With a new ace, a new closer and a new decision maker in the front office, it only makes sense the 2016 Red Sox will improve on 2015’s last place. Except that last year’s Sox had a new third baseman, a new left fielder and a slew of new starting pitchers that were supposed to mean an improvement on 2014’s last place.
Still, it feels like new(ish) Vice President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski has provided this team with more answers than questions and the ceiling for these Sox is higher than the basement is low.
Everything could implode (again) and Fenway could be a morgue by August (again). But the baseball gods wouldn’t do that to David Ortiz in his final season, right? The way things should work is the Sox will pull another worst-to-first routine like they did in 2013 and the legend of Big Papi will get a final October chapter.
So here’s a look at Boston’s lineup, pitchers and AL East competition that leans toward optimism but won’t forget the pessimism back-to-back last-place finishes require.
The shiny new acquisitions of pitchers David Price and Craig Kimbrel may attract the most attention as the season begins, but the real gems for this team, now and (hopefully) well into the future, are Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts.
Even though few were watching, the pair of 23-year-olds elevated themselves to star status last season. Betts put up a .291/.341/.479 slash line and had a 6.0 Wins Above Replacement, the eighth best mark in the AL. Bogaerts made himself into a good defensive player despite the doubters (second-best fielding percentage among AL shortstops) and had the kind of monster offensive season pundits have been expecting of him (.320/.355/.421).
These two stand out from the crowd, but the truth is the Red Sox could be above average offensively at every spot. Dustin Pedroia probably won’t stay healthy, but he should be right around the .291/.356/.441 he put up in his 93 games last year. Hanley Ramirez may already have a vacation, I mean injury, planned for early summer, but he’s had a great spring (.333/.397/.510). Catcher Blake Swihart had an eye-opening second half in 2015 (.303/.353/.452) and Jackie Bradley Jr. showed he doesn’t have to be an automatic out during an absurdly hot August last year.
The two weak spots are left field – where Brock Holt and Chris Young seem destined for a platoon while Rusney Castillo collects checks in Pawtucket – and third base. It seems like the right move to start Travis Shaw there over Pablo Sandoval, but don’t get too excited by the .339/.381/.508 Shaw had this spring.
The Red Sox should also be above average defensively, especially in the outfield, where they should be great. But the biggest cause for concern among the starting nine also lies with the defense. Ramirez has looked good at first in the spring, but will it (can it possibly) continue? If he breaks down, might it cause a chain reaction of infield sloppiness? And what if Bogaerts adds muscle (it would be natural for someone his age and build) that decreases his range, something that critics have always worried about? What if Pedroia gets hurt sooner than expected? What if Shaw wilts under the spotlight?
These are all legitimate questions, but the bats and gloves should come through for Boston. The starting rotation, on the other hand …
… has too many questions to brush aside. Clay Buchholz is due for close to 180 innings after throwing for just 113 innings last season (he’s been on that kind of up-and-down trend for the last six years), but expecting anything from the fragile Buchholz is a setup for disappointment. Rick Porcello was a disaster last year (9-15, 4.92 ERA) and has somehow been even worse this spring (0-2, 9.77 ERA). Joe Kelly still doesn’t seem to know where his pitches are going, despite a good second half last season (8-1, 3.77 ERA). Eduardo Rodriguez suffered a patella injury on Feb. 27 that is somehow getting worse with time and his replacement in the rotation, knuckleballer Steven Wright, feels like a spare part.
Yet it’s not so hard to see the other side of the coin with all these pitchers. Buchholz has the potential to be as good a No. 2 as there is in the league. Porcello might find a simple fix if he goes back to throwing sinker after sinker. Kelly still has electric stuff. Rodriguez still has the future on his fingertips and Wright pitched well Friday against Toronto (5 innings, two runs).
Plus, they all have an ace to lead them in Price. The 30-year-old lefty is a legitimate No. 1 who knows how to lead a staff in the AL East. He’ll probably feel overpaid near the end of the seven-year, $217-million contract, but his fastball actually gained velocity last year over where it was in 2014 and it feels fair to expect Price to earn all that money over the next four-plus years as Boston’s ace.
The starters will also get plenty of support from the bullpen. Kimbrel has a 1.63 career ERA, 225 saves in the last five years and a 14.6 K/9 average for his career, and he’s turning only 28 on May 28. Basically, opponents can forget about ninth-inning rallies. They could have forgotten about eighth-inning rallies, too, until newly acquired Carson Smith suffered a forearm injury last week.
Smith’s injury means Koji Uehara likely will take over the eighth-inning duties with Junichi Tazawa ready to step in if Uehara falters. Uehara is 41 and Tazawa faded down the stretch last year (of course, it did seem like he was on the mound, or warming up, nearly every game), but between the two of them it’s safe to assume the eighth will be in good hands until Smith’s return.
If the Sox are better than last year’s 78-84, and it’s hard to imagine they won’t be, they still need to leap all four teams in the AL East to finish first.
Jumping over Baltimore shouldn’t prove too difficult. The Orioles lost their most reliable starter, Wei-Yin Chen, to free agency. And three of their other 2015 starters all saw their ERAs balloon last season – Chris Tillman finished at 4.99, Miguel Gonzalaez at 4.91 and Ubaldo Jimenez at 5.63.
Tampa Bay is loaded with promising young arms, as usual, with Chris Archer leading the way. But there are too many questions about the Rays offense to think they’ll finish ahead of Boston.
Once Aroldis Chapman returns from his 30-game domestic violence suspension, the Yankees should have a devastating bullpen. They also have a rotation that blends reliable experience (Masahiro Tanaka), youth (Luis Severino and Nathan Eovaldi) and a redemption seeker (CC Sabathia). The pitchers will keep New York in contention, but the old dudes in the middle of the lineup – Alex Rodriguez (40), Carlos Beltran (39 on April 24), Mark Teixeira (36 on April 11) – will keep the Yankees out of first.
The team that figures to be the hardest to catch is Toronto. The Blue Jays ran away with the division last year with a 93-69 mark, six games ahead of New York. Toronto returns all of the important bats that led to an MLB-best 891 runs last year (the Yankees were second with 764), including reining MVP Josh Donaldson. But the Blue Jays lost some important arms – relievers Mark Lowe and LaTroy Hawkins and starter … Price, who will find himself celebrating another AL East title this year, but this time in a different uniform.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)