Outfield/DH
This is a something special position for the Red Sox and is flat-out the best outfield in the American League, National League, and any other league on this planet. Just run the numbers: First with a 136 wRC+, wOBA (.378), Slugging (.518), ISO (.223), BABIP (.340), batting average (.295), OBP (.373) and a 22.9 fWAR. They steal bases (80), they walk (10.5 BB%) and they play defense (8.9 UZR/150.
The outfielders are young and interchangeable as each one can play any three of the outfield slots. When J.D. Martinez is not DH he can play either right or left and as long as he avoids a David Freese fly ball will do fine. And speaking of Martinez, the Red Sox easily rank first at DH. No surprise.
This outfield will soon become costly as all are going to be either deep into arbitration of free agency, but Boston is not the Kansas City Royals so expect decisions being made that do not sing the sad song of a fire sale.
The real issue is depth to overcome any significant time lost to injury such as what happened when Mookie Betts missed 14 games. The Red Sox gave Sam Travis and Blake Swihart some time in the outfield and all-purpose Brock Holt can play just about anywhere. After the Big Four, the drop off is considerable.
Maybe the Red Sox can somehow tweak the payroll and get International League batting champion, Rusney Castillo, back to Boston? The versatile Castillo can also play any outfield position, but I doubt he’ll replace Andrew Benintendi or Jackie Bradley. The only other option is Tzu-Wei Lin who saw limited duty in Boston (.246) but hit .307 for Pawtucket (AAA).
Prediction: Benintendi makes a run at the batting title