Red Sox: Three players key to a dominant team in 2018
The Red Sox have looked like a juggernaut so far this season. To continue to steamroll the competition, they will have to rely on these three players.
We are only nine games into 2018 baseball season, but already the Boston Red Sox have given us plenty to talk about.
The Red Sox are 8-1 and they have not lost a game since Opening Day. Boston’s starting rotation has been phenomenal, and their lineup has been timely if unspectacular. Before the season started, the Red Sox looked like a very good team who, if a few things broke their way, could be great. With the Red Sox firing nearly on all cylinders out of the gate, it’s fair to ask how likely it is that this team will be a juggernaut throughout the season.
If you asked me two weeks ago what would need to happen for the Red Sox to run away with the AL East I would’ve told you that it starts with David Price, Hanley Ramirez, and Xander Bogaerts. These three players have absolute sky-high ceilings, yet all three either underperformed last season or couldn’t stay on the field.
In particular, Price threw well, but only for 74.2 innings, Hanley couldn’t keep his wRC+ above 100, and, after getting drilled by a pitch in the hand, Bogaerts hit with all the authority of a mall cop patrolling Hot Topic.
Despite all of this, the Red Sox won 93 games last season. In 2016, those three players combined for 12.3 fWAR, but in 2017 that same group generated just 4.4 fWAR. It’s reasonable then to think that if those three perform to their potential, the Sox could add 6-8 WAR to their roster before you even consider the addition of J.D. Martinez.
The good news for the Red Sox is that these three players have torn up the opening week and a half of the 2018 season. Through 14 innings, Price has yet to allow a run. Meanwhile, Hanley has two game-winning 12th inning doubles under his belt, and Xander has hit to the tune of .368/.400/.711 in his first 40 plate appearances.
The bad news is Xander limped off the field with an ankle injury the other day. The Red Sox placed Xander on the 10-day disabled list and he is expected to be back on the field within two weeks. We will play under the assumption that this will not significantly alter the course of his season.
The preseason X-factors have delivered above and beyond what we could have hoped thus far. It’s very much worthwhile to note that nine games are nine games and the predictive power they hold over the other 153 is likely minimal. It would be far more shocking if Xander’s OPS at the end of the season was 1.100, or even .900, than it would be if he ended the year around .750.
By the same token, one would expect that Andrew Benintendi will have a batting average above the Mendoza line come July. If the Red Sox are to be a juggernaut, it starts with those three players. So the question is, how much more confident are the Red Sox than they were two weeks ago?
David Price
For most of his career, Price has been one of the better starters in all of baseball. Prior to joining the Red Sox, Price secured the 2012 Cy Young award, achieved two second-place Cy Young finishes and picked up five All-Star appearances while maintaining a career 3.09 ERA. When he signed his seven-year $207 million mega-deal with the Red Sox, the Fenway faithful imagined Price spearheading Boston to many deep postseason runs.
But time has dampened that excitement. It’s been two years since Price came to Fenway and in that stretch, Price has yet to be truly dominant. Now, at 32-years-old and with a little gray in his beard, it may be fair to say that this could be Price’s last chance to re-establish himself as a true ace before time erodes his talent.
It’s a stretch to say Price has completely floundered in Boston. In 2016, he was worth 4.4 fWAR, or about $35 million using the standard WAR to dollars calculation. Last year, Price’s ERA was a strong 3.38 in a season significantly shortened by injuries.
If you were looking for a sign that Price is back, his first two starts have opened the door for such optimism. Price has yet to allow a run through 14 innings this season and he seemed to be in full command in both of his outings.
There are all the normal cautionary warnings about small samples, in fact, they should be heightened based on the level of competition, but Price has looked like Price. He may not reach the heights of his Cy Young campaign in 2012 when his fastball averaged 95.5 mph, but a conservative projection would have him being at least as good as he was in 2016.
If healthy, it’d hardly be going out on a limb to expect five wins above replacement from the southpaw with the possibility that he could eclipse that mark by a decent margin. He’s one of the biggest x-factors on this list, but he’s probably the safest bet at least approach his potential.
Xander Bogaerts
The best news for Bogaerts from these first nine games is not that he’s mashed, it’s how he’s mashed. When Xander was coming up through the system, scouts marveled at his raw power potential. Many in the industry thought that this young shortstop would be putting up around 25-30 homers annually with to compliment a pretty slash line.
Unfortunately for Bogaerts, the power has yet to play in games as many expected it would. He hit 21 home runs in 2016, but everyone hit bunches of homers in 2016. In his other three full seasons, he has yet to hit more than a dozen. The reason was apparent to anyone who’s been tuning in every day.
If you remember all the way back to his struggles in 2014, Xander had a well-known Achilles heel of not being able to hit anything on the outer half of the plate. He overcame these struggles by completely reinventing himself as a hitter; the next year Bogaerts pushed the ball to right almost as often as he pulled it. His GB% reached over 50% and, despite only having an ISO of .101, Xander hit .320 and made an All-Star appearance.
Until this season, Xander’s approach hasn’t changed a whole lot. He’s put the ball on the ground a shade less than 50% of the time and has been seemingly content with slapping the outside fastball between first and second. It became a rare sight to see Xander hit a ball hard to left field.
This season, however, Xander looks like he has reinvented himself again. It’s very early in the year, but Bogaerts has put the ball on the ground in less than 30% of his at-bats. His fly ball and line drive rates have soared and he’s pulling the ball harder than we’ve ever seen from. The grand slam he hit the other day went so far it was almost criminal.
It’s worth noting that Xander has always been a hot hand in the early months of the season; in fact, his career wRC+ is higher in April and May than in any other months. But watching Xander hit certainly feels different this year. It’s hard to say how likely he is to keep hitting like one of the best in baseball, but a conservative estimate would have him hitting at least as good as he did in 2016; a year in which he was worth 4.9 fWAR. He may very well crush that number.
Hanley Ramirez
Okay, so I’m a little less optimistic with this one. Hanley is 34 years old. He has generated a positive WAR once in the last three seasons and, despite coming up huge in the clutch twice already, Hanley’s hitting to this point has done little to dispel the warning signs of his decline.
Even in what has been deemed a hot stretch by the media, Hanley has struck out more than 20% of the time while maintaining an ISO 50 points lower than last season and an insanely lucky .393 BABIP. The .818 OPS looks pretty nifty at the moment, but it’s a nine-game hot stretch that doesn’t appear to have many sustainable components to it.
The upside is that the horrendous Hanley we saw in 2015 and 2017 was partially due to injuries to his shoulders which sapped some of his power. Hanley probably isn’t as bad as he was during those two seasons.
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However, if he doesn’t mash like it’s 2016 it really won’t matter. Hanley has played in eight of the nine games thus far, demonstrating that manager Alex Cora does not intend to treat first base as a platoon between Mitch Moreland and Ramirez. Ramirez has been hitting thus well enough thus far to reward Cora’s faith.
However, as has been well documented this season, Hanley has a $22 million vesting option for 2019 that activates if he reaches 497 plate appearances. The Red Sox would hate to pay a mediocre 35-year-old that much money while Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Manny Machado, and Josh Donaldson all hit the open market.
Should he find himself in a rut, one would think Ramirez would be relegated to facing southpaws while Moreland takes on the bulk of the playing time. It remains to be seen if this is viable. While Ramirez has been a lefty killer in his career, in 2016, for example, he posted a 187 wRC+ against left-handers, last season he owned an abysmal .172 batting average against the same group.
The next month or so will be absolutely huge for Hanley Ramirez. If he keeps hitting he might keep slotting into that number three slot in the order. As soon as he starts slumping, however, he will be in danger of losing his place in the lineup altogether. The Red Sox could certainly use Hanley’s bat if he can be the guy who hit 32 homers in 2016. Another middle of the order presence could make this team a true juggernaut. But one would be wise to wait a bit longer to declare Hanley’s back.
Takeaway
A lot can happen in a 162 game season. Maybe the Red Sox will fall apart; stranger things have happened. But barring a shocking turn of events, the Red Sox seem like a pretty safe bet to win more than the 93 games they won last season. They haven’t lost any of the core components of last year’s team, almost everyone in the lineup underperformed in 2017, and they will be adding J.D. Martinez and a full season of Rafael Devers to the mix. How much better they are though is very much up in the air.
The three players listed above, however, can push the needle for the 2018 Red Sox more than anyone else. If Price, Ramirez, and Bogaerts all revert to form the Red Sox could very well coast to a 100 win season.
Even two out of three could set the Red Sox up for a strong run at a three-peat in the AL East. But without these three performing to their capabilities, the lineup starts to look a lot thinner and the rotation loses a lot of its teeth.
Next: Devers showing talent beyond his age
The Yankees look like some fierce competition, and if the Red Sox aren’t legitimately dominant the AL East will be a dogfight. If these players fail to bounce back, the Red Sox will have a tough time staving off New York.