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

The real issue is timing. By the time Castillo proves to be a problem, it’ll be too late to do anything about it. The off-season is the time when you can fix holes in the roster (recall: Price, David), but the season is the time when you create those holes. The time between the two is the  potentially bad part. Brutal how that works. The Red Sox outfield situation is a good example, which works well for this article considering that’s kinda what this article is about. The outfield market is bizarrely robust at the moment, featuring above average hitters such as ex-Red Sock Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton, and only recently losing Alex Gordon who re-signed with the Royals for almost the exact dollar figure the Red Sox gave to Rusney Castillo, albeit over a shorter term. Despite that potential production sitting on the market, the Red Sox have shown no interest in any of those players even at a potentially reduced price or number of seasons.

Sounds strange, but there are good reasons for it. The first is Castillo’s contract, which will pay him between $11 million and $12 million per season through at least the 2019 season (if he opts out) and likely a few seasons beyond. The second reason is his baseball-playing ability, which presumably exists. So he’s going to start the season in left field. The Red Sox have spent a lot of money on the 2016 roster however, and with this being David Ortiz’s last season, they are, as the kids say, all in. So what happens if Castillo continues being Castillo, i.e. he performs just slightly above replacement level?

Last year Castillo hit .253/.288/.359. This was not good, but 2015 is not the same offensive environment as 2005, so it wasn’t an utter disaster either. Various WAR metrics had Castillo worth just below one win in 2015, and that was in 289 PAs, so less than half a season’s worth of playing time. If Castillo starts in left all season long and hits and plays defense like he did last season, he’ll likely be worth just under two wins. That isn’t great, but it’s acceptable. A step forward from him would push him towards three wins which would be, considering last year and his time in Pawtucket, pretty fantastic.

The slightest slip up in production on either side of the ball from Castillo and we’re looking at a player subtracting from the team rather than adding to it.

Still, with a slash line like that, we’re not dealing with much of a margin for error. The slightest slip up in production on either side of the ball from Castillo and we’re looking at a player subtracting from the team rather than adding to it. So, suppose that’s what happens. Obviously Cespedes and Upton won’t be waiting on the free-agent market to take his spot. The Red Sox will be looking at one of two options; either move someone already in the organization from the bench or the minors to left field or make a trade for an outfielder.

The Red Sox have signed Chris Young to be their fourth outfielder and if Castillo isn’t cutting it after a few months, the job could fall to him, at least temporarily until the team figures out something better. But Young has major platoon issues, so he’s not an ideal season-long fit. Beyond him, there’s always Brock Holt, who is capable of stepping in and playing left if need be. We know this because left field is a baseball position and Holt can play all of the baseball positions. The problem with that is Holt isn’t a long-term solution in left, and more germane to next season, Holt will be counted on to back up most of the infielders. He can’t play left and and man an infield position at the same time. I’m pretty sure he can’t, anyway.

So there don’t appear to be any season-long solutions on the major league roster. This isn’t surprising but it does mean we have to look further down into the minor leagues, and looking in the Red Sox farm system for outfield help is like looking in a 20-something bachelor’s refrigerator for fresh vegetables. You can look but you’re not going to find anything because it’s just not there.

I suppose that’s not entirely fair. There is still Bryce Brentz. The problem with Brentz is he’ll be 28 this season and hasn’t done anything to distinguish himself in Triple-A over the last two seasons if you don’t count shooting himself in the leg with a gun, and I do not count that.

The dark horse here is Andrew Benintendi, who some scouts see as a player who could rise very quickly through the Red Sox system due to his age when drafted, experience as a college player and overall skill set. That’s great, but it’s not something to plan around. You don’t make organizational plans that depend on 22-year-olds with no experience above Single-A showing up and impacting the major league team. It could happen, but even if it did, it wouldn’t be until towards the end of the season (think Michael Conforto of the Mets).

That brings us to the trade market, and the trade market might be harder to predict than the stock of a player like Benintendi. We can look now and see who might be available, but things change once the season starts and teams start to win games. So maybe the best barometer of who might be available is to look at the players who will reach free agency following the 2016 season. There’s a lot of players of course, so I’ll summarize: yuck. Perhaps the easiest name to see as available is Jay Bruce of the Reds. The Reds look to be terrible in 2016 so they’ll likely be happy to move anything not nailed down. Bruce is coming off of a poor couple seasons in Cincinnati, but he’s still youngish (29) and potentially worthwhile… maybe? Beyond him… more dots. Josh Reddick? Alejandro De Aza? You can already see the problem here. That doesn’t mean there won’t be anyone worth dealing for, just that from where we sit now it doesn’t look all that promising.

The good news for the Red Sox, if there is any good news here for the Red Sox, is that Castillo mediocrity won’t be debilitating.

The good news for the Red Sox, if there is any good news here for the Red Sox, is that Castillo mediocrity won’t be debilitating. That’s not to say you wouldn’t rather have Justin Upton, because you would really really rather have Justin Upton, but clearly that isn’t happening. FanGraphs’ Steamer projections have Castillo hitting .270/.313/.403 this season, and if you accept that as a baseline of offensive production and move his defense from below to above average, that puts him into plus territory overall. In 2015 the league average left fielder hit .256/.319/.411, so Castillo doesn’t project to be actually good, but at least he shouldn’t be bad enough to sink the team. Taking this a step further, the fact that the Red Sox have devoted so much time and money to the 2016 team and yet aren’t attempting to replace Castillo has to count for something as well. Right? Probably? Let’s go with that.

Ultimately, Castillo hasn’t played much major league baseball, but he’s played enough to warrant skepticism that he’ll ever show much beyond production beyond a glorified fourth outfielder. Fortunately, the Red Sox should have a deep enough roster that they can give him the chance to develop further, and if he fails to capitalize on that chance there are other options. Not necessarily good ones, but for now at least, that’s a problem to tackle later.

Photo by Rick Osentoski/USA Today Sports Images