundation of youth, and even more so, of a group of very good players of similar age spending their careers together. When the Yankees won their first World Series of that era in 1996, Derek Jeter was 22 years old. Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada were 24, Mariano Rivera was 26, and Bernie Williams was 27. When that group had won their final World Series in 2009, Jeter was 35, Pettitte and Posada were 37, Rivera was 39 and Williams had retired.

There were many other players along the way worth mention, but the point is, when you have a core group that good, you can fill in around the edges. You bring in veterans, bring up competent youngsters, and try to supplement the core as much as possible, but when you’re starting with that kind of quality at the beginning, you don’t have to do an amazing job to reach the final goal. The Yankees, with that group, gave themselves a huge advantage and over the years, and they managed to take advantage of it a lot. The Red Sox are setting themselves up to be in a similar spot.

The System

With Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley, the catching tandem of Swihart and Vazquez, and Shaw, who may not be a star but looks to be at least a starting-quality third baseman, the Red Sox are already doing well on the youth front. But then there’s Andrew Benintendi, another center fielder (after Bradley and Betts) who is burning through the system. Yoan Moncada looks like he could be the third baseman, left fielder, or first baseman of the future. There’s Rafael Devers, who at 19 has more power in his bat than anyone in the system, which, considering the system, is saying something. There’s also Anderson Espinoza, Michael Kopech, and maybe, hopefully, Jason Groome. Some of those guys won’t pan out, and some will be dealt, but there is a tremendous amount of talent coming. We often say as a fan base that we want to be competitive, which is partly why this past month has been so dispiriting, but this level of talent on the way virtually guarantees competitiveness. And hopefully it should do a lot more than that.

The Ownership 

We love to knock the owners here in Red Sox Nation. I’m guilty of it as well on occasion, but the truth is it’s hard to ask for better owners than the Red Sox have had in John Henry and Tom Werner. They’ve made missteps for sure (losing Theo Epstein is a Grade A sin in my book) but think about what they’ve accomplished. They renovated Fenway Park, the jewel of baseball, and made it fit for another generation. I’m bringing my kids there next week for their first trip and they can’t wait. Would we care as much about the Red Sox if they played in a dome in Southie? We’d still care, but the connection to the past, and the environment the games exist in, these things matter. And Henry and company are a huge reason why the team still has Fenway.

They’ve hired smart people and let those people do their jobs unencumbered. Again, there have been missteps along the way (Bobby Valentine comes quickly to mind and hopefully leaves as quickly) but Theo Epstein, GM of two World Series winners, was allowed, before he could call himself that, to trade the face of the franchise in Nomar Garciaparra for a decent starting shortstop and a backup glove-first first baseman. Later Ben Cherington was allowed to ship the team’s stars, virtually all of them, to LA for essentially nothing at all. There are more examples, but those stand out to me as among the most egregious and still, the men in charge were allowed to do their jobs, and in doing so, they followed an unlikely route to a championship.

David Ortiz

Finally, be thankful for David Ortiz. We’ve covered him here extensively and I imagine we’ll be doing so more as the season winds down, but please, be mindful of what we’re watching. Remember what Ortiz has accomplished in his career, the amazing hits, the hundreds of homers, and the shockingly clutch performances. Then look at what he’s doing right now. He’s authoring maybe the greatest age-40 season of any player ever. But whether he succeeds in finishing that and scrawling his name into the record books once again or not, this is a season that we should be thankful for because, ultimately we’re watching one of the greats both at the end of his career and in his prime.

The Future

For all those reasons, the team’s youth and expectations for improvement, their impressive stable of minor league prospects, their ownership, and the great Big Papi, rejoice, Red Sox fans! Maybe, like at the end of Ghostbusters 2, the team just needs to feel some positivity, some love, to push it in the right direction. But even if the 2016 season doesn’t end in a championship, know that the future is promising, friends. And that ain’t nothing. Indeed at the end of a month like June, remembering that can pull you back from the brink and remind you that things can and will get better.

Winning some damn games now and again wouldn’t be a bad start, though.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images

Because this is a draft, we’re going to pick in order, with the best getting picked first and so on. I know that’s no fun but then neither are drafts. Yay let’s pick a bunch of guys you’ve never heard of and honestly have no idea about. It’s like finding a sandwich on a street corner. Sure it looks good, but has a dog peed on it or is that mustard and oil? Also, that better be catsup…

With the first pick in the draft, I select… 

David Price’s start on Opening Day.

This one is about the present but it’s also about the future, or as far into the future as this organization is capable of looking. The Red Sox signed a bonafide capital letter Ace. He picked Boston over some pretty good other organizations and now he’s here, in Boston, wearing a Red Sox uniform and a beautiful dark blue hat with a bright red B on it and he’s striking out other non-Red Sox hitters and isn’t this nice? Didn’t think this would happen, but on Opening Day we saw it with our eyes and they told us it was pretty fantastic. 

With the second pick in the draft, I select…

Any time Rick Porcello pitched because they’re all the same.

Who would have thought that Rick Porcello would be on any list of good things about the 2016 Red Sox, unless his name was followed by “…was traded for [anything] with [other team] assuming his entire contract.” And yet here we are, it’s 2016 and Rick Porcello has been good, he’s been really really good. He’s winning games, which, pitcher wins, so what, but that matters to the players. But more importantly he’s back to getting ground balls AND he’s pumped up his strikeout rate to ridiculous levels. He’s probably not going to keep striking out 30 percent of the hitters he faces (right?), but with a low walk rate, the Ks, and an increased reliance on his sinker, we’re suddenly seeing what Ben Cherington saw in Porcello when he gave him that contract extension. 

With the third pick in the draft, I select… 

Name Your Favorite David Ortiz Extra-Base Hit (currently 14 of them).

I’m feeling a bit guilty for not selecting this first overall. There’s an argument to be made that no player in the 117-year history of the Boston Red Sox means more to the franchise and the city than David Ortiz. In fact, I’m sure about the city part. You can debate value, WARP, WAR, or whatever else and it’s all legit and meaningful in and of itself, but Ortiz’s contributions to the Red Sox expand beyond those measurements. The point though, and this is the really wonderful part, is that we still have the very same David Ortiz! He’s older and slower now, though it’s not like speed was ever a big part of his game, but production-wise he’s the same guy! Know what his OPS+ was last year? 141. Know what his OPS+ was in 2004? 145. We’ve been gifted, at least for now, with a great player in his prime at age 40. Yeah, I should’ve picked this one first. 

With the fourth pick in the draft, I select…

Dustin Pedroia’s two-homer day.

It was against the Braves so it was almost like being on a rehab assignment, so there is that, but two homers in the same day is pretty glorious, even in Triple-A. Pedroia will forever be chasing his old MVP self—he’s not going to be that .325/.375/.500-hitting gold glove guy anymore—but he’s still a beauty to watch in the field and at the bat when he’s having one of those days you wish you could frame and put over the fire place, and he did against Atlanta this week. His two homers, one a grand slam off the pesky pole, offered a peek back to 2008 when a 24-year-old blew right past ‘gritty,’ where most guys his size are forced to sit, and was the best player in the American League. 

With the fifth pick in the draft, I select… 

The time it hit you that Travis Shaw might really be pretty good.

Maybe you haven’t had this moment yet. So let’s get it out of the way now. Who has been the best hitter on the 2016 Red Sox? David Ortiz? Good guess, but no. Dustin Pedroia? Nope. Mookie? Sorry, no. It’s Travis Freaking Shaw (that’s his actual middle name; look it up, I dare you). Shaw is hitting like it’s 2004 all over again and he’s handling the rigors of third base just fine. He’s never going to be a gold glover over there, but when you’re slugging .548 and getting on base over 40 percent of the time, who cares? We’re 22 games in and things can and will change, but the Red Sox keep giving Shaw opportunities and Shaw keeps killing it. The Red Sox almost never pull something out of nothing. It’s usually the reverse. This is way more fun. 

With the sixth pick in the draft, I select…

Jackie Bradley is playing Center Field. Every day.

This is one of the things I comforted myself with this off-season. The Red Sox could be good but they might not be. They’re asking a lot of their young players and they’re rolling the dice on a lot of mediocre pitching. But no matter the outcome of any of that, the Red Sox have Jackie Bradley playing center field and that is awesome. Bradley may or may not be able to hit major league pitching, but he can do this, and this, and also this. And knowing he can, it’s comforting when contemplating a season that might not go the way we want it to. At least Jackie will be out there, doing silly stuff, no matter what. 

With the seventh pick in the draft, I select… 

That time Andrew Benintendi tripled.

You can pick which one you like. There are six. Benintendi (note to self: learn how to spell that) has played 20 games with the Salem Red Sox in High-A. He’s hitting .346/.407/.642, which, what? And he has six triples. In 20 games he has six triples. I’m just going to keep writing that because what? Six triples. Twenty games. Six triples. What?

With the eighth pick in the draft, I select…

Yesterday when you looked up Steven Wright’s ERA and spat coffee all over your work computer.

Steven Wright has thrown 26 1/3 innings for the Red Sox this season. He’s given up four earned runs. That’s a 1.37 ERA! [spits coffee on your work computer for you] You’re welcome! Okay, yes, it’s bit inflated as he’s given up three unearned runs as well (his FIP is 3.10), but even so: wow! Perhaps even more amazing is he’s given up just one homer. I’m not convinced Wright is anywhere near this good (the season is a marathon not a sprint blah blah blah and things can and will change) but those 26 1/3 innings are where ever you keep innings after they’re over. No matter where they are, the Red Sox aren’t giving them back. 

With the ninth pick in the draft, I select… 

Mookie’s Opening Day.

It was a while ago so I’ll refresh your memory. Mookie homered and singled. His homer was the first of the season for Boston and resulted in the first runs scored for Boston this season. It’s also the second time in two seasons Betts has done exactly this. Betts went 2-for-4 with a homer and a single last season on Opening Day too! Mookie homers: an Opening Day tradition. 

With the tenth pick in the draft, I select…

Heath Hembree!

He strikes guys out! His hair is long! He’s walked one guy all year! His names both start with H! 

Here’s to many more happy Red Sox moments in 2016!

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images

I’ve said previously in this space that Bradley’s offensive performance might not ultimately matter, and I stand by that. With that being said, other things will have to go right, and no one will deny that everyone is better off in a world in which Bradley hits.

Luckily, he has shown flashes of being a successful hitter at various points in his professional career. Although most of that has come against minor-league pitching, he was on another planet for a stretch in the second half last season. Besides that stretch, however, Bradley’s been Bad against major-league pitching. The main reason for these struggles has been strikeouts.

Over his 785 career plate appearances, the soon-to-be 26-year-old Bradley is the owner of a strikeout rate over 28 percent.

Over his 785 career plate appearances, the soon-to-be 26-year-old is the owner of a strikeout rate over 28 percent. Players have succeeded while striking out that often before, but it requires a power tool that Bradley just doesn’t possess. What’s worse is, even during his out-of-this-world stretch last August, he still carried a strikeout rate of 26 percent.

Assuming he’s not going to be a modern-day Barry Bonds like he was during that month, there’s just no way around it: Bradley needs to cut down on all the strikeouts if he’s going to be a legitimate major-league hitter. The first step in correcting that is looking at how pitchers are successfully attacking him, both in terms of location and pitch type.

To do this, I went over to Brooks Baseball, and first looked to see if there were differences in how lefties and righties attacked him. Although Bradley has shown reverse splits over his short career, he strikes out at a near-identical rate regardless of his opponents’ handedness. As a closer look reveals, both types of pitchers have different go-to offerings against Bradley.

Right-Handed Pitchers

To say Bradley has had troubles against right-handed pitching would be an understatement, as he has a .229 multi-year TAv against them. His right-handed opponents use two pitches to defeat Bradley: changeups and curveballs. The latter is used a bit more in two-strike counts, but both result in whiffs on roughly 40 percent of his swings. Some #analysis on that: It is Super Bad.

Changeups aren’t an uncommon pitch for hitters — particularly young ones — to struggle with against opposite-handed pitchers. It’s the kind of pitch that allows hurlers like Cole Hamels to post reverse splits. To get a better idea of how Bradley is undone by these pitches, the following gif will alternate between raw pitch locations, swing rates in the zone and the percentage of whiffs on that swing.

A few things stand out about this. Clearly, pitchers are attacking Bradley down and away with changeups. Of course, that’s not really all that surprising. Most pitchers attack most hitters in that location with this kind of pitch. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown any ability to lay off these pitches, particularly the ones that fall out of the zone. As is clear in the final part of the gif, it’s nearly impossible to make contact with a changeup that is falling down and out of the zone.

Beyond the changeups, right-handers have also attacked Bradley with curveballs. I won’t waste time reiterating everything I said above, but the same general issues exist with this pitch. Pitchers are attacking him down, he’s having trouble laying off those offerings that dip below the strike zone, and predictably, can’t make contact. Here’s a gif for you visual learners.

Left-Handed Pitchers

On the one hand, southpaws haven’t had as much success against Bradley as their right-handed counterparts. He’s currently the owner of a respectable, multi-year .271 TAv against them. On the other hand, he’s still striking out 28 percent of the time against them, and most of his success has been the result of a .335 BABIP.

Lefties have relied on breaking balls against him, with the curveball appearing again along with sliders coming in at an almost identical rate. In fact, not only are sliders they thrown to Bradley at an equal rate, but they both induce whiff rates around 40 percent. (There’s that number again!) Although the handedness of the pitcher has changed, the strategy has not. The breaking balls are coming in down in the zone, Bradley isn’t laying off, and he’s whiffing at everything below the bottom of the zone.

The Equalizer

So, we’ve identified how pitchers of each handedness attack Bradley, and it’s mostly the same, just with different pitchers. They’re getting him to chase too many pitches down and out of the zone, and he’s been unable to even foul those pitches off, much less lay off them.

Of course, intuitively we know that most of these pitches come at the end of his at-bats. Towards the beginning of his at-bats, he’s been attacked with fastballs. His whiff rate against these pitches is 25 percent, which still isn’t great but looks a lot better compared to the other pitches. Unfortunately for Bradley, he fouls almost half (44 percent) of these pitches rather than putting them in play. Looking at one final gif — this time highlighting these fastballs — will show exactly why this is such a problem.

Whereas the off speed and breaking pitches are coming in the bottom of the zone, the fastballs are coming up high. Typically, fastballs up in the zone give a hitter more opportunity to make hard, solid contact. With Bradley fouling so many of these pitches off, however, it has the negative effect of altering his eye level. Low breaking balls are hard enough to hit. Allowing pitchers to start you off with high fastballs without much fear of real damage only makes it that much more difficult.

***

In the end, pitchers aren’t getting their strikeouts against Bradley with any clever or surprising plan. The good news is there are two ways for him to counteract his opponents’ strategy. First, he can dedicate his practice time to fighting off those breaking ball and off-speed pitches. Showing that he can foul off those offerings will force pitchers to find a new strategy against him. Of course, that’s much easier said than done.

What should be easier would be to put the ball in play earlier in counts against those fastballs. Pitchers are taking advantage of simple sequencing against Bradley, and it’s because he can’t punish these early-count fastballs. If Bradley’s ever going to be a successful hitter on a consistent basis, he needs to strike out less. If Bradley’s ever going to strike out less, he needs to make the proper adjustments to counteract how pitchers are approaching him.

Photo by Andy Marlin/USA Today Sports Images