Hanley Ramirez has begun to prove many of his fiercest critics wrong about his ability to play first base for the Boston Red Sox.
Expectations for Hanley Ramirez could not have been lower going into the 2016 MLB season. Earlier this year, when the Red Sox announced that he would be their starting first baseman, both experts and fans alike responded with a disheartened laugh and a slew of skeptical diatribes against the former Rookie of Year Winner’s chances of being successful at the position.
Ramirez came through the Red Sox farm system as a shortstop, earning a reputation as one of the MLB’s most sought after young talents in the process. After only two MLB appearances in 2005, the Red Sox traded Ramirez to the Florida Marlins for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell.
During his time with the Marlins, Ramirez earned three trips to the All-Star game, two Silver Slugger Awards, and the 2009 National League Batting Championship. After the 2011 season, the Marlins acquired Jose Reyes and moved a disgruntled Ramirez to third base. In July of the following year, they traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He suffered from a variety of injuries throughout the 2013 and 2014 seasons and in 2015, after entering free agency, signed a four-year $88 million contract with the Red Sox, who announced that he would be starting in left field, a position that he had never played.
After a less than stellar season in left field last year, the Red Sox announced that he would be moving to first base, yet another area of the field that Ramirez had never been tasked to defend. And as spring training began, the previously mentioned low expectations were put on display with a storm of Vines, GIFs, and videos posted by reporters on Twitter, as Ramirez made his spring training debut at the position.
You be the judge pic.twitter.com/f6V1JibAlm
— Mike Giardi (@MikeGiardi) February 23, 2016
However, since the regular season began, Hanley Ramirez has been one of the strongest players on the Red Sox, not only at first base, but in the batters box as well.
Eight games into the 2016 season, Ramirez has played seven of them at first-base. He has a perfect fielding percentage, making no errors in fifty-two chances. Thus far, he has been proving everyone who called him a lazy, inconsequential player wrong.
It appears that Sox SS Xander Bogaerts needs to work on his throwing more than Hanley Ramirez needs to work on his glove at first base.
— Jim Donaldson (@JimDonaldsonJr) April 11, 2016
With the Red Sox starting rotation having a shaky start to the season, the team has relied heavily on its offense, of which Ramirez has been a crucial member. Including last night’s win against the Orioles, Ramirez has a batting average of .333, has recorded eleven hits, five RBIs, scored three runs, hit a double, a triple, a home run, and has a stolen base.
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As the first eight games of the season have shown, the Red Sox have many problems and, as his performance has shown, Hanley Ramirez is not one of them.