By WARP, Sandoval was worth -1.38 wins in 2015, making him the seventh-worst player in all of baseball by that metric. Part of that was him hitting badly, and that could have been tolerated if not condoned in the first season of a five-year deal. Players have bad seasons at the plate sometimes, and especially so following signing big contracts, but most damning was that his ability to play third base competently disappeared. He had little ability to move around in the field and for the first time looked like he couldn’t handle the position.

Yesterday, Ben Carsley looked at dealing Pablo Sandoval and Rusney Castillo, two players who, as he put it, amount to $129 million in dead money. The problem is since both players are owed a ton of cash and as neither is, at this point, any good at baseball, they’re not desirable to other teams either, even should the Red Sox pay most or all of their salaries. Castillo has been sent to Triple-A so presumably he should get at-bats. Maybe he figures it out and turns his obvious physical tools into on-the-field success. I won’t be holding my breath, but you never know. Sandoval is a different and, if you’ll forgive me, bigger problem. If he’s not going to play third base there’s no real place for him to play (he’s not going to Triple-A), and if he’s not going to start and he’s not good enough to hit or play defense, he’s not going to get a chance to improve, let alone to prove he’s improved.

Since both Castillo and Sandoval are owed a ton of cash and as neither is, at this point, any good at baseball, they’re not desirable to other teams either, even should the Red Sox pay most or all of their salaries.

However, it’s possible to imagine a player with Sandoval’s past becoming a decent player again. In fact, I’d bet on Sandoval to post more value in the future than Castillo simply because Sandoval has actually done it before. What’s more, he’s just 29 years old, so age isn’t a problem for him. At least not yet. 

There’s an elephant in the room though, and it’s Sandoval’s weight. The Red Sox reportedly don’t approve of his size and shape, fearing it to be one of the main culprits of his diminished on-field capacity. Anecdotally it looks that way, but I don’t know so it’s not fair for me to comment. What I can say though is that players in similar positions as Sandoval have turned their careers around in the past. Red Sox fans will remember John Lackey, the starting pitcher who, after signing in Boston, stunk. Of course he stunk because the inside of his arm was shredded, and after missing a season for Tommy John surgery he returned and was fantastic, helping the team to their third World Series win in a decade. After Lackey’s second season in Boston though, not many thought he would ever see a major-league mound again, let alone be a major cog in a World Series winning rotation. 

Lackey’s problem wasn’t weight, it was injury, but there was something else that makes him similar to Sandoval: attitude. Sandoval has publicly displayed a good attitude, saying the right things about his situation, but behind the scenes he’s reportedly strongly resisted losing weight. Lackey was difficult in a different way but neither endeared themselves to the fans through their actions. But by the end of his Red Sox contract Lackey was, if not a fan favorite, then at least a player who the fans actively liked. That same transformation isn’t impossible for Sandoval to make either. Like with Lackey though, it’ll take a tremendous amount of work, both on the field as well as off. 

Maybe a more direct example is Mo Vaughn, who signed with the Angels after a contract dispute with the Red Sox. Boston had wanted to include a weight clause in his contract as well as some other things he didn’t like and Vaughn, having spent the last five or so seasons being offended by the Red Sox front office, decided enough was enough. The moral here is a bit different though, because after two uninspired seasons in Anaheim, Vaughn was traded to the New York Mets. In the end neither locale worked well for the mercurial star and he was essentially done as a good player after his age-29 season in 1999, though he kept playing for parts of three more seasons. (Incidentally, the year after that, Vaughn hit .272/.365/.498, and with bad defense at first base, that was worth 0.4 WARP. That’s because the average hitter in 2000 hit .270/.345/.437.)

Listen to David Ortiz talk about what he has to do to stay in shape now that he’s 40. It’s a huge reason he’s retiring after this season.

While Lackey shows that sometimes players do return to their former glory, Vaughn stands as more of a cautionary tale. The ex-Sox star suffered through injuries and weight-related issues later in his career, all the while giving off the public perception that he was too proud to do much about them. The thing is, while a 25-year-old player can play certain positions overweight and excel at them, things catch up to you pretty quickly as you hit 30. Vaughn found that out. I suspect Sandoval is learning it now too. 

Listen to David Ortiz talk about what he has to do to stay in shape now that he’s 40. It’s a huge reason he’s retiring after this season. It’s not that he can’t play anymore, it’s that, after all he’s accomplished, he’s not willing to do what it takes to stay ready to contribute at his extremely high level anymore. After a while it just becomes too hard and the calculus no longer works.

Sandoval may yet be traded or even released, but whether he realizes it or not, there’s no reason to expect things to be different in another city. If Pablo Sandoval can’t play in Boston because of his size and the resulting lack of mobility, there’s no reason to think he can play in Detroit or San Diego or anywhere else. The field is the same, the player is the same, and the results will be the same. If Sandoval were to take his conditioning more seriously and get down to a reasonable weight it seems likely he would at least be able to field his position. It’s harder to say whether or not his hitting ability would return. The chances of that happening though, well… I was going to say they aren’t great, but actually I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. Oh, well, one guy. Pablo Sandoval is the only one who can turn his career around.

 Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

To a subset of younger (but not too young!) Red Sox fans, Mo Vaughn stands out as one of the most dynamic players during the team’s turbulent nineties. Vaughn was many things off the field: philanthropist, troublemaker, businessman–but on the field he was one of the team’s most valuable assets, rivaling even Nomar Garciaparra in on-field value. Sometimes. Of course, as great as Vaughn was, he never soared to quite the same heights as his short-term teammate. By the end of his run in Boston, he wasn’t exactly missed … especially once he took the field for his second and third teams. 

But we’ll get to that later. First, let’s reminisce about the great times Vaughn had in Boston, where he posted terrific, consistent numbers for the better part of six seasons. He was a true masher, launching balls over the right field fence with alacrity, and striking fear into the hearts of all opposing hitters.

In baseball the home run is the game’s greatest currency and, by that standard, Mo Vaughn was hella rich.

Vaughn came up with the Sox in 1991, but didn’t really make a mark on the team until his 1993 season. For his first two partial seasons, he struggled a bit, showing his under-developed skills but hinting at the skills that made scouts like this one excited about his future middle-of-the-order potential. In 659 plate appearances in ‘91 and ‘92, Vaughn only hit 17 home runs and showed no indication he’d develop into a .300 hitter, managing just a .244 batting average. In short, he was a poor man’s Tom Brunansky.

In 1993, he officially ousted Scott Cooper from the first base position on a permanent basis, and it was now that he started to shine. That season, he showed the combination of skills that would define him during his prime: excellent power (.525 slugging), great contact ability (.297 batting average), and solid patience (79 walks). His .306 True Average that season was substantially above-average–and it would go on to be the lowest seasonal mark for the rest of his career as a Red Sox.

The only real dig one could find on Vaughn at that point was that he didn’t exactly field his position like Keith Hernandez. The young Vaughn was still a large man, and though athletic, he was more of a designated hitter operating as a first baseman out of necessity. BP’s FRAA fielding metric docked him only three runs over that full season, but things never would get substantially better for Vaughn with the leather. Oh … that’s not true. Vaughn would go on to cost himself about half a win per season just by being a terrible baserunner over much of his career. Mo Vaughn: not exactly a five-tool player.

But oh, that bat.

In 1994, he didn’t get the chance to play a full season, but still managed to lead baseball with 20 intentional walks and smack another 26 dingers. By this point, coming into his prime, he was flirting with the platonic ideal of the middle-of-the-order hitters of the time: 30+ homers, .300 batting average, and 100 RBI. But by 1995, those numbers would look like child’s play. During that season in the middle of the decade, Vaughn had his most famous, and one of his best seasons. He turned up the power, bashing 39 homers and leading the league in RBI, even though his overall offensive performance by True Average (.307) wasn’t much different than his ‘93 campaign. Still, he firmly established himself as one of his day’s premier bats. Who cares that he went 0-for-the-playoffs after the season ended? 

Was Albert Belle a better hitter in ‘95? Sure. Was teammate John Valentin arguably a better overall player that season? Ask your older sister or your uncle! (Yeah, probably.) But Vaughn walked away with the American League MVP Award, his first All-Star appearance, and a Silver Slugger.

In 1996, Vaughn did something a bit unexpected: he improved on his ‘95 performance, in almost every way. This was his true offensive peak in my book, a season where he appeared in 161 games, hit a career-high 44 homers, and posted a .420 OBP to go with a .583 slugging percentage. His defense was god-awful if you ask FRAA (-24.2 runs), though Total Zone was more forgiving, so he didn’t post as high a WARP as he did the previous year (3.8 WARP in ‘95, 2.7 WARP in ‘96).

At the risk of sounding boring, the next two seasons–what would be his final seasons in Boston–were simply more of the same. In 1997 and 1998, Mo would post his two finest seasons by TAv (.319 and .323) while hitting 75 homers and taking over 1,300 plate appearances. Steady and solid as a rock, Mo also managed to redeem his poor playoff showing by hitting two homers in four games in the Sox’s aborted 1998 playoff run. He remained one of the league’s most compelling and fearsome hitters, able to take one out of the park or off his arm–he crowded the plate pretty good–no matter the scenario. He hit bombs like this one, walking it off on Opening Day in his final season with the team.

Vaughn never reached the gaudy WARP (or fWAR, or bWAR, for that matter) totals of some of his peers due to his position, his poor fielding, and his god-forsaken baserunning. Where some players were and are able to supplement their bats with other, less-impressive skills, Vaughn was all-bat, all-the time. There’s nothing wrong with that, but his offensive output was merely great, not the legendary stuff of Ted Williams and the greatest hitters of his time. In order to truly stand among the best to ever wear Red Sox colors, he’d have to continue his dominance for several more seasons. Of course, that didn’t happen. He elected a six-year, $80 million contract from the Angels that was the largest contract ever, at the time of its signing.

Reportedly, Boston made little effort to re-sign Vaughn as he entered free agency after the 1998 season. Despite his popularity and skill, this turned out to be a very, very smart decision by team management. Mo’s weight and conditioning was always a concern for the Sox, and in his final five seasons in the league, it would contribute to a series of injuries that saw him change from an impact bat to just an impact contract. He swiftly converted from a transcendent bat to just an above-average one, and his sketchy defense an inability to stay healthy saw his career fall into decline in his final seasons with the Angels and Mets.

Boston made little effort to re-sign Vaughn as he entered free agency after the 1998 season. Despite his popularity and skill, this turned out to be a very, very smart decision by team management.

Of course, we have to ask ourselves this: is there anyone currently in the Red Sox organization who can do a convincing Mo Vaughn impression? Vaughn was known for his unbelievable left-handed power, keen eye, and poor defense even at first base … so naturally the Sox have been employing an accelerated version of him for the past 13 seasons. David Ortiz is the apotheosis of Mo Vaughn, his perfected state. Sure, Ortiz doesn’t have Vaughn’s MVP season, but he has enough top-five MVP finishes to hold his own. And while Papi had his down seasons–Remember 2009? I wish I didn’t!–his best years were better than Mo’s best.

No, I don’t think there’s another Mo Vaughn lurking in the Red Sox’s developmental pipeline, but who cares when the Sox have had Vaughn-plus in the lineup for over a decade. Perhaps that’s why Mo is a bit of forgotten lore in Red Sox history these days? You hardly hear his name mentioned in the annals of great Sox sluggers, despite his towering power and relative consistency. Perhaps it’s because of Ortiz’s shadow, his shorter peak, or the acrimonious way he left the team.

Despite all that, despite the team’s darker days in the mid-90s, there was a time when young Sox fans could glimpse the foundation of a team with Garciaparra and Vaughn blasting their way through American League rotations. Though Vaughn never reached the Hall of Fame heights of some other Red Sox greats, he certainly remains one of the team’s most distinguished, and identifiable sluggers.

Photo by Kelly O’Connor/www.sittingstill.smugmug.com/