Red Sox: Does Andrew Benintendi injury mean left field is cursed?

The Boston Red Sox have suffered a serious of misfortunes from their left fielders ever since Manny Ramirez was traded in 2008.

Another one bites the dust. Another left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, that is.

Andrew Benintendi became the latest in the revolving door of left fielders that the Red Sox have churned through this season to succumb to the injury imp. The 22-year old phenom twisted his knee awkwardly attempting to retreat back to second base on what turned out to be a double-play in the 7th inning of Wednesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Manager John Farrell told reporters this morning that doctors are still evaluating the MRI on Benintendi’s knee, so it’s too early to tell if the injury is season-ending. Nonetheless, watching the young outfielder be helped off the field was not an encouraging sign.

What’s the deal with Red Sox left fielders getting hurt? Benintendi is the fourth Red Sox left fielder to land on the disabled list this season, following in the footsteps of Blake Swihart, Brock Holt and Chris Young. The latter two have since returned, so the recently activated Young will handle the bulk of the left field duties for now, with Holt spelling him on occasion in his super-utility role. Swihart has already been ruled out for the season and Benintendi may soon join him.

This is more than mere bad luck. One might be inclined to go as far as to say that Red Sox left fielders are… cursed!

Next: Banishing Manny

The origins of this curse can be traced back to 2008, when the Red Sox jettisoned superstar Manny Ramirez in a blockbuster three-team deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates.

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Boston finally had enough of “Manny being Manny,” with the last straw coming when he began squabbling with teammates and shoved a team employee. Ramirez was sent packing to Los Angeles, where he took the National League by storm with a superb .396 average, 1.232 OPS and 17 home runs over the final 53 games of the season. His time with the Dodgers wasn’t a large sample following the trade, but it was enough to warrant MVP consideration and launch the Dodgers into the postseason.

The Red Sox received star outfielder Jason Bay from the Pirates as part of the deal. Bay took over in left field and put up some impressive numbers in Boston. Not quite what Manny was producing out west, but Bay’s only full season with the Red Sox in 2009 was still All-Star worthy. He smashed a career-high 36 home runs and drove in 119 RBI on his way to finishing 7th in MVP voting. Seems like the Red Sox did pretty well in replacing a disgruntled star, right?

The problem is that Bay didn’t last long in Boston, so he wasn’t a long-term solution to the left field problem created by the departure of Ramirez. Bay bolted after the 2009 season to sign a lucrative deal with the New York Mets, where his career quickly unraveled. His OPS plummeted from .921 in his final season in Boston to .749 with the Mets, sinking all the way to a putrid .536 in his third and final season in New York. Injuries played a part in his demise, but there’s no doubting that Bay was a bust in the Big Apple, making him the first victim of the curse.

While Red Sox fans can in retrospect be grateful that the team didn’t match the offer to retain Bay, Boston struggled to fill the left field position in 2010. The role was split sporadically between forgettable options like Daniel Nava, Bill Hall, Jeremy Hermida and Darnell McDonald. Red Sox left fielders hit .230 with a .698 OPS that season, leaving fans to wonder if retaining the rapidly declining Bay would have been a better alternative.

Next: The Crawford Debacle

2011 saw the Red Sox attempt to put an end to the shuffle in left field by signing an established star in free agency to fill the position, but that plan backfired horrendously when that supposed star turned out to be Carl Crawford.

Crawford spent the first nine years of his career with the division rival Rays, earning four All-Star appearances and doing enough damage against the Red Sox to convince them that the best way to beat him was to entice him to join them. Boston inked Crawford to a 7-year, $142 million deal that they would immediately regret.

You can point to the Crawford deal as an example of the dangers of handing out expensive long-term deals to players on the verge of turning 30, but his personality had as much to do with his decline as any erosion in skills. He never looked comfortable playing in Boston after spending his career in the small-market city of Tampa Bay and wilted under the pressure. Crawford was barely above replacement-level in his first season with the Red Sox, producing 0.1 WAR over 130 games.

Injury sidelined Crawford through a significant portion of the 2012 season. He appeared in only 31 games before he was traded in an epic waiver deal in August. The Red Sox sent Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for a package of players that never amounted to anything in Boston, yet was still considered a heist for the Red Sox. The trade discarded a couple of disgruntled veterans and cleared about a quarter of a million dollars in future salary from the payroll, paving the way for massive roster renovations the following winter that resulted in a revamped Red Sox team that would go on to win the 2013 World Series.

Next: Championship Year

The championship season of 2013 came almost in spite of the hodgepodge of left fielders that the Red Sox cycled through. Jonny Gomes was a much needed breath of fresh air in the clubhouse to help cure the toxic chemistry that had spoiled the previous two seasons, but on the field he was little more than a defensively challenged platoon bat.

He split time in left with Nava and Mike Carp, both of whom performed admirably in limited roles but couldn’t be counted on regularly. The collaborative effort of those that spent time in left for the Red Sox that season amounted to a .278 average, .790 OPS and 18 home runs. That’s decent production when you pool them all together, but it left the team with a mashup of contributors that relied on Farrell to push the right buttons in order to put each of them in the best position to thrive. How long could they really count on that to continue?

Apparently not long, as 2014 turned into a bigger mess in left field. The Red Sox attempted to revive the career of former All-Star Grady Sizemore, but he predictably couldn’t stay healthy and was soon released. Gomes and Carp both regressed significantly from their magical runs the previous year and Nava spent the bulk of his playing time in right field.

Next: Trade for Cespedes

A Red Sox team fading fast in the standings became sellers at the 2014 trade deadline. Their abysmal failure in contract negotiations with impending free agent Jon Lester led them to deal their ace to the Oakland A’s for Yoenis Cespedes, who they hoped would solve their left field riddle for the rest of the season and beyond.

Except it didn’t quite work out that way. Cespedes was known for his rocket launcher of a throwing arm, which was wasted in Fenway Park’s shallow left field. Take away the benefits of his arm and the rest of his defensive ability was substandard. Making matters worse, the former home run derby champion never delivered the power that the Red Sox expected, finishing with a mere five home runs in 43 games following the trade to Boston. His sub-.300 OBP was another factor that soured the Red Sox on Cespedes, so they flipped him to Detroit that winter for Rick Porcello.

Of course Cespedes would go on to have a monster season the following year, helping the Mets reach the World Series after the Tigers dealt him to New York at the 2015 deadline. At least Porcello has bounced back from a horrendous first year in Boston to become a reliable part of this rotation, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

The decision the Red Sox made to find their next left fielder, on the other hand, was a disaster.

Next: Adventures with Han-Ram

The Red Sox, having learned no lessons from the Crawford debacle, shelled out big money to bring in Hanley Ramirez to be their new left fielder in 2015. The oft-injured All-Star was the best bat on the market, but there was just one problem – Ramirez had never played the outfield.

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Boston splurged on the upside of his bat, assuming they could figure out where to put him on the field later. That turned out to be a disaster, as Hanley’s adventures in the outfield produced a horrific -19 defensive runs saved, making him the worst defensive player in the majors at any position.

Nobody noticed, or at least didn’t care, how poorly Ramirez played defense when he was putting up big numbers at the plate in April. That all changed when he hurt his shoulder in a collision with the unforgiving left field wall. Ramirez returned after only a brief absence, but his swing wasn’t the same the rest of the season. After smashing 10 homer in the first month of the season, Ramirez would end up hitting only 9 more the rest of the way. He finished with a .249 average and .717 OPS, both of which were well below his career numbers. Combine his subpar offensive production with his atrocious defense and the Red Sox ended up with a player worth -1.3 WAR.

A move back to the infield seems to have salvaged Ramirez’s career. He’s not the hitter he once was, but his .277/.349/.455 line entering the day is at least acceptable and he’s not embarrassing himself at first base. That’s more than the Red Sox could have hoped for in the wake of last year’s pitiful display, but it still does little to solve the left field dilemma.

Next: The Curse of Manny