Actual Red Sox Baseball News Alert: Red Sox sign Enrique Hernández

[mounts horse]
[rides through town]

The Red Sox signed a free agent! The Red Sox signed a free agent! The Red Sox signed a free agent! The Red Sox signed a free agent! The Red Sox signed a free agent!

Having been rebuffed by, well, seemingly every one including their fans, the Red Sox finally got something done. Late Friday they signed infielder/outfielder Enrique Hernández to a two-year, $14 million deal. Other parameters of the deal haven’t come out yet, but Hernández for $7 million per over two years qualifies as entirely reasonable.

The Red Sox have holes at second base and in the outfield that Hernández can help with because Hernández can play everywhere. And I mean everywhere. In the past two seasons Hernández has played first base, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, center field, and right field. He has even pitched, throwing a third of an inning, though that was two years ago in 2018 for the Dodgers. So while he likely isn’t the full-time second baseman the Red Sox have been seeking, Hernández can certainly fill the void left behind by Brock Holt. If Boston Benintendi needs a night off (and is still on the roster), Hernández can do that. If Devers needs a night off against a particularly tough lefty, Hernández can do that. And of course he can play second just about any time as well.

The downside of Hernández’s flexibility is that he’s not really a very good hitter. Or, he has been, but mostly hasn’t been? Let’s just say consistency hasn’t been his friend.

Here’s a graph of Hernández’s OPS+ (100 is average, shown in green) over his seven seasons in the bigs. You can see he’s bounced around a bit, above average in 2014 and ‘15, below in ‘16, average in ‘17, above again in’18, and below since. If he’s moving around and filling in here and there, he’s more than fine. If he’s your starting second baseman (league average second baseman are shown in grey) he’s probably a hair below average with the bat, but not a liability like we’ve seen in Boston over the past few seasons. So that’s nice!

Over his career he’s has a bit of a platoon split, even though he’s right-handed. He’s been a really good hitter against left-handers (.820 OPS) but a pretty poor hitter against right-handers (.673 OPS). Those numbers have also bounced around a bit over the years - last year he was bad against both - but you’d expect Boston to give him more time against lefties, perhaps spelling Benintendi or Verdugo (both lefties) in the outfield corners. This goes doubly if the Red Sox end up bringing back Jackie Bradley, Jr. to play center (which they should do and which I wrote about recently).

One other thing that’s important is Hernández has some recent experience playing shortstop. He played 159 innings there as recently as 2018. You wouldn’t want him starting for you there with any regularity, but having someone on the roster who can play short besides Xander Bogaerts is probably a good idea as Bogaerts is mortal and might get tired at some point next season. So Hernández clicks that box as well.

This isn’t a huge signing of a premium free agent, but signing Enrique Hernández is evidence of the Red Sox improving their team, which is a nice thing to see.