Boston Red Sox: 10 bold predictions for the 2022 season

Ten Bold Predictions for the 2022 Red Sox

It’s finally here. After one of the most tumultuous offseasons in recent memory, the Boston Red Sox will open up the 2022 season in New York on Friday afternoon. Not only are the Red Sox back, but the baseball gods have rewarded us with a spectacular matchup of aces Gerrit Cole and Nathan Eovaldi.

Before we jump into baseball season, however, we need to do some bold predictions. Here are ten unexpected things I see happening to the Red Sox in the 2022 season.

Red Sox 1B Bobby Dalbec will have a better season than J.D Martinez

This prediction is simply a case of one player being on the rise and one player being in decline. J.D Martinez is not the player he once was. He was able to work his way back to an above-average hitter in 2021, but the underlying metrics show a clear step back. His chase rate was the highest since his rookie season while his walk rate was the lowest since his rookie season. And while his numbers last year were an improvement from the disastrous 2020 season, they weren’t nearly as good as his 2017-2019 prime, and at 35, he is unlikely to repeat those numbers ever again.

Bobby Dalbec, meanwhile, is only getting better. After a disastrous start to the season, Dalbec had one of the best second halves of any first baseman in baseball. He slashed an incredible .269/.344/.611 and launched 15 home runs in the process. He has continued to show improvement this spring, displaying a smaller leg kick with two strikes to cut down on his strikeouts. The result has been a .333 batting average and only seven punchouts in 37 exhibition at-bats.

None of these means that Dalbec is going to be an MVP candidate this season or that Martinez is going to be completely worthless. Both are likely to be key contributors to the 2022 Red Sox, but with the strides Dalbec took at the end of last season and the decline Martinez has shown in the previous few years, the edge has to go to the youngster.

Red Sox prospect Jarren Duran will replace Jackie Bradley Jr.

Much of the statistical baseball analysis done these days is for the purpose of trying to unearth some hidden information about a player that the surface-level numbers don’t tell you. Maybe it’s a hitter who is squaring the ball up but hitting it right at people, or a pitcher who isn’t throwing their nasty slider enough and instead relying on a straight, low-spin fastball.

In some cases, however, the underlying metrics tell you exactly what you would expect. Such is the case with Jackie Bradley Jr. By conventional measures, Bradley Jr. was the worst hitter in baseball, slashing a laughably bad .136/.236/.261 last season. Well, maybe he was unlucky, and he wasn’t nearly as bad as those numbers suggest. Nope. Bradley ranked in the first percentile in xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG, proving that he truly was the weakest hitter in the game in 2021.

Jarren Duran, meanwhile, has tools that the 32-year-old Bradley can only dream of. His power and speed are both well-above average, and while he might not be the defender Bradley is right now, he has the skills to stick in center field. He may have been overwhelmed in his brief stint in the majors last year, but his OPS was still 100 points greater than Bradley’s.

Duran has also shown that he is willing and able to make adjustments. He entered spring training with his hands in a lower starting position than 2021, leading to a .333 batting average during the exhibition games. The potential of Duran is so much greater than that of Bradley, and if the veteran continues to struggle at the plate, expect the Red Sox to make an early change.

Red Sox starter Rich Hill gets cut by midseason

Look, nobody wants to see Rich Hill fall off a cliff. In an ideal world, the 42-year old would just keep on baffling hitters with his high 80’s fastball and rainbow curveball until his arm fell off, presumably in his mid-70s. The Red Sox also really need Hill to continue performing, as their rotation is filled with question marks after Nathan Eovaldi.

At a certain point, age catches up to everyone, and the last few years prove Hill is nearing the end of the line. His strikeout rate has dipped from 10.6 K/9 from 2016 to 2019 to 8.3 from 2020 to 2021, while his walk rate has increased from 2.6 BB/9 to 3.3 BB/9 during the same span. The main culprit is his two mile per hour drop in fastball velocity, making it no wonder why hitters have gone from hitting .219 against the heater in 2019 to .269 last season.

With Chris Sale and James Paxton returning by the All-Star break, some of the pitchers currently on the Red Sox roster aren’t going to make it to the end of the season. Hill isn’t the pitcher he once was, and in a division stacked with power-hitting right-handers, it’s dangerous to be a soft-tossing lefty. Expect the lefty to be the odd man out this summer.

Red Sox prospect Bryan Bello throws key innings out of the bullpen

The Red Sox may not have had much success recently with developing pitching prospects, but Brayan Bello has the potential to change all that. The lanky 22-year-old dominated both Single-A Greenville and Double-A Portland last season, posting a cumulative ERA under 4.00 and striking out over twelve batters per nine innings. His breakout campaign was rewarded with a spot on the Futures Game roster and the title of the top Red Sox pitching prospect entering 2022.

Bello pitched just one inning in big-league camp this spring, but he flashed such nasty stuff that that appearance made waves all over Red Sox Twitter. He overwhelmed the Braves Josh Nogowski, freezing him on two biting, mid 80’s sliders and producing an ugly swing-and-miss on a 94 mile per hour two-seamer that moved like a whiffle ball. It doesn’t take a vivid imagination to imagine that arsenal on display in Boston this summer.

Like many young pitchers, Bello’s command and changeup comes and goes, and he will need more refinement in the minor leagues if he wants to be a big-league starter. In a relief role, however, Bello could dominate major leagues right now on his fastball and slider alone. With the Red Sox bullpen lacking true high-end arms, Bello should pitch key innings for the club after the All-Star break.

The Red Sox leader in saves isn’t on the roster yet

I’ve been very adamant in my criticism of Matt Barnes.  Even when he was dominating his way to an All-Star berth last summer, I still believed that he wasn’t a viable closer for a contending team. Barnes has shown time and time again that he is nothing more than a middling reliever. He might be eerily consistent, as evident by his six straight years with an ERA between 3.50 and 4.50, but he walks too many batters and allows too much hard contact to be trusted in the ninth inning.

Despite a brutal end to the season that saw him bounced from the playoff roster and a spring training in which his velocity was around three miles per hour slower than its 2021 peak, Barnes will still enter the season as the team’s closer. It will not last. The Red Sox are serious about contending this year, and any team with championship aspirations can’t have Matt Barnes closing games.

The question then becomes who will replace Barnes as the team’s closer. Hansel Robles has closing experience, but he also walks too many hitters and allows too many home runs. Garrett Whitlock was the team’s de facto closer come October, but he seems set for a multi-inning role. That’s why I believe the Red Sox will go out and get a closer from a rebuilding team like Alex Colome, Lou Trivino, or Mark Melancon, and acquire them early enough to lead the team in saves.

The Red Sox send a pair of infielder to the All-Star Game

Last season, the Red Sox became the first team since the Jeter/A-Rod Yankees to send both their starting shortstop and third baseman to the All-Star game starting lineup. This year, I predict that the Red Sox will again send two infield starters to the All-Star game, but this time it will be Trevor Story joining Rafael Devers rather than Xander Bogaerts.

The idea of Rafael Devers starting the All-Star game is not all that surprising. After all, he’s one of the most talented young hitters in the game, and should only be better in 2022 as he enters his prime. Bogaerts, however, has to compete with fellow AL shortstops Bo Bichette, Wander Franco, and Carlos Correa, all of whom are more talented, more well-rounded, and more flashy than the Red Sox star.

His new double-play partner has far less competition. Pretty much Story’s only obstacle to a starting spot in the AL starting lineup is Brandon Lowe, who plays for the small-market Rays, and Jose Altuve, who is despised by MLB fans, especially in the AL. Story is still in the honeymoon phase with his new fans, and should rise that good sentiment to a spot in the AL starting lineup alongside Devers.

Red Sox prospect Nick Yorke makes his MLB debut

There was a lot of confusion when the Red Sox took Nick Yorke at 17th in the 2020 draft. After all, Yorke was the 139th ranked prospect by MLB.com and came to the Red Sox with a minimal track record, a history of shoulder injuries, and a reputation as a poor defender. With the Red Sox without a second-round pick in that year’s draft, many theorized that they only took Yorke to save money later in the draft, which they used on high school phenom Blaze Jordan.

Yorke, however, has proved to be more than worth the pick. The second baseman won the Red Sox minor league offensive player of the year by slashing an incredible .325/.412/.516 and displaying more power than scouts believed he had. He did that while walking nearly as often as he struck out and actually posted a higher OPS upon his promotion to High-A Salem.

Yorke may only be entering his age 20 season and beginning the season back in A-ball, but he has the advanced approach to move quickly up the system. The Red Sox have All-Star caliber players at both second base and shortstops, but the understudies at the position (Jonathan Arauz, Rob Refysnder, Yolmer Sanchez) are underwhelming at best. If Yorke can continue to dominate the upper minors like he did A-ball, he should make his MLB debut in 2022.

Tanner Houck leads the Red Sox in strikeouts

At first glance, this prediction may seem like a lack of confidence in Nathan Eovaldi. After all, the 2021 All-Star struck out nearly 200 batters last year and seems like an obvious choice to pace the team in punchouts again. Yet the reason I don’t have him at the top of the strikeout leaderboard in 2022 has much less to do with Eovaldi and much more to do with the confidence I have in Tanner Houck.

No pitcher on the Red Sox has the kind of swing-and-miss stuff that Houck has. His slider is one of the best in baseball, holding hitters to a .159 batting average and an incredible 42.4% whiff percentage. He pairs that pitch with a hard-biting sinker and an improving splitter, both of which induced swing-and-misses at over a 30% rate. Houck’s 11.3 K/9 easily paced the team, and the only thing that prevented him from leading the Red Sox in overall strikeouts was a lack of innings.

In 2022, however, Houck is going to get those innings. Houck won a spot in the starting rotation this spring, and with the Red Sox’s starting pitch depth being what it is, he’s unlikely to lose that job. Even if Houck only throws 150 or so innings, that should be good enough to lead the club in punchouts.

 The Red Sox finish third in the division and fall short of the ALCS

You have to be realistic about your team. The easy thing to do would be to predict the Red Sox to win the World Series because that’s what we all want to see. At a certain point, though, you need to face the facts, and the truth is that the Red Sox are a flawed team that isn’t good enough to win the World Series.

As I’ve said all offseason, the Red Sox needed to upgrade their rotation and their bullpen to have a chance of winning their division, and they’ve failed to do both. The additions Michael Wacha, Rich Hill, and James Paxton fail to move the needle, and they are somehow still going into the season with Matt Barnes as the closer despite Kenley Jansen being right there for the taking. They were able to bring in Trevor Story, but unless he can pitch, the Red Sox are going to have a lot of trouble preventing runs.

Then there is the issue of their competition. I see the Red Sox as the fourth most talented team in their division. The Blue Jays are an absolute juggernaut, the Rays are always competitive, and the Yankees have a far superior bullpen. It’s likely that one of those teams underperforms and finishes behind the Red Sox, but to expect the BoSox to finish ahead of all three is unrealistic.

All of this is not to say that the Red Sox aren’t going to be competitive in 2022. There’s too much talent on this roster for them to fall out of the playoff race, especially if Sale and Paxton provide a boost on the midseason return. This is a playoff team, but with questions marks up and down the pitching staff and the strength of the rest of the American League, a return to the ALCS seems unlikely.