Red Sox Year in Review: Top five pleasant surprises of 2017
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.
Injuries left the Red Sox scrambling to fill the back end of the rotation for much of the first half. The solution for solidifying the No. 5 spot on the Red Sox staff came from an unlikely source who wasn’t even with the organization to begin the season.
Following a down year with the Houston Astros in 2016, Doug Fister only managed to receive an offer for a minor-league deal with the Los Angeles Angels. Mixed results at the Triple-A level left the Angels with little incentive to call him up to their major league roster so Fister exercised the opt-out in his contract hoping to land a spot in another team’s rotation.
Opportunity knocked when the Red Sox scooped the veteran right-hander off waivers. As fate would have it, his first start in a Red Sox uniform would come on June 25 against the same Angels team that let him go. While Fister took the loss in that outing, he still delivered a quality start with six innings and three runs allowed.
Fister hit a bit of a rough patch after that, failing to last longer than five innings in any of his next four starts before the Red Sox demoted him to the bullpen for a couple of weeks.
He was given a chance at redemption when another spot in the rotation opened and this time Fister didn’t disappoint. He earned his first win with the Red Sox by holding the Cleveland Indians to two runs over 7 2/3 innings. That outing kicked off a string of seven consecutive starts in which Fister went 5-2 with a 2.77 ERA.
Although he stumbled down the stretch, Fister had done enough during his stint in Boston to earn a start in Game 3 of the ALDS. Granted he was roughed up for three runs before getting a quick hook with one out in the second inning. Still, if anyone told you in April that Doug Fister would be starting an elimination game in the postseason for the Red Sox you would have looked at them as if they had two heads. The fact that he was even in consideration to take the mound in that scenario tells a lot about how the organization viewed a pitcher who entered with little expectations beyond making a few spot starts.
Any bullpen would look good with Craig Kimbrel holding down the ninth inning yet given the number of unproven arms behind him in the Red Sox relief pitcher hierarchy you may be surprised to find that they finished second in the league in bullpen ERA.
Tyler Thornburg missed the entire season due to injury and Carson Smith‘s return from Tommy John surgery was delayed until September. With the Red Sox deprived of their two primary setup options, it was up to other pitchers to step up in the late-inning roles.
Joe Kelly found his niche this year out of the bullpen, where he was able to dial up his velocity and become less reliant on his weaker secondary pitches. He posted a stellar 1.49 ERA in the first half, earning enough trust to briefly give him an opportunity in the eighth-inning role. A trip to the disabled list sidelined him for a month and Kelly wasn’t quite the same pitcher when he returned but the overall results remain promising.
Fans will still grumble that David Price hasn’t lived up to his massive contract but he started to earn his way back into our good graces with his dominant relief appearances to wrap up the season. There wasn’t time for the lefty to build up his pitch count following his return from the disabled list in September so the team pivoted to using him as a versatile weapon out of the bullpen. Price tossed 8 2/3 scoreless innings with 13 strikeouts in the final month of the regular season. He followed that with 6 2/3 shutout innings over two appearances in the postseason.
The bullpen got an unexpected boost down the stretch from Austin Maddox (17 1/3 innings, 0.52 ERA) and Brandon Workman (39 2/3 innings, 3.18 ERA).
Aside from Kimbrel, Boston’s bullpen wasn’t overflowing with big name arms but they managed to get the job done. What seemed to be a potential weakness once injuries struck turned out to be a strength of the team.
The arrival of Eduardo Nunez wasn’t met with much fanfare but he ended up being one of the top hitters in the lineup during his short stint in Boston.
The Red Sox acquired Nunez in a deadline deal with the San Francisco Giants to help solve the third base riddle that had plagued the team all season. The promotion of Rafael Devers cemented the hot corner as a strength but the versatility of Nunez kept him in the lineup.
Boston couldn’t afford to take Nunez out of the lineup. The veteran infielder hit .321/.353/.539 in 38 games with the Red Sox. After hitting only four home runs in 76 games with the Giants, Nunez blasted eight with Boston in half the amount of games. Nunez had never shown much pop in the past but it turns out giving him consistent playing time and escaping the pitcher-friendly confines of AT&T Park was a boon for his bat.
A knee injury hindered Nunez at the end of the season. He tweaked the knee again in his first postseason plate appearance, knocking him out for the rest of the series.
Despite how it ended, Nunez’ time in Boston was a tremendous success. He’ll hit the free agent market looking to cash in on that strong second half, which may price him out of town with the Red Sox focused more on a bigger power threat.
Nunez became an instant fan-favorite in Boston, so fans are hoping that the front office finds room on the roster and in the payroll to keep him around.
Christian Vazquez rose to prominence as a top prospect based on his elite catching ability. His strong arm and masterful pitch framing skills warranted his promotion to the big leagues despite that his bat was far from ready. He was all defense, no offense.
Now, apparently, Vazquez can do both.
The 27-year old had a breakout season at the plate, hitting .290 with a .734 OPS. That ranked first in the former category and eighth in the latter among American League catchers with 300+ plate appearances this season.
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Vazquez only hit five home runs but he’s capable of hitting it a mile when he does leave the park. He also has a habit of making his homers count. He belted a walk-off two-run home run to beat the Cleveland Indians on August 1. Four of his five homers either tied the game or gave Boston a lead and the Red Sox ultimately won all five games he went deep in.
There must be something about Fenway Park that wakes up the bat of Vazquez. He hit a blistering .348 at home this season. While former manager John Farrell generally split the catching duties between Vazquez and Sandy Leon, it got to the point where fans would be livid if Vaz wasn’t behind the plate for a home game.
His improved production at the plate assures Vazquez of entering the 2018 season as the primary catcher. If he can sustain this offensive success to pair with his outstanding defense then it’s fair to project an All-Star appearance in his near future.
Red Sox fans wanted to run Drew Pomeranz out of town by the end of the 2016 season. Not only that, they wanted to kick Dave Dombrowski out along with him for coughing up the organization’s top pitching prospect to get him from San Diego.
Pomeranz was an All-Star with the Padres last year but was a mild disappointment following the mid-season trade that brought him to Boston. Concerns about the health of his arm combined with a career-high workload conspired to derail his second half, leaving many fans to assume the lefty was a bust.
It appears that initial reaction was a bit overblown. Pomeranz proved what he’s capable of this year be establishing himself as one of the league’s best pitchers. His 17 wins tied Chris Sale for the team lead and fourth most in the AL. Pomeranz was seventh with a 3.32 ERA and ninth with a 9.02 K/9 rate.
A mediocre start left fans slow to catch on to how much Pomeranz has improved. During a two month stretch from June 27 through August 28, Pomeranz went 8-0 with a 2.37 ERA.
Next: Top 10 Red Sox moments of 2017
When the season opened, Pomeranz was battling for a rotation spot. The 2018 season will begin with Pomeranz locked into one of the spots behind Sale. The expected return of David Price will give the Red Sox a three-headed monster leading the rotation that most teams would envy. It’s the dream scenario Boston hoped they would have had this year with the only surprise being that Pomeranz is among that vaunted trio.