5 Highly-specific needs the Sox must address for 2023 roster

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What does the Red Sox roster need to improve in 2023?

The Boston Red Sox have a lot of needs to fulfill before next season, including, but not limited to extensions for a certain pair of infielders, a lot of pitching, and some outfield upgrades.

Anyone who watched the Sox for a minute in 2022 knows all of this though, so let’s go deeper. It’s clear that the Sox need more home runs and fewer runs allowed going forward, but aside from all the injuries, what else contributed to the collapse of this team? What would make a difference next year?

Here are five very specific areas the Sox need to focus on improving for 2023 and beyond…

Players who can hit with RISP

Watching the Red Sox load the bases and then leave them loaded was a master class in predictability. It was more inevitable than Thanos but with no Avengers there to turn back time and undo the mess he made.

In 1,455 at-bats with runners in scoring position, the Sox hit .261/.329/.423 with 379 hits, 145 walks, and 353 strikeouts. But with the bases loaded and two outs (69 at-bats), that number plummeted to .229/.320/.396. As a whole, their two-out hitting and clutch hitting was dismal.

Fading down the stretch was a problem as well. The Sox put up their worst numbers by far between innings 7-9.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 20: Ryan Brasier #70 of the Boston Red Sox pitches against the Houston Astros in the sixth inning of Game Five of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park on October 20, 2021 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

Relievers who are stingy with walks

The pitching staff as a whole was painful to watch, but the bullpen, in particular, was unbearable.

How did they blow 29 saves (fourth-most in MLB) and have the fourth-worst save percentage in the majors? To paraphrase the legendary Dennis Eckersley, walks will kill you. Overall, the Sox pitching staff’s 8.5 BB% was tied for eighth-worst in MLB. Over 623 1/3 innings of relief work, the Sox bullpen posted a combined 4.59 ERA, struck out 627 batters, and issued 268 walks, ten more than the starting pitchers allowed over 807 2/3 innings. Those 268 free passes were the fifth-most allowed by any bullpen, though nine other teams’ bullpens threw more innings.

Their 40% Inherited Score Percentage – the % of runners on when a pitcher enters the game who end up scoring – tied the Padres for the MLB lead.

Chalk some of that garbage up to a very injured and ineffective starting rotation; it’s fair to say these guys were exhausted from all the additional work they ended up doing. But really, this bullpen wasn’t built to withstand anything in the first place, and that was clear when the Sox were desperate enough to sign Jeurys Familia in September.

Players who do well vs AL East rivals

The Sox were mind-blowingly terrible against their division rivals this season. They eked out a winning record against the Orioles at the end of the year but went 6-13 against the Yankees, 7-12 to the Rays, and 3-16 versus the Blue Jays.

Yikes.

Even with divisional play reducing from 19-game season series to 12 games to accommodate for more inter-league play next year, the Sox still need to be able to hold their head high in the division. Why not sign someone like Trey Mancini, who has incredible numbers at Fenway and the other AL East ballparks? He can DH or play some outfield or first base, and he’d cost significantly less than the Sox have been paying JD Martinez for the last five years.

BOSTON, MA – MAY 6: Jarren Duran #40 of the Boston Red Sox runs after hitting triple during the eighth inning of a game against the Chicago White Sox on May 6, 2022 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images) /

Faster base-runners

MLB’s average Sprint Speed is 27 ft/second, and while several Red Sox players were above average in 2022, some of their fastest runners aren’t ones on whom the team can depend in other crucial areas.

Jarren Duran led the team with a 29.2 sprint speed, but he’s struggled offensively and defensively. Likewise for Franchy Cordero, who clocks in at third-fastest with a sprint speed of 28.6, and Bobby Dalbec, whose 28.3 puts him at sixth. Meanwhile, Rafael Devers and Triston Casas, who should be two of the team’s most crucial players going forward, are at the bottom of the list.

The only truly encouraging piece of information from this metric is that rookie catcher Connor Wong is the second-fastest baserunner on this team; his 28.8 ft/sec is only outmatched by Duran, and puts him 70th overall in MLB.

Xander Bogaerts is firmly above average at 27.9 ft/sec, by the way. As if the Red Sox needed another reason to pay him.

A new leadoff man

Since trading Mookie Betts to the Dodgers ahead of the 2020 season, the Red Sox have used 22 different leadoff hitters. The number would be ridiculous in a normal time, but consider that the 2020 season was only 60 games, and it’s even more absurd.

Unsurprisingly, switching things up in the leadoff spot is not working out. According to MassLive, the Sox ranked 27th in MLB in on-base percentage and 22nd in OPS from the leadoff spot in 2022. The leadoff OPS dropped from .741 in 2021 to .665 this year.

Alex Cora has drawn criticism in the past for his mismanagement of the leadoff spot. Ahead of the 2019 season, he announced that Betts and Andrew Benintendi would switch places in the lineup. The theory behind that decision was that if Benintendi could get on base, Betts could then drive him in, rather than simply getting on base himself in the leadoff spot. Of course, the decision backfired, as Benintendi was an abysmal leadoff man; in 48 games as the first batter to step up to the plate, he hit .119/.229/.143 with only five hits, including one double, drew five walks, and struck out 16 times. Still, Cora stuck with the decision until the last weekend in May.

Cora didn’t use Alex Verdugo in the leadoff spot in 2022, despite him being a career .288/.341/.412 hitter in 42 career games batting first. Nor did he put Xander Bogaerts in the leadoff spot once this year, and he’s hit .309/.406/.418 with 34 hits, four doubles, a triple, and two home runs in 28 games as the leadoff man. According to Baseball-Reference, Devers has never hit first in the Sox lineup. They’ll never know if he can unless they try.

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