While several Boston Red Sox players found success in 2017, some cases were more unexpected than others. Here are the biggest surprises of the year.
2017 was a fairly successful year for the Boston Red Sox. No, they didn’t win a championship but they did capture their second consecutive division title to return to the October stage. That’s never enough for this rabid fanbase yet most rational observers would view this as a good – not great- outcome.
A positive that we can take away from this year is that it provided us with several examples of players who exceeded expectations. The Red Sox fell short of their ultimate goal but these pleasant surprises offer hope for future success in the players are able to sustain their breakout seasons.
We can all agree that Chris Sale had a phenomenal season, topping 300 strikeouts and finishing second in the Cy Young race. The Red Sox knew when they acquired him that Sale was among the best pitchers in the league so his dominance is hardly surprising.
What we instead are looking to focus on here is those players who blew away our wildest expectations. It’s not that they were necessarily poor performers in previous seasons, yet the leap these players took this year wasn’t what most of us saw coming.