Boston » Jose Bautista

The Satisfying Return of Eduardo Nunez

Matthew Kory — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 14:00:08 +0000

It’s that feeling when the sun comes up after a long night… in Antarctica. It’s the time you took your first solo drive in a car… after failing the test nine times. I could clog the front of this piece with a billion of these, but the point is we’ve come out of the shadows, friends. The offseason is not only over — the Sox are in Fort Myers after all — but the Red Sox have finally signed someone whose name does not rhyme with Ditch Doreland!

The

Red

Sox

have

signed

free

agennnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[crawls out of well]

How about that! That’s not even a question, it’s a damn statement. How about that! I mean who even cares who they signed at this point. The name of the guy isn’t even important. Okay, fine, I should tell you who it is. It’s Eduardo Nunez. The Red Sox signed Eduardo Nunez to a one-year contract with a team option for a second season.

[marching band walks through]

[deeply breathes oxygen]

[marching band walks through again]

Oh god… oh god… it’s so… so good.

So here’s the thing. As I write this on Thursday night, I don’t know how much Nunez is getting paid. But, really, honestly, who gives a crap? It could be $4 million or it could be $12 million and it really doesn’t matter to anyone who isn’t Eduardo Nunez, his agent, his family, his heirs, their cats, or anyone in the Red Sox ownership group. After that, doesn’t matter. The difference between those two semi-randomly chosen numbers is a lot of actual money were we talking about real people, but this is baseball and these are baseball teams. The only difference to the Red Sox would be if it impacted their ability to bring in other talent, and the only way that would happen would be if the team was committed to not spending above the luxury tax threshold. But they’re not! Money schmoney! Whatevs! They’ll sign J.D. Martinez and, heck, Jake Arrieta too.*

*Which honestly they should do because why the heck not?

So it doesn’t matter what they’re paying him, and they have, according to reports, a second-year team option, so if things go well this year they can bring him back for 2019. If not, they don’t have to. That’s the good kind of option if you’re the team and/or you’re a Red Sox fan (maybe less so if you’re a player).

So far, so good for the Sox! They did a thing! But let’s talk about how Nunez fits on to the roster. His most obvious place is at second base while Dustin Pedroia convalesces from knee surgery. The Sox’s star second baseman could return early in the season, but this is major surgery he’s working his way back from, so you never know. It’s entirely possible it takes longer, and longer could mean months, and baseball season is long, but it’s not that long, ya know? A Sox team minus a legit starting second baseman could be dead and buried by the time Pedroia’s knee is up to the rigors of the sport. So Nunez will likely be first in line there.

Beyond second, there’s also third base, both literally and in this specific case, where the Red Sox will be starting 21-year-old Rafael Devers. Devers is a fantastic talent and much is expected of him, but at his age and experience level, you never know. Which is a nice way of saying he could be bad. If that happens, or if the kid hits the skids for a few weeks, it’s nice to have a competent replacement easily available in Nunez to give him a breather. Beyond holding down the fort for Pedroia and as Devers insurance, it’s always good to have someone who can step in and play if other areas of need should open up. Which, given this is baseball, seems likely.

So Nunez fits in pretty well on the roster as long as he’s willing to deal with the insecurity of not having a daily job in the lineup. And since he’s re-signed with Boston we can reasonably assume that he’s fine with that.

What can we expect from Eduardo in 2018? That’s a bit tougher to answer given the way his 2017 ended, that being getting carried off the field after hurting his knee in the ALDS against Houston. Now seems a good time to state that his signing this contract with Boston depends on him passing a physical, which, based on his injury, is no sure thing. But, for the purposes of this piece, lets assume that he’s healthy and passes his physical. In that case, Nunez was a three-win player each of the past two seasons. Thats quite a gem to have on the bench. That said, his 2017 was helped along by a Manny Ramirez-like slash line of .321/.353/.539 in 173 PAs with Boston. His .751 OPS in San Francisco before the trade is much closer to his career OPS of .735. That’s probably more in line with what should be expected of him. Eduardo Nunez is a nice player, defensively versatile and with some pop, but he’s probably not a .533 slugging percentage type of dude.

You might say, well “Matt” — if that is your real name — what if perhaps Fenway Park just fits with Nunez’s skillset better? What if he’s just a good fit at home in Boston, “Matt?” True, that could be it, but you’d have to explain why, if that’s the case, Nunez hit better on the road than he did in Boston during his brief time with the Sox. It’s possible that Nunez turned over a new leaf after coming to Boston, in a similar manner to J.D. Martinez when he got to Detroit or Jose Bautista when he got to Toronto. It’s possible. If so the Red Sox will have a tremendous deal on their hands whether they’re paying him $4 million a year or $12 million. But the likelihood is Nunez just got extremely hot. It was fun while it lasted, lots of fun in fact, but he’s probably going to fall back toward his career norms. And that’s totally fine. That’s great, even. That’s just dandy. Nunez is going to help to fill the hole left by Pedroia’s absence, and he’ll be there should anyone else fail or fall. That’s insurance. That’s depth. That’s the way a good team makes it through a long, grueling slog of a baseball season.

Eduardo Nunez makes the Red Sox better at whatever price. That’s something worth waiting for.

Photo by Ken Blaze — USA TODAY Sports

Assessing Jose Bautista’s Fit on the Red Sox

Matthew Kory — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 11:00:19 +0000

This is not a column advocating for the Red Sox to sign Jose Bautista. It’s not that signing him is a good idea or a bad idea, really. It’s an idea, one with both upside and downside, and to pretend otherwise would be silly. But since Bautista is still out there on the free agent market, and since his representatives have been floating the idea of him taking a one-year contract, it’s probably a good time to discuss this.

First, let’s talk about who Jose Bautista is. He’s a right fielder who, as recently as 2014, put up 6.5 wins. That season he hit .286/.403/.524, which you’ll agree is pretty good. However, the last two seasons have seen him drop off both offensively and defensively. That kind of dip in performance is not entirely unexpected given he’ll be 36 next season, but it bears pointing out that last season was easily his worst since becoming a regular with the Blue Jays. He hit .234/.366/.452, which is fine and good (if not great) but he did it in only 116 games due to injuries, which limited his value. Also, his defense fell off a cliff. His once-amazing arm is a shell of itself and his range in the outfield has been described as statuesque. So he’s an older player with limited defensive ability and a recent injury history. He’s also a player who was recently one of the top hitters in the game.

This is actually why he could fit with the Red Sox. There’s been a lot of talk about how now that David Ortiz has retired, the Red Sox aren’t going to use a permanent DH, instead opting to rotate a few different players through the position to keep players fresh. That’s fine in theory, but in practice, given this roster, it’s unnecessary. Of their nine projected starting position players, just four are over 30, and none are over 33. Most are in their 20s and depending on who catches, as many could be under 25 as over 30. This is a very young team. All players need time off, but this team needs time off less than most. What they need more than a spot in the lineup to use for rest is to fill the hole left by Ortiz’s bat as best they can. That could be done in any number of ways, but, and let’s be honest here, Mitch Moreland is not one of them.

There’s been talk of how the Red Sox roster is set now and how there aren’t any places left to upgrade. There could be another spot worth covering beyond the first base/DH spots, however: left field. Andrew Benintendi is slated to start there and he’s a premium talent. We all saw last season what he could do and it was impressive, even if it was only for 34 games because of injury. But here’s the thing: we’ve all seen great talents step into Boston at a young age and fail in their first full seasons on the job. Two prime examples will share the lineup with Benintendi this season in Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley. Optimism for Benintendi is warranted, but the Red Sox can’t pretend he’s a sure thing. Players his age never are. It wouldn’t hurt Boston to have someone who could cover for Benintendi on the roster in the event he wasn’t as ready as we think he is. You could say, well, what about Chris Young? And you’d be sort of right. Young was fantastic when healthy in 2016, crushing lefties and putting up a respectable .766 OPS against righties. But this is a guy with a career OPS against righties of .707, which includes an on-base percentage under .300. Young is a great platoon option, but the less he’s playing regularly the better.

Which leads us back to Bautista. He’s not a right fielder anymore, but he could play some left in Fenway, the park with the smallest outfield corner in baseball. He could play a bit of first base too, but mostly he could DH. This isn’t the sole argument for adding Baustia, but it’s part of it.

The Red Sox are, of all teams perhaps, in the best position to get the most out of signing Jose Bautista.

The Red Sox are, of all teams perhaps, in the best position to get the most out of signing Jose Bautista. They can put him in position to succeed defensively and offensively, and he can help close the hole in the offense left by David Ortiz’s departure.

Part of the reason I’m even writing this is that we’re almost to January and nobody has even sniffed around Bautista on the free agent market. If you search Bautista’s name in MLB Trade Rumors, you get a few pieces on teams who aren’t interested in him, and then the latest piece on how he’s now willing to consider one year deals. That’s it. The market for Bautista is bone dry at the moment. Part of the reason for that is his age, part is his reputation around the game as being loud and brash, but part is something I haven’t addressed yet: he’ll cost the Red Sox their first-round draft pick.

That’s not nothing, especially considering what Dave Dombrowski has done to the farm system over the past two off-seasons. The Red Sox system has gone from being top five in the game to… well, I honestly don’t know, but certainly the back half of farm systems and probably considerably lower than that. Boston needs draft picks and, under the current system, picks come with money that can be spent both on that pick and later on in the draft to improve the quality of players the team can sign. That’s probably the biggest argument against signing Bautista. The Red Sox could really use that draft pick and the money that comes with it.

That’s one side of it. The other is that the Red Sox will be selecting 26th in the upcoming draft. That’s not something you throw away, but it’s not a top of the draft pick either. The Red Sox have put a lot into assembling their 2017 roster. This is win-now time. It’s certainly arguable that adding Bautista, who can give you a prospective premium DH as well as some insurance against Andrew Benintendi having a rougher road as a rookie than the team would like, is worth the loss of a late first round pick, especially if the team gets him on a team-friendly deal.

There is one other reason the Red Sox might not want to sign Bautista and it is money. The Red Sox are up against the luxury cap again, which is almost certainly the reason they dealt away Clay Buchholz for essentially nothing beyond salary relief. They might not want to turn around and spend that money, plus a little more, to add another player. That’s a reasonable position to take. The other side is who cares? Bautista fills a few needs and, given what the team has already spent on the 2017 roster, it makes sense to put what amounts to a little bit more into the pot.

None of this is to argue the Red Sox should sign Jose Bautista. Perhaps they’d be better off keeping the draft pick, the money available, and the roster spot open. But it’s almost January, and Bautista is still out there, and available for much less than had been previously speculated. He’s probably still a very good hitter and he fits on the Red Sox roster probably better than most think he does. It’s something to think about.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski/USA Today Sports Images

Read Sox: This Week Was Way Less Exciting

Cam Ellis — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 11:00:33 +0000

Welcome back to Read Sox. It was a quiet week for the Red Sox; Chris Sale is a hard act to follow. The Winter Meetings hangover is real. Here’s what’s been going on.

Halfway into December and people are already calling the Red Sox baseball’s new Evil Empire. It’s interesting how there still seems to be a torn public opinion about whether the team is turning into the Yankees when that change happened the better part of a decade ago. Shaking 86 years of being the little brother wasn’t going to happen overnight, but when an underdog wins a title three times in nine years, can you really call it an underdog at that point?

The Red Sox seem to be weirdly all in on Pablo Sandoval. He certainly looks better, which is obviously great for him but that doesn’t really guarantee any improvement on a baseball field. Dave Dombrowski, John Farrell and the team have been explicit in letting everyone know that it’s his job to lose next spring. There’s been lots written about how he needs to earn the respect back, whether it’s Jen McCaffery at masslive.com, Sam Galanis at NESN, or John Tomase at WEEI. They all make fair points citing the injuries and the weight issues and the contract. And while it sure looks like Sandoval’s up to the task, it’s not like there’s going to be some neck-and-neck competition for third this spring; Travis Shaw and Yoan Moncada are gone. So do you really have to “earn” back a job when the other two options are traded?

Christopher Smith at masslive.com went into detail about Chris Sale’s new slider and his reasoning for intentionally lowering his velocity. Sale gives the standard quote that a MLB veteran gives about learning how to pitch and not to throw, etc etc. Neil Greenberg threw a wet blanket on the deal by pointing out a few reasons to be concerned. Primarily, Greenberg expressed concern over Sale’s rising fly ball rate and how pitching in one of the friendliest hitters park in baseball isn’t going to do that any favors.

Jose Bautista really wanted to be on the Red Sox, apparently. That idea was quickly snuffed out, however, as teams are avoiding the new luxury tax like the plague. Mitch Mooreland it is!

Eduardo Rodriguez is balling down in Venezuela. SoxProspects.com had that, plus some cameos from Rafael Devers, Marco Hernandez, Christian Vasquez and Rusney Castillo.

If you want to feel really smug, go ahead and give Pete Abraham’s article about how young and talented the starting outfield is a read. If we’re ranking narratives heading into next season, I’m not sure if one’s more exciting than the possibility of watching a full season of all three. There’s a Mookie Betts-Ted Williams comparison. It’s really about as indulgent as you can get, and it’s great.

Photo by USA Today Sports Images

Replacing David Ortiz’s Production in 2017

Matthew Kory — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 12:48:24 +0000

The 2017 Red Sox face few challenges when it comes to their roster. There will likely be a change or two we don’t see coming, but as it stands now the roster is set with the one obvious exception being at DH. David Ortiz’s magical 14-year run with the Red Sox is over and with his departure Boston’s front office faces two questions. The first is who will play DH, and the second, the answer to which isn’t necessarily the same, is who will replace Ortiz’s production?

The interesting aspect to this comes when you consider the fact that the Red Sox had one of the best offenses in baseball this season. By Runs Scored they were first by a lot. They were also first in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. Most total offensive metrics had them first or second as well, though our TAv had them sixth (no, I can’t explain it). The point is, the Red Sox won a lot of games in 2016 and many, especially in the first half of the season, were due to the overpowering nature of their offense. Ortiz’s loss in the clubhouse can’t be replaced, but while he was magnificent on the field, authoring maybe the best season ever by a 40-year-old, the raw numbers and production can be.

The largest portion of the replacement may come from the free-agent market where there is actually a healthy number of options to directly fill Ortiz’s position. Players like Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Beltran or Jose Bautista could replicate some decent-to-large percentage of what Ortiz did this season. Team President Dave Dombrowski hasn’t indicated whether he will look to add someone from that pool of players, but whether he does or not, it likely won’t fill the hole entirely. That’s because finding someone to step in and hit .315/.401/.620 as Ortiz did this season is a difficult proposition. Perhaps the Red Sox will acquire Freddie Freeman from the Braves or Joey Votto from the Reds, but outside of a huge addition like that, the trick will be to make incremental improvements across the lineup. The Red Sox will explore all avenues of improvement but the plan likely isn’t to add one big player and expect him to replace Ortiz one-for-one. Instead, they’ll need to get small bits from everybody in the lineup and with each step or half-step forward the loss of Ortiz is slightly lessened.

We’re talking about the highest scoring offense in baseball here, so improvement will be difficult, right? Is Mookie Betts going to hit better than a .900 OPS with 31 homers? Is Sandy Leon really going to reach .310/.369/.476 again, let alone best it? Well, no, probably not. I don’t count Mookie Betts out of anything, but it’s hard to see him doing better next season. However, that does bring up an interesting point, which is this: Betts is 23. He’ll be 24 next season. The Red Sox feature a number of important players in that age range, including Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Blake Swihart, who figures to play a more significant role in 2017. Players in their early and mid-20s are typically candidates to improve, simply based on normal aging patterns. It’s not outlandish to think Betts could improve his on-base next season as pitchers stop challenging him inside the strike zone. In fact, if you look at Betts’ monthly splits, you can see that kind of thing happening. Betts got off to a rough start in April with a .298 OBP, and put up .348 and .331 numbers in May and June. In July he kicked it up to .415 and August was virtually the same at .414. September saw a .373 OBP, so you could see some improvement there as Betts was forced to become more selective due to pitchers’ fears of getting burned. Maybe the homers aren’t quite there next season but the OBP more than makes up for it and there is some of Ortiz’s value.

Leon was another example. You wouldn’t expect him to hit so well again, but even if he doesn’t the Red Sox’s overall performance from the catcher position could improve. Last season Red Sox catchers hit .253/.315/.365. Fine, but roughly middle-of-the-pack league-wide. So if Leon isn’t going to get better, then how will the Red Sox? The 2016 Sox got 184 plate appearances from Christian Vazquez, who hit .227/.277/.308 during them. Bryan Holaday was even worse for 35 plate appearances. Ryan Hanigan’s 113 PAs were somehow even worse than that. Next season should feature more of Swihart’s bat (assuming Dombrowski doesn’t trade him), which will be an improvement over the Vazquez/Holaday/Hanigan triumvirate. Even if Vazquez, who figures to get some playing time, isn’t a good hitter he’s probably not that bad. So a better 350 PAs from backup catchers seems possible and could help replace be some of Ortiz’s lost value.

Jackie Bradley did his all-or-nothing act again in 2016, going from being the best hitter in the game to the player who lost his major league roster spot in 2014. Some consistency in between scorching hot stretches would push Bradley into the upper echelon of hitters as well as hold on to a bit of Ortiz’s production. There are numerous other possibilities as well. Andrew Benintendi should get a full season in left field which will help. Can Hanley Ramirez or Dustin Pedroia get even a little bit better? I’m skeptical but maybe.

A bigger and more easily gained improvement is available at third base as 2016 was yet another season the Red Sox production from third was awful. That figures to change in the next few seasons as Yoan Moncada and/or Rafael Devers make their way(s) to Boston, but for now the team seems to be stuck with Travis Shaw. Perhaps Moncada makes the leap next season and provides the spark he was unable to give this season, but there’s a more likely long shot here and that is Pablo Sandoval.

Sandoval missed virtually the entire 2016 campaign after shoulder surgery, but he’s been a better-than-league average hitter in every season but his first in Boston in 2015. It’s not unreasonable to think that after a year off he can come back healthy, which he presumably wasn’t before, and in good shape (relatively speaking). Simply achieving league average would be an improvement over the low bar the team set at third base in 2016.

Other than a Sandoval reinvention, the Red Sox’s best hopes for offensive improvement probably lie with Xander Bogaerts. Bogaerts has ticked up offensively each season he’s spent in the majors, but each season has also come with significant down periods. In 2016, Bogaerts fell apart towards the end of the year, highlighted by an especially difficult August. Even so, an .802 OPS from shortstop is quite good, but with Bogaerts’ obvious talent, it’s not crazy to say there is another gear in there somewhere, one with more power, more consistency, and better on-base ability. If there’s a player who can take a significant step forward in 2017 on the Red Sox roster and in doing so take a huge chunk out of the heap of productivity the Red Sox are losing through David Ortiz’s retirement, it’s Bogaerts.

Taken individually, each of these along with others are good, but taken together, the Red Sox can offset the loss of Ortiz to some large degree. Of course, forecasting improvement across the board is a dicey proposition. Typically some players improve while others, maybe some you don’t see coming, fall down. For the Red Sox to withstand losing David Ortiz and maintain their title as the best hitting team in baseball, they’re going to need Bradley, Bogaerts, Betts, Swihart, and Andrew Benintendi as well as others to improve. Given the ages and talents of the players involved it’s probably less pie-in-the-sky than you might think.

Or they could just go out and trade for Mike Trout. Either way, really.

Photo by Mike Dinovo/USA Today Sports Images

Replacing David Ortiz’s Bat

Jake Devereaux — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 12:16:33 +0000

The Red Sox have the tall and unenviable task of trying to replace David Ortiz this off-season. As I expressed in my recent piece about what Ortiz meant to Boston, the man himself cannot be replaced, and certainly not in the clubhouse. However, Dave Dombrowski will be tasked with replacing his offensive production however he can. As Dombrowski notes, “It won’t come from one person hitting 38 home runs or knocking in 130, but we’ll do the best to try to combine what we have and keep an open mindedness in that regard.” This may be the preference, but the Red Sox also have $37mm coming off the books next year even after they presumably pick up Clay Buchholz’s option. This means they have money to sign an expensive player should they choose. It is not likely that they would stand pat and rotate Pablo Sandoval, Chris Young, Travis Shaw and Hanley Ramirez through the corner outfield and DH spots.

With this in mind I have put together a list of free agent hitters that check a lot of the boxes that the Red Sox are trying to fill in a post Ortiz world. The replacement(s) will need to hit right-handed pitching extremely well and presumably be a power bat. Considering that the remainder of the Red Sox positions are well set for next season, the addition will likely be someone who can slot in at the DH spot, first base, or rotate in the outfield or at third base. With Sandoval’s bat returning to the lineup in some capacity the need for that bat to be left-handed is not a hard-and-fast rule. Here is the best fits of the available options:

The Old Expensive Sluggers

Edwin Encarnacion: Bats-Righty, Age for 2017 Season-34, Draft Pick Loss:-Yes

Often talked about as a replacement for Ortiz, initially because Ortiz mentioned him, Encarnacion brings power to the table in spades coming off a season where he hit 42 home runs, tying a career high. The consensus is that even at 34 years old to start the 2017 season, the Dominican power hitter will command a deal of at least four years and upwards of $100 million. The price is substantial but he can do the best out of any option to replace Ortiz’s production on his own. Last year Ortiz posted a TAv of .317, which was one of the better marks in all of baseball. Encarnacion had a mark of .291 and PECOTA projects .281 for 2017.

Despite being a right-handed bat Encarnacion has mashed right-handed pitching, slashing .268/.349/.532 with 33 home runs with a TAv of .290. He was even better against left-handed pitching with a TAv of .294. This guy is the total package and can rotate between DH and 1B with Ramirez. Encarnacion is not a great fielder, but FRAA has him ranked as a substantially better first baseman than Ramirez at -2.9 vs. -10.5. Encarnacion is the most expensive but best solution even, if he limits Boston’s flexibility with rotating players at DH. It does not come without risk, since last year marked his lowest contact and z-contact percentage of his career, marks that have been falling since 2013.

Jose Bautista: Bats-Righty, Age for 2017 Season-36, Draft Pick Loss:-Yes

This is an interesting option, but one that is difficult to envision without the Red Sox moving on from one of their outfielders via a trade. Bautista has not graded out as a positive defender in right field over the last two seasons but he is still adequate enough to warrant a full-time job in the field for some club. Last season’s .270 TAv was his lowest since his pre-breakout season in 2009 but PECOTA likes him for a strong bounce back in 2017 with a projected mark of .305.

While I don’t love this option due to his advanced age and high cost, Bautista is not without his strengths. He can play right field, which makes left field at Fenway a possibility as he ages, and he has also seen time at first base over his career should he lose more mobility. Bautista’s bat has also never shown any platoon splits. It does remain to be seen whether or not his dip in performance this year is due to father time or just a down year but I wouldn’t want to take that risk for someone who will command a very high pay day.

Old Guys on Short Deals

Matt Holliday: Bats-Right, Age for 2017 Season-37, Draft Pick Loss:-No

This is a very intriguing option made available by the Cardinals choosing to buy out the last year on his deal worth $17 million rather than hang onto the aging slugger. Since they declined the option, which was lower than the $17.2 million qualifying offer set for 2017, the Red Sox would not need to give up a draft pick to sign Holliday. Holliday will likely be limited to American League teams due to his extremely limited fielding, but he could play LF of 1B for his new team as long as it was in a limited role.

Holliday isn’t what he used to be but his TAv of .279 in limited time last year proves he is still very useful. One of the better hitters of his generation, Holliday has never shown any platoon splits, and he crushes right-handed pitching. This bat, coupled with his flexibility and the fact that he likely won’t command more than a two-year deal, make him very attractive. PECOTA has him pegged for a nearly identical TAv of .282. If he is willing to come to Boston this is a very attractive option for the team and the player. His swing seems tailor-made for pounding the green monster.

Carlos Beltran: Bats-Switch, Age for 2017 Season-40, Draft Pick Loss:-No

Here’s a bold idea; replace one 40-year-old future Hall-of-Famer with another. What could go wrong? After all, Beltran mostly does bat from the left side and has been great in his career vs LHP. Last year though, he was much better against lefties than righties and he had a fairly substantial drop-off in slugging percentage in the second half. For his career, however, he has been substantially better vs RHP. Given his age and lack of mobility Beltran played more than half the season at DH and would likely do so again. He does, however, have the ability to play both RF and LF and he had a very respectable TAv of .279 last season. PECOTA projects him to have a massive drop-off in 2017 all the way down to a TAv of .244. The Sox can probably do better than this.

The Other Guys

Josh Reddick: Bats-Lefty, Age for 2017 Season-30, Draft Pick Loss:-No

Hey, we know this guy! Drafted by the Sox in 2006 and there until the end of 2011, Reddick is a familiar face, and one that the team would benefit from having back. Ryan Sweeney and Andrew Bailey didn’t work out so well and since that terrible trade, Reddick has enjoyed his four best seasons. If you want a righty-masher then Reddick is your guy with a TAv of .317 against them last year. He is rather pathetic against LHP, though, so a platoon partner would be ideal. If the Sox were to trade Jackie Bradley Jr. to the White Sox in a deal for Chris Sale, for example, this would represent an ideal player to pair with Chris Young in LF.

Reddick’s stats all show he is entering his prime as a hitter and he posted a respectable .277 TAv last year with PECOTA projecting a mark of .266 for next. Reddick also rated as the 7th best RF in baseball by FRAA so defense would not be an issue. This may be the type of player better suited to be signed alongside another name on this list and only acquired if an outfield spot is vacated. The Dodgers know his value and have plenty of money to spend. He will not be easy to sign nor will he be cheap, and because of the mid-season trade from Oakland to LA he does not have any compensation attached to him.

Steve Pearce: Bats-Righty, Age for 2017 Season-34, Draft Pick Loss:-No

A familiar foe, Pearce has plied his trade with both Baltimore and Tampa Bay in recent years so Sox fans know what he can do. Pearce provides the ultimate in flexibility, just like Brock Holt, and has played nearly every position on the diamond over the last three seasons. His bat is also vastly underrated. In a part-time role last season his .310 TAv was closest on this list to the .317 of Ortiz. He hits both right- and left-handed pitching well and could rotate anywhere John Farrell needs him. Pearce is 34 and coming off elbow surgery so he is by no means a perfect solution. PECOTA is also skeptical he can keep up the success predicting a TAv of .251 for next year. There is no doubt he can help the team but might be best signed alongside another player on this list.

Conclusion

Encarnacion remains the best option for replacing Ortiz but the job can certainly be done in another way. If a trade can be made with the White Sox then I favor signing Reddick and Pearce and running a platoon in left while also rotating Pearce at DH and around the field with Sandoval, Shaw, and Ramirez. I ruled out Mike Napoli, Mitch Moreland, Mark Trumbo, Ian Desmond, Michael Saunders, and Kendrys Morales because their skills didn’t fit the needs of this team as well as the six players above. However, those players do remain options that the team may explore.

Photo by Ken Blaze/USA Today Sports Images

Read Sox: Castillo’s Contract, Ortiz’s Heir and Evaluating Espinoza

Nick Canelas — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 12:54:39 +0000

Welcome back to Read Sox. This week we look at the free-agent hitting market, and briefly fast forward to a potential 2016-17 offseason splash.

Going Deep

With an ace locked up and a revamped bullpen, the Red Sox could sit quietly until spring training and hear little complaints about their offseason work. But, as the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato writes, there’s still an opportunity for the Sox to make improvements with the likes of Chris Davis, Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton still available. Mastrodonato proposed three improbable, yet not unrealistic, moves the Red Sox could make to enhance their 2016 roster.

The first idea was to trade Hanley Ramirez and sign Davis. Yes, it’s unlikely Ramirez will have any suitors, but Davis, who had a respectable 5.7 UZR/150 last season, is a clear upgrade at first base. And with 47 home runs and a .390 wOBA last season, he’s also a better hitter. Same goes for Justin Morneau, whom Mastrodonato also proposed the Red Sox acquire as a stop-gap for Sam Travis if they can move Ramirez. Morneau has a career 2.9 UZR/150 as a first baseman and posted a .279 true average and .353 wOBA with the Rockies last year. He’d also come at a far cheaper price. Mastrodonato’s final proposal may have been the most unrealistic, but also the most irrelevant – trading Rusney Castillo and signing Alex Gordon. This can’t happen for two reasons. One, Gordon signed a four-year deal with the Royals on Wednesday. And two that would require a taker for Castillo, who struck out at an 18.7 percent rate last season. That’s without mentioning the millions he’s owed over the next five years.

If you thought that was too good to be true, wait until you see what ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick’s “Most Interesting People in 2016” story inspired. (Do I sound desperate for interesting things to write about?)

Two players who cracked Crasnick’s list were Toronto’s Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, both of whom are free agents at the end of next season. Crasnick suggested that one of the two could serve as the heir apparent to David Ortiz at DH. The Blue Jay Hunter’s Ian Hunter and Bluebird Banter’s Minor Leaguer took it a step further, plotting an all-out Blue Jays reunion in Boston with David Price, Bautista and Encarnacion in 2017. Crazy, right? Believe it or not, it could be done with a little luck and a willingness from the Red Sox to spend big next winter.

Individually, Bautista and Encarnacion are both capable of replacing the seemingly ageless Ortiz. Both players finished with higher TAvs and wOBAs, and hit more home runs than Big Papi in 2015 (Bautista also knows a good bat flip). The problem? One would have to field if both signed. Bautista is a respectable outfielder who would be an upgrade over Jackie Bradley Jr. or Castillo at the plate, and although Encarnacion isn’t known for his glove at third, a replacement for Pablo Sandoval is welcome. The biggest downside would be age. Bautista will be 36 and Encarnacion 34 during the 2017 season, so committing to long term contracts with both players would border on irresponsible. But hey, it’s OK to dream, right?

Quick Hits

As mentioned above, it’s January and many of baseball’s top free-agent bats are still available. The Boston Globe’s Nick Carfardo examines this situation and what it could mean for teams in need of offense over the next two months. The pitchers had their day in November and December. The expectation is the position players will get their big contracts next as plenty of teams are desperate for offense. But how far will some teams, such as the Orioles with Davis, go to sign these available players?

The Red Sox lost a pair of legends last week with the deaths of Dave Henderson and Frank Malzone. The Worcester Telegram’s Bill Ballou wrote about their permanent place in franchise history, as well as that of the many other former Red Sox players.

We’ve talked plenty about trading Castillo in this post, but not enough about what his value to the Red Sox will be in 2016. MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith does just that. Castillo has been a disappointment so far. He has a career .226 TAv in 329 major-league plate appearances, and has struggled to stay healthy. Next season will be an important one for the 28-year-old Cuban defector, who will be in the third year of a seven-year, $72.5 million contract. The Sox clearly see potential in him, and he’ll get his chance to finally reach that point as a probable starting left fielder next season.

MLB.com’s Jim Callis listed 10 prospects poised to surge in 2016 last week. Among them was right-hander Anderson Espinoza, a Venezuelan flamethrower in the Red Sox organization. Espinoza is a 17-year-old who is lauded for his upper-90s fastball (he can touch 100 mph) combined with plus secondary pitches and command. He made such a strong showing in rookie ball that he even saw 3.1 innings of work in Low-A Greenville, where he posted a 2.88 FIP and 10.80 K/9.

Speaking of prospects, Fangraphs released its KATOH projections for Red Sox prospects this week, projections that were kind to the likes of Rafael Devers (9.6 WAR KATOH projection through age 28 season) and Travis (7.3) after breakthrough seasons in the minor leagues in 2015. Espinoza was also highly regarded on the list, cracking No. 4 with a 6.2 WAR projection.

Pitcher Steven Wright participated in a tour of five overseas military bases last month with a group that included several notable celebrities. The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham wrote about Wright’s experience.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

Jose Bautista, David Ortiz and the Power of Belief

Matthew Kory — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:25:34 +0000

His is a moment to be passed down the generational ladder in Canada, like a happy and wonderful genetic disease. Because of it, he will float above the Canadian ether, bat eternally flipping, forever glowering in opposition. Jose Bautista’s homer in the seventh inning of game five of the American League Division Series against the poor, poor Rangers is one of the greatest moments in Blue Jays history, probably only behind Joe Carter’s World Series winning homer, but maybe not. The Carter homer was a World Series-winning homer, but it didn’t keep Toronto from elimination either. Bautista’s homer did.

The significance of Bautista’s homer is hard to overstate given the drama of the inning, of the series, of the man. But this is a Red Sox site so you know it had to come around to this sooner or later: thanks to Bautista, now Blue Jays fans are starting to understand how Red Sox fans feel about David Ortiz.

I should say this isn’t meant to talk down to Blue Jays fans or devalue what Bautista accomplished for greater Toronto and batflip-kind. He has quite probably been the man to turn baseball around in Toronto, and not just with one well-timed homer, but with his own career renaissance. They say you have to walk a mile in a person’s shoes to understand them, and watching Bautista’s bat explode on the ball and the man explode in the moment, it made me think of the treatise on overcoming adversity that Ortiz has authored in Boston, the moments he’s pulled the Red Sox through, the chains of history he’s brushed aside as if they were nothing because they were nothing to David Ortiz.

A year after joining the organization, one that hadn’t won a World Series in 85 seasons at the time, Ortiz kept the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS with game winning, game-ending hits in both game four and game five. He homered off of Kevin Brown in game seven after Johnny Damon was thrown out at home plate with the all too familiar doom threatening to take hold. But no, because Ortiz wouldn’t let it, crushing the ball into the right-field bleachers off Brown and taking all the pressure off his teammates like stabbing a balloon. Oh, he also won the ’04 Division Series with a two-run homer in the 10th inning after Vlad Guerrero had hit a grand slam to tie the game in the seventh. That’s three game-winning hits, two of them homers, in a six game stretch of playoff games, if you’re the counting sort. Then, if we’re really going to do this, he homered in the first inning of the World Series against the Cardinals, as if to say we’re not done yet. We’re gonna take this whole thing. And all that? That’s just one season.

Ortiz is also the man who hit hit .370 and slugged almost .700 (.696 if you must be exact) during the entire 2007 playoffs. He’s the guy who hit two homers off David Price in 2013 as the Red Sox finally avenged their 2008 loss to Tampa (I still maintain Boston would have beaten Philadelphia that year for their second consecutive World Series title). Also, do you know what David Ortiz did in the 2013 World Series? He slugged .688! No, wait a minute, no he didn’t. That was his batting average. For the entire post-season that year he hit .353/.500/.706. That’s nuts-o numbers off three of the best pitching teams in all of baseball. Remember the grand slam he hit off of Joaquin Benoit? That came after the Red Sox had scored all of one run in the previous 16 innings off Tigers pitching. Boston was supposed to go down two games to none headed back to Detroit for three games, but instead Ortiz tied the game with one swing and provided maybe his most iconic moment as a Red Sox, which as you can see from the above list, is saying something special: that of Torii Hunter’s legs pointed skyward after he’s thrown himself into the bullpen trying and failing to reach Ortiz’s homer juxtaposed with the raised arms of the bullpen cop. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. The statue they make to commemorate that moment is going to be insane!

That was Ortiz, saving the Red Sox from extinction yet again. Except, in baseball it’s either a strike or a ball, it’s never neither. You win or you lose. The game is going into one column no matter how close it is. Ortiz took away a loss, which is something in itself, but he also turned it into a win. The Red Sox went from being far down in the series, likely losers to Detroit, to even again, and even again with Lackey and Lester (god I miss him!) coming up. Like Bautista in that craziest of seventh innings, Ortiz saved his team when they needed him most of all.

Maybe you were watching that Seventh Inning. The crazy up-and-down dryer-spin-cycle of an inning during the elimination game that saw the Texas Rangers go up 3-2 on maybe the most ridiculous play ever, and then had the Blue Jays rally all the way back in the most dramatic way possible. The way the crowd erupted on the contact between ball and Bautista’s bat, the way Bautista threw the chip off his shoulder so forcefully the fans in the front row were lucky it was only metaphorical. It was all so meaningful in the moment. So meaningful that had Bautista been nobody, had he been the 25th man on the roster, he would still have etched himself prominently into Blue Jays history.

When Ortiz comes up in a big spot and succeeds, it’s never beyond our wildest dreams because our wildest dreams are of exactly that, what Ortiz does in real life.

Greatness requires not just the person, but opportunity. Had the Jays traded Bautista to San Diego or someplace equally nondescript in the baseball landscape before he had reached his breakout, the man would have remained the same, but the opportunity wouldn’t have presented itself. The same could be said of Ortiz in a way, though perhaps that’s the difference. Ortiz has done it so often, with such force, with such strength, with such bizarre consistency, it could almost be said that had he signed elsewhere back in 2003 after the Twins committed their original sin, that he would have created the opportunity almost by himself and Red Sox fans would have spent the last decade wondering why we can’t get nice players like that Ortiz guy who signed with the Angels or whatever.

This is the man Red Sox fans know, love, and in the ultimate sign of respect, take for granted. When Ortiz comes up in a big spot and succeeds, it’s never beyond our wildest dreams because our wildest dreams are of exactly that, what Ortiz does in real life. Blue Jays fans’ love for Jose Bautista is real and true, and through it they’re just starting to understand what David Ortiz has done for the Red Sox.

Photo by USA Today Sports Images