Best (worst) of the rest
The good thing about Andrew Cashner is he will not reach his option to get the Red Sox another $10 MM burden on the payroll. The results have been to put it mildly – disappointing. Cashner will hook on somewhere and I hope it is with an AL East team so our offense can feast.
Josh Smith is a typical Red Sox reclamation project and his career -0.1 bWAR about sums it up. Maybe one of these days they actually will find another Luis Tiant? Smith will not be the one since he picked up in Boston where he left off in Cincinnati.
Bobby Poyner looked impressive in his early go around with the Red Sox. Darwinzon Hernandez is now far ahead of Poyner in any internal race for lefty out of the bullpen as Poyner is in the full 4A player mode.
The Red Sox have some talented utility players and I thought Tzu-Wei Lin would be one, but he seems to be locked out. Marco Hernandez has supplanted Lin and has a far higher upscale regarding hitting prowess. I still think Lin can be a more productive MLB player than Deven Marrero and it will have to be elsewhere.
Someone has to fall on their sword for 2019 and it will not be Dave Dombrowski or manager Alex Cora. If you need a goat to look no further than pitching coach Dana LeVangie. Last season LeVangie was a refreshing positive – and surprising addition – and this season he will be sent packing around the first of October.