Red Sox: Top-10 reasons to get excited about baseball in 2018
Let’s get in the spirit of baseball season and run down the biggest reasons we should all be excited about Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox.
The grass is green, the flowers are blooming, and the world around us is finally becoming less of a frozen wasteland. Okay, none of that is true, but we are only a little more than a week from Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox.
The beginning of baseball season is one of my favorite times of the year and I want you all to share in my excitement. In that spirit, I present to you the top-10 reasons to get amped up for this upcoming season.
We begin with a pitcher that has yet to give fans many reasons to get excited since his team debut.
Red Sox Nation has yet to really warm up to David Price. The Red Sox, of course, signed Price to a 7-year, $217 million contract prior to the 2016 season. Since then, Price has yet to meet the lofty expectations that come with a deal of that magnitude.
In 2016 Price was good, but not great. His peripherals were solid and he ate up 230 innings, but his ERA still came in just below four and often times it felt like he was getting hit hard.
This past season Price pitched fairly well when on the field with an ERA+ of 135; however, he was only on the field for 74.2 innings.
But this year is going to be different. It wouldn’t be spring if we all didn’t go in with rose-colored glasses, so let’s remember how good of a pitcher Price can be when he’s on. From 2012 to 2015 Price had a FIP of 2.90 and a strikeout to walk rate of nearly five. Those are some ungodly numbers and the man is still just 32 and not that far removed from being an elite pitcher.
If Price can find his old form the Red Sox may have the best one-two punch in baseball this season.
Last season, Andrew Benintendi quietly had a very solid rookie campaign. In his first full season, Benintendi launched 20 homers and swiped 20 bags. He struck out less than 18 percent of the time and had a wRC+ of 103 with a slash line of .271/.352/.424.
While those numbers aren’t mind-boggling by any stretch, the rest of the Red Sox line up made Benintendi look like Babe Ruth last season. If Benintendi was this same player for the next five years the Red Sox would have no reason to complain.
But here’s the kicker: he’s 23. Players who can perform at even a slightly above-average level at the age of 22 have very high success rates and nothing about Benintendi should lead us to expect he will be anything but a very good player for a very long time.
With a full year of experience under his belt perhaps this will be a breakout season for Benintendi. The hair may have been cut, but the hit tool is still there. Benintendi may be the best pure hitter on the Red Sox and we should all be excited about the prospect of watching him come into his own.
We’ve become spoiled in Boston the past few seasons. Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. have been patrolling the outfield in Fenway Park for the last few years and Benintendi joining those two full time has only helped to improve Boston’s outfield corps.
Benintendi is a solid left fielder playing in an outfield where solid defense might be overkill. Bradley Jr. is one of the best defensive center fielders in baseball and can make difficult plays look incredibly routine. And then there’s Betts. Betts led baseball in Defense Runs Saved in 2016 and finished second to Andrelton Simmons in the same category this past season.
All told, the Red Sox outfield combined for 60 Defensive Runs Saved in 2017. That’s a mind-blowing number and easily the best of any outfield in baseball. This year should be much of the same and there’s almost nothing as fun as watching this young trio catch everything in their path.
With a rotation comprised of mostly flyball pitchers, this component of Boston’s defense couldn’t be more important. They’re one of my favorite reasons to watch the Red Sox and I’m ecstatic to see them again this year.
And then there are the victory dances.
After a somewhat disappointing first campaign in Boston, the Red Sox closer bounced back in a big way this past season. Craig Kimbrel was an absolute monster in 2017. With 16.4 strikeouts per nine, nine strikeouts per walk, and an ERA of 1.43, an eighth-inning lead meant game over in Fenway.
Every time he took the mound the question wasn’t if they’d hit him but how bad he’d make them miss. He is one of the most dominant relievers of our generation and has an arsenal that’s almost unfair.
Kimbrel has somehow maintained a career ERA of 1.80 and an ERA+ of 222. For context, that’s 122 percent better than league average. If Kimbrel had enough innings to qualify, that mark would be the greatest career ERA+ of anyone in the history of baseball.
This is Kimbrel’s walk year and likely our last chance to see the fireballer in a Red Sox uniform. He is almost certainly the best reliever we will see in Fenway Park for a long, long time. So buckle up; it’s going to be a wild last ride. The Red Sox look like a team that will have plenty of leads to protect this upcoming season and there’s no one on this planet more qualified to guard them.
Yes, it’s a bit of a cop-out to have three slides pertaining to the Red Sox outfield; what can I say, it’s an exciting bunch. It’s easy to forget just how good Mookie Betts is at baseball. The former 4th round pick joined the Red Sox down the stretch of 2014 and has been a staple on the team ever since.
Betts wasn’t quite the MVP level superstar last season that he was in 2016, but he was still one of the most productive outfielders in baseball. While his OPS dipped 100 points, Mookie still finished 5th among all outfielders in baseball with a fWAR of 5.3.
He’s still just 25 years old and seems poised as ever to have another monster season. Odds are Mookie won’t have a BABIP as low as .268 again, so if he just reproduces his performance from last season some better luck might put him right up in the MVP conversation.
Betts is one of the most freakishly athletic people to dawn a Red Sox uniform I’ve ever seen and he may not have even entered his prime. If that doesn’t excite you then you’re probably on the wrong site.
I am currently twenty-years-old. I don’t have a real job at the moment besides being a full-time student and I spend most of my time goofing around. Rafael Devers was twenty last season and for the last few months of the season, he was the best hitter on one of the best baseball teams in the world.
Devers is an absolute phenom and it’s nearly impossible to overstate the offensive ceiling of players who can perform at that high of a level before they can drink. In his first taste of the big leagues, Devers batted .284/.338/.482 with 10 homers in 58 games. He provided a spark to a stagnant Red Sox offense and helped them clinch their second straight division title.
Since Adrian Beltre left Boston prior to the 2011 season, the Red Sox have rarely had more than a black hole at third base. Attempts to fill that hole have ranged from a flash in the pan star, to a $95 million contract, and then finally a smorgasbord of replacement level players.
Now it seems that Boston has found their long-term answer at third base and we have not even seen the tip of the iceberg of Devers’ potential. This season will give us our first extended look at the young superstar and that’s a fantastic reason to tune in to some Red Sox games in 2018.
The Red Sox finished last in the American League in home runs last season. They won 93 games despite this, but an underwhelming offense clearly seemed to hold back an otherwise strong team from performing like a juggernaut.
The Red Sox entered this off-season with a big bat on the top of their to-do list. The obvious option was always J.D. Martinez and Dave Dombrowski isn’t one to scoff at the obvious solution. It took longer than we all thought it would, but by the time February came to a close, Martinez entered a press conference donning a Red Sox cap.
The 30-year-old slugger had quite a year this past season. In 2017, Martinez slashed .303/.376/.690 while launching 45 home runs in just 119 games, including 29 after the July 31 trade deadline.
With the Green Monster looming only 310 feet from home plate, the pull-happy righty looks poised to put up some massive power numbers in the middle of the Red Sox lineup. Boston’s offense would almost certainly have improved this year just based on regression to the mean and young players continuing to develop; add in one of the best hitters in all of baseball and you have a team that could be very scary in 2018. The closest thing to David Ortiz‘s replacement we are going to get has arrived and we should all be amped up to see what he can do.
I’m too young to remember the days when every Pedro start was an event. I had never seen a starting pitcher in a Boston uniform that had the capability to strike out 300 batters annually until this past season. Chris Sale is hands down the most exciting pitcher I have seen start games for the home nine at Fenway Park.Every time the man steps to the mound there’s a tangible feeling that something incredible might happen.
In his first season in Boston, the southpaw topped 210 innings with a 2.90 ERA, and an ungodly 308 strikeouts to 43 walks. It seemed like every batter who stepped to the plate didn’t stand a chance.
Sale finished second last year in the Cy Young race after a comparatively rough last two months allowed Corey Kluber to overtake the top spot.
However, this year Sale has a potentially much more potent offense behind him and a division of competitors that looks to be about one and a half teams deep. With plenty of starts against the Rays, Jays, and O’s, look for Sale to match his monster numbers from last season and make a run at baseball’s top pitching award.
The Red Sox are smack in the middle of their competitive window and Sale has two years on his contract. I have never been so excited to watch a man throw a baseball and I hope everyone reading this feels the same way.
There’s a decent amount of turnover in the game of baseball. Players are constantly signed, traded, and cut at the drop of a hat and our favorite player one day could fade into obscurity the next. But through everything, there has been one constant in Boston baseball: an oddly shaped venue known as Fenway Park.
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It is the cathedral for Red Sox fans everywhere. It’s the place where every generation of Red Sox fans for 106 years has gone. Win or lose, every day in the ballpark is a treat. The beginning of baseball season means, for me and countless other fans, that after months of huddling up by the fire to endure the cold weather, it’s finally time to head back to the park and leave the worries of the world behind for an afternoon.
Nothing comes close to the smell of overpriced Fenway Franks, the clean-cut grass, and the excitement of baseball in the air. The walls of Fenway Park have been home to greats from eras past like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams to premier stars today like Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts.
It’s the most storied ballpark in all of baseball and it’s worth cherishing. It’s one of the biggest reasons I’m excited about the start of this baseball season and I hope it stays that way for many opening days to come.
It’s been quite a while since the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry has really meant anything. In the early 2000’s there could not have been a more exciting battle.
The 2003 season saw the Red Sox come within one game of vanquishing their arch nemesis only to have their hopes dashed by a clutch home run from Aaron Boone. In 2004, the Red Sox came back from a three games to none deficit in the Championship Series against New York and went on to break the 86-year-old Curse of the Bambino.
Since then there has been quite a lull in what was formerly the sport’s greatest rivalry. The Red Sox enjoyed a long run of success, winning two more championships and four division titles since while the Yankees claimed a ring of their own. However, the two never met in a playoff series and rarely finished in close proximity in the standings.
But in 2017 that tide started to change. The Red Sox beat out the Yankees for the division by one game, but it was the Yankees who made it further in the playoffs. Realizing that they are on close footing, both teams have attempted to improve their standing this off-season in something of an arms race. The Yankees were the first to make a splash, trading for NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton. The Red Sox followed suit by signing one of the top hitters in baseball in J.D. Martinez.
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Both teams looked stacked, both fan bases have sky-high expectations, and, no matter what side you fall on, no one denies it’s going to be a dogfight. The rivalry renewed is by far the most exciting development in Red Sox baseball going iinto2018. Buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride.