Ten reasons to look forward to the 2022 Red Sox season

Red Sox will be challenged by the competitiveness of the AL East

The Red Sox are going to play competitive baseball. That much is certain. Their roster may not be perfect, but there are too many stars on this roster for them not to be in the thick of the pennant race. Any team with Chris Sale, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Nathan Eovaldi, and Alex Cora at the helm is going to win some games.

That doesn’t mean that an AL East title is a sure thing. Last year, the division became the first in MLB history to contain four 90-win teams, and each returns as loaded and as talented as ever.

Leading the pack are the Tampa Bay Rays, winners of 100 games and featuring a roster littered with young sluggers and hard-throwing starters. The Yankees matched the Red Sox with 92 wins, and though they haven’t added much so far this offseason, they arguably have the best pitcher (Gerritt Cole) and all-around talent (Aaron Judge) in the division. Finally, there are the 91-win Blue Jays, seemingly overflowing with great, young hitters and with an elite rotation to boot.

If you want to look at it from a negative perspective, all that talent in the Red Sox division will make it extremely tough for them to win the division and secure the new first-round bye. On the flip side, however, those teams will play the Red Sox a combined 56 times this season, meaning that Red Sox fans have a boatload of matchups against top-level competition to look forward to.

The continued rise of Red Sox first baseman Bobby Dalbec

Hopes were high for Bobby Dalbec in 2021 after a strong finish in 2020. In 23 games, Dalbec launched eight home runs and slugged .600, winning the starting first base job the following season. Yet for two months, Dalbec looked like a shell of the player he was in 2020, batting .185 with just five home runs through June 8th. Forget being the breakout star of the Red Sox lineup. Dalbec appeared to be in danger of being demoted to the minors.

Suddenly, like a switch, Dalbec became not just a serviceable major league player, but one of the best first basemen in all of baseball. From June 10th on, Dalbec slashed .275/.336/.580 with 19 home runs and 54 RBIs. The addition of Kyle Schwarber pushed him to the bench during the Red Sox postseason run, but Dalbec proved in the second half just how dangerous he could be.

Even if the Red Sox don’t re-sign Schwarber, there will still be a ton of pressure on Dalbec this season. Top prospect Triston Casas has impressed at every level, and he enters 2022 on the doorstep of the major leagues. Still, Dalbec will get every chance to be the Red Sox starting first baseman this season, and with his improving plate discipline and raw power unmatched by anyone on the team, he will be a lot of fun to watch.

The electricity of Red Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi

With Chris Sale sidelined through August and Eduardo Rodriguez struggling to find his grove, the Red Sox desperately needed a starting pitcher to step up. That pitcher was Nathan Eovaldi, a 2018 postseason hero who had previously struggled with injuries and inconsistency. Eovaldi finally put it all together in 2022, staying healthy enough to lead the league in starts and consistent enough to post a sub 4.00 ERA and the lowest walk rate in baseball.

Besides just putting up great numbers, Eovaldi’s stuff makes him highly entertaining to watch. Few starters in baseball can top his fastball velocity, which routinely touches the upper 90s, while his secondary offerings are plus pitches as well. Combine that with elite control, and it’s no wonder why Eovaldi finished fourth in the AL Cy Young voting.

There will be a lot less burden on Eovaldi this season, as Sale’s full-season return will slot him back into the number two slot in the rotation. Yet even though he might have lost the ace title, Eovaldi will still be a huge draw for Red Sox fans and a key cog in their championship aspirations.

Red Sox prospect Tristan Casas’s debut

Years of trading prospects to support a win-now major league team has turned the Red Sox farm system into one of the worst in all of baseball. Since dealer Dave Dombrowski took over as the team’s president of baseball operations, the Red Sox have produced just one homegrown, above-average regular: Rafael Devers.

Yet there are signs that the Red Sox farm system is on the rebound. Years of smart drafting and savvy trades has improved the team’s minor league rankings from 30th to the middle of the pack.

At the head of that comeback is Triston Casas, a hulking first baseman who is not just the best prospect in the system but also the one that is closest to the majors. Casas impressed last year during his stints in both Double-A and the U.S Olympic team and earned a promotion to Triple-A after slashing .284/.395/.484.

The question is not if Casas will make his major league debut this year, but when. It has been nearly half a decade since the Red Sox have a prospect of Casas’ caliber, and his arrival will be a major topic of discussions in Boston media this summer.

The possible last season for Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts

Xander Bogaerts has already achieved a lot in his nine seasons in Boston. The homegrown shortstop has made three All-Star teams, won four silver sluggers, and totaled 1239 hits and 141 home runs. He’s also been a key piece of five playoff teams and two World Series championships, and his accountability and leadership have made him a fan favorite in Boston.

Despite his status as the longest-tenured Red Sox, there is a genuine chance this could be Bogaert’s last season in Boston. The contract he signed in 2019 features an opt-out after this season, and the $20 million he is due each of the next three years is comically low compared to the contracts of other great shortstops. Reports have already surfaced that he plans to opt-out, and though the Red Sox will undoubtedly make a run at re-signing him, Bogaerts could be playing somewhere else in 2023.

No matter what happens this offseason, Red Sox fans should take solace in at least one more season of Bogaerts manning the six. Devers may be the Red Sox’s best player, but Bogaerts is the face of the franchise. If this is really the last season Bogaerts will wear a Boston uniform, Red Sox fans should enjoy every minute of it.

Infectious energy of Red Sox OFs Kiké Hernández and Alex Verdugo

A baseball season is a marathon. It’s not easy to show up for 162 games, often in the scorching heat, to play three-hour contests with rarely any off days in between. To survive the grueling schedule, you need to have guys who have a genuine love for the game and make it easy to show up to the ballpark. Fortunately for the Red Sox, they have two of those guys in Alex Verdugo and Kiké Hernández

The one bright spot in the 2020 season was the emergence of Verdugo. Even in a disastrous season and without fans in the stands, Verdugo came to the ballpark every day with an infectious energy that may not have rubbed off on his teammates but made the Red Sox a heck of a lot more watchable. Verdugo displayed even more personality in 2021, adopting the signature “rock the baby” hit celebration and becoming the Red Sox number-one mic’d up guy.

Hernandez arrived in Boston last offseason without much fanfare. In his six seasons with the Dodgers, Hernandez only topped 20 home runs once and hit over .260 once. He was projected to be just a part-time player in Boston, but he exceeded expectations and then some by totaling a career-high 4.9 WAR and became a postseason hero with a franchise-record 34 total bases in a five-game span. On top of that, his upbeat nature and reputation as a jokester made him beloved by fans and teammates alike.

Verdugo and Hernandez may not be the most talented players on the Red Sox, but they each have an integral role in their success. When the Red Sox hit an inevitable rough patch this season, it will be up to these two players to steer the team back on track.

More room for Red Sox CBO Chaim Bloom to work with

From practically the moment he took the Red Sox general manager job, Chaim Bloom was under orders to cut payroll. His first big move was the inevitable trade of Mookie Betts; a move largely made to free up salary. He had slightly more room to navigate in 2021, but he stuck to bargain hunting, signing Hunter Renfroe, Kike Hernandez, and Garrett Richards to low-cost deals.

This season, Bloom will finally have money to spend. The Red Sox already had some room to maneuver before the lockout, but they got some great news when the new CBA raised the luxury tax from $210 million to $230 million. Not only does that mean the Bloom will have more than $25 million to spend this season (the exact total is unknown due to future arbitration cases), but with Nathan Eovaldi, J.D Martinez, and possibly Xander Bogaerts contracts coming off the books next offseason, Bloom can really start to flex the Red Sox financial muscle.

From a 2022 regular season perspective, the increased luxury tax will allow the Red Sox more options for in-season trades. The Dodgers were only able to acquire superstars Trea Turner and Max Scherzer last trade deadline because they had the financial might to do so, while the Red Sox were only able to bring in the injured and soon-to-be-free-agent Kyle Schwarber (though that worked out pretty well for them).

Bloom has been highly successful in acquiring talent even with money limitations, and now that he has the opportunity to spend, Red Sox fans should be eagerly anticipating what he’s got up his sleeve.

The superstardom of Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers

The progression of Rafael Devers has been both steady and impressive. Devers has always flashed elite potential, but his plate discipline and struggles against lefties held him back in his first couple of seasons. Devers broke out in 2019 with a .311/.361/.555 slash line and was arguably even better in 2021, setting career highs in home runs with 38 and walks with 62.

Yet even while Devers continues to rise up the rankings of the best third baseman in the game, there is still room for him to grow. He has improved a bit versus southpaws, but he still hits nearly 200 points higher against right-handed pitching. His power, meanwhile, may have had increased to a career-best level in 2021, but his average dipped over thirty points from 2019. His defense has not improved at the same level as his offense, as he is just as likely to make a sprawling diving catch as he is to airmail a routine play.

Still, it’s easy to forget that Devers is just 24 years old and has not even reached his prime yet. He has shown the ability to be both a .300 hitter and top-of-the-line slugger, albeit in different seasons. If Devers could put it all together, he would become one of the best hitters in the game.

A full season of Red Sox starter Chris Sale

It’s been a tumultuous two seasons for Chris Sale. His 2019 season ended in mid-August with elbow inflammation, an issue that lingered into the next spring and eventually required Tommy John Surgery. A bout with Covid–19 and neck stiffness delayed his return even further. Sale finally returned in August of last season, a full two years removed from throwing his last major league pitch.

The results were, to put it simply, mixed. Sale showed flashes of his past self, but his control and command came and went, and his final two starts nearly knocked the Red Sox out of the postseason. The stuff only somewhat resembled that of his prime, and he never really regained the control of his changeup or the sharpness of his slider.

Despite this, there is still hope for the Red Sox ace. After making a self-proclaimed mechanical adjustment in the ALCS, his last two starts against the Astros featured markedly improved fastball velocity and slider break.

Even if Sale is 80% of the pitcher he once was, he will still be a significant boost for a shorthanded Red Sox pitching staff, and it should bring joy to Red Sox fans everywhere that “Sale Day” will return, hopefully for another 30 editions.

No Red Sox fan restrictions on Fenway Park

It’s easy to forget that it was just a year ago when less than 4,500 fans watched the Red Sox get shut out by the Orioles to kick off the 2021 season. For the first two months of last year, Covid-19 restrictions limited Fenway Park’s capacity to well under its usual standard. As eerie as it was in 2020 to see the Red Sox play in an empty stadium, it was nearly as weird to see the stadium a tenth of the way filled with socially distanced and masked-up spectators.

Fortunately, things are a lot different now. Capacity restrictions were lifted in late May of last year, and the Red Sox played in front of packed stadiums through the rest of the season. We saw just how much an impact a Fenway Park crowd could make in last year’s postseason, as the Red Sox enjoyed arguably the greatest home-field advantage during their playoff run. The fans completely rattled Gerrit Cole in the wild card game before playing a significant impact in the ALDS upset of the Rays.

An entire season playing in front of the raucous Fenway Faithful should give them even more of a boost.