Red Sox: Hunter Renfroe is doing something Mookie Betts never did
This is just a Hunter Renfroe fan page now.
Kidding, but not really.
To say that the outfielder, who signed a one-year deal with the Red Sox in December 2020, has exceeded expectations would be an understatement.
According to Sox Notes, the Twitter account run by Red Sox Media Relations, Renfroe is leading MLB in outfield assist, adding his fifteenth and sixteenth during Wednesday night’s game.
Just get the Gold Glove ready now, Rawlings.
The Red Sox originally drafted Hunter Renfroe in 2010
The Red Sox had actually drafted him in 2010, but he decided to go to college instead. After spending four seasons with the Padres, who drafted him in the first round in 2013, he spent last season with none other than the Rays, whose sweep he just ruined.
The three games he played at Fenway as a visitor in 2020 is a small sample size, but Renfroe homered and doubled twice in 11 plate appearances. On Wednesday night, the shoe was on the other foot.
Hunter Renfroe is doing something no Red Sox right-fielder has done in over sixty years
Before the 2020 season, it was hard to envision anyone but Mookie Betts patrolling that weird little corner of right field. It seemed impossible that anyone could measure up to the superstar who won four Gold Glove awards in a row in Boston from 2016-2019, and a fifth in LA in 2020.
But it turns out, the Red Sox found a diamond in the rough who is putting up defensive numbers Betts never did during his six years in Boston.
Coming into Wednesday night’s game, Renfroe had 14 outfield assists, tied with Betts’ Red Sox career-high in 2016. He never finished any other season in Boston with more than 10, though he had 38 playing second base in 2014. This season with the Dodgers, he has one outfield assist in 94 games.
With his fifteenth outfield assist of the season, Renfroe became the first Red Sox player since Dwight Evans in 1979 to make fifteen or more assists in right field. Evans, who should be in the Hall of Fame, by the way, first achieved the feat in 1975 and repeated it in 1976 and 1979.
Renfroe’s sixteenth assist later in the same game made him the Red Sox leader in right field assists since the beginning of MLB’s expansion era in 1961.
This is also a new career-high for Renfroe, who previously had 13 outfield assists in 2019, though they were split between right field and left field. All of Renfroe’s now-16 outfield assists this season have come in right.
Thanks in large part to Renfroe, the Red Sox lead MLB with 37 outfield assists. The league average is 18, and no other team has more than the Texas Rangers’ 31. The only team with fewer outfield assists than the Dodgers (11) is Renfroe’s former team, the Padres (10).
What does Hunter Renfroe’s future with the Red Sox look like?
While Renfroe did technically sign a one-year deal with the Red Sox last December, he doesn’t enter free agency until 2024.
As Chris Cotillo noted, he’ll be arbitration-eligible this winter, so he and the Sox will no doubt debate a significant raise from the $3.1 million he’s making this season.
He’s proven he’s worth every penny.