My 2020 Boston Red Sox season preview and predictions

Red Sox Batting

In 2019, the Red Sox offense was pretty much the only part of the team that performed well. Here’s how the 2019 team’s numbers compared to the fantastic 2018 team:

2018: .268 BA, 208 HR, 829 RBI, 876 R, 569 BB, 1253 K, .339 OBP, .792 OPS
2019: .269 BA, 245 HR, 857 RBI, 901 R, 590 BB, 1382 K, .340 OBP, .806 OPS

By just about every metric, the 2019 team was a bit more productive at the plate than the 2018 team. Clearly scoring runs wasn’t the problem last year; preventing them was (and that will be discussed later). The offense should be just as potent in 2020 even with the moderate amount of turnover the Red Sox roster has had this offseason.

The biggest subtraction the team made was, of course, Mookie Betts and while they didn’t replace him with anyone who will come even close to replacing his 2018 MVP season of .346/32 HR/80 RBI or even his 2019 line of .295/29 HR/80 RBI, they should still be okay. Between Verdugo (.294/12 HR/44 HR in 2019) and Pillar (.259/21 HR/88 RBI in 2019), the Red Sox should be able to approximate Mookie’s production and the offense should still be potent.

They’ll need Xander Bogaerts, Christian Vazquez, and Rafael Devers to build off of their career years last year, JD Martinez to continue producing at the same level as he has the last two years, and Andrew Benintendi to shake off the decline in his numbers from the last season and a half. If Michael Chavis can learn how to lay off the high fastball and improve upon his rookie season, that would be an added bonus. Even with all of those qualifiers, this team is going to score a lot of runs.

It will be interesting to see what they do in the leadoff spot now that Betts is gone. Alex Cora tried Benintendi at the top of the order last season and it was an unmitigated disaster, so much so that he reinstalled Betts in the one spot. Ron Roenicke has mentioned he’s going to try Benintendi there again this season… we’ll see how that works out.

Red Sox Fielding

As with the offense, the Red Sox defense should be fine for the most part and should replicate their performances of 2018 and 2019. As at the plate, the only real notable subtraction was Betts and the same is true with the loss of his four Gold Gloves in right field. While Verdugo doesn’t bring the same defensive acumen, he’s solid and should fill in adequately. Having perennial Gold Glove candidate Pillar as a fourth outfielder also helps.

Elsewhere in the outfield, Jackie Bradley and his stellar defense will man center field as he plays out the final year of his contract. In left field, Benintendi needs to have a bounceback in the field as much as he does at the plate. His defense showed clear signs of regression in 2019 (although surprisingly, he was a Gold Glove finalist last year) after his solid (and sometimes spectacular) play in 2018.

Regarding the infield, other than the revolving door at second base over the last few years, there’s stability everywhere else. Devers and Bogaerts look to anchor the left side of the infield for years to come and Mitch Moreland and Michael Chavis will platoon at first base. Christian Vazquez remains the primary catcher with one or the other of newcomers Jonathan Lucroy and Kevin Plawecki as backups.

That leaves second base. Dustin Pedroia’s career is over in all but name and while Chavis did an admirable job holding down second base for most of last season, he isn’t the long-term answer there; ditto Tzu-Wei Lin, who is a nice utility guy but not an everyday player. Bloom signed Jose Peraza in the offseason and he’ll see time there, but he’s a classic low risk/low reward guy plucked off the league scrap heap.

The long-term answer at the position will hopefully be prospect Jeter Downs who came over in the Betts trade, but he’s at least a year and probably two away from being major league ready, so for now get used to seeing an ever-changing cast of characters manning second.

Red Sox Pitching

Now we get to the part of the team that will absolutely torpedo any chances the Red Sox have to compete in 2020.  On the whole, the 2018 Red Sox pitching went 108-54 (obviously) with a 3.75 ERA, 46 saves, and 1558 strikeouts in 1458.2 innings.

The same group returned in 2019 but due to a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness, they were detrimental to the team’s success. The stat line for all Red Sox pitchers that season was 84-78 (again, obviously) with a 4.70 ERA (almost an entire run higher than the year before), 33 saves (down 13 from 2018) and 1633 strikeouts in 1471.0 innings.

Let’s first look at starting pitching. The rotation in 2018 was overall a strength for the team in 2018, led by Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez, a bit of Drew Pomeranz, and (after a midseason trade), Nathan Eovaldi. That same group returned in 2019 but due to a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness, their performance was disappointing.

While Rodriguez had a career year in 2019, winning 19 games, every other pitcher regressed. Sale went from 12 wins to 6, Price from 16 to 7, Porcello from 17 to 14 (while giving up a ton of home runs), and Eovaldi from 3 (in half a season) to 2. All but Rodriguez and Porcello battled arm injuries and missed significant amounts of time.  Heading into 2020, the rotation looks to be even worse.

Price was of course sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Betts trade while Porcello left as a free agent and signed with the New York Mets. Sale tried to come back this spring after missing the last month and a half of 2019 with elbow issues only to eventually go under the knife for Tommy John surgery.  Eovaldi battled elbow issues and had surgery in April 2019 and bounced between the rotation and bullpen once he finally came back.

That means the only holdovers heading into this season are Rodriguez (who needs to show his stellar 2019 is the norm and not an aberration) and Eovaldi (who has already had Tommy John surgery twice and has never been healthy for a full season). “Supplementing” them, if you want to call it that, in 2020 will be offseason acquisition Martin Perez (yuck) and Red Sox retread Ryan Weber. That’s a huge drop-off in talent between the first two starters and the next two.

It also leaves one spot in the rotation for spot starts or “openers” which leads us to the other area of the team that will doom them in 2020, the bullpen. The bullpen was shaky in 2018 but got the job done, especially in the postseason. That season was closer Craig Kimbrel’s final one in Boston and he went 5-1 with 2.74 ERA, 96 strikeouts, and 42 saves. The knock on the pen in 2018 was that the Sox didn’t have anyone to bridge the gap between the starters and Kimbrel.

The likes of Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly, Ryan Brasier, and Heath Hembree were used to varying degrees of effectiveness, but they came up big that October. That same cast of characters was brought back in 2019 (minus Kimbrel and Kelly, who left in free agency) and the Red Sox decided to go with the same disastrous “closer by committee” approach they used back in 2003.

Indeed, while Brandon Workman led all Red Sox relievers with 10 wins and 16 saves in 2019, everyone else took steps backward. The bullpen was more often than not unable to either preserve a lead or prevent a small deficit from getting larger and had 31 blown saves, good (bad?) for second-worst in the league. With even less talent in the bullpen heading into the 2020 season, it’s going to be ugly.

Red Sox 2020 Prediction

The short 60-game season would, on paper, potentially help a team like the Red Sox who have a potent offense that can carry them for short stretches at a time while papering over the pitching issues. While those hot stretches may not add up to much over the course of a full 162-game season, they could make a bigger impact in 60 games. However, I would feel more confident in that if the team had last season’s rotation.

With the rotation and bullpen as currently constituted, the Red Sox look to be pretty bad in 2020. They’re still going to score a ton of runs with that offense, but they’re not going to be able to prevent their opponents from scoring a ton as well. As I’ve been saying all offseason, this team is perfectly built to lose a ton of 11-9 games.

The fact of the matter is that the rotation is going to be relying on two guys who have a history of injury and inconsistency to anchor it. They’ll be joined by two pitchers of marginal major league talent and an “opener” slot that is heavily reliant on talent in the bullpen.

The big problem with that is that the Red Sox bullpen has very, very little of that talent. I foresee a lot of 7-2 leads that become 10-7 deficits late in games because of the bullpen, and that’s not even taking into account how many big deficits the starters will put the team in.

Last year the joke was that the Sox needed every starter to go eight innings to minimize the bullpen’s exposure. This season, it won’t matter because the pitching staff is so bereft of talent it won’t even get to that point. I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that the team defense is so strong because with the pitchers they have, they’ll be chasing the ball all over the field.

I hope I’m wrong and that the Red Sox surprise us all, but my final prediction is that the only benefit the shortened season will have is that it will prevent the Red Sox from losing as many games as they would if they played all 162. A 25-35 record right sounds about right for this squad.