It was a pretty light weekend for the Red Sox, but not for me. Your friendly Red Sox writer-type person had a root canal and was out of commission for most of the weekend. As it turns out, having someone drill holes into your tooth is not - I repeat: not! - fun. The good news is, I’m feeling much better now. The bad news is I have to go back in a few weeks so they can numb me up and drill more holes in my tooth. There weren’t enough holes before, you see. It’s like the 2020 Red Sox and bad pitchers: the more the merrier! The moral of the story is brush and floss, kids. And if you have to have a root canal, make sure there’s a soft and sleepy cat around and a game of some type on when you get home.
Some good stuff coming up this week here at Sox Outsider, but first a quick reminder to subscribe to the Sox Outsider Podcast. There are three episodes out so far. On the first, I spoke to Eno Sarris of The Athletic about the Red Sox and he agrees with my optimism about Andrew Benintendi in 2021 (more on this below). It’s always nice when a very smart person agrees with you on something, right? On the second, I spoke to Chad Finn of the Boston Globe about Dustin Pedroia and his feelings on the ‘21 Sox. Chad is good people and his opinions are always well-considered. It’s a really fun episode! For Episode Three, I got to talk to Joon Lee. Joon was with me way back in the day at Over The Monster when we were both starting out. He’s gone on to great things at ESPN and, unsurprisingly, had some terrific insight into Dustin Pedroia and his role with the Red Sox during his time in Boston. A must-listen!
I’m still in the process of getting the podcast up on on all the different podcast apps but it’s on Apple Podcasts (wrong logo and all!) so you can listen there and toss me some stars and/or a review if you’re feeling frisky.
There were two bits of Red Sox related news over the weekend. The first was that the Mets were out on signing Jackie Bradley Jr. After that report came another report saying actually the first report was wrong and the Mets are still in on Jackie Bradley Jr. Glad that’s settled. That series of contradictory reports did succeed in shedding some light on the Red Sox interest in their erstwhile center fielder, however. They confirmed what we’ve long said here at Sox Outsider, namely that if Bradley’s asking price drops Boston would be interested. Left unsaid is this: if the asking price remains the same, JBJ will be joining a new team this off-season.
Last week I covered Boston’s center field situation extensively with two articles, and after I published the second one, I got a tip from someone in the know that I missed something. There was someone else who could play center field in Boston in 2021 who I had discounted and that was Enrique Hernandez.
Enrique Hernandez?
Yep! The Red Sox apparently like Hernandez in center field quite a bit. This is particularly interesting for a number of reasons. If Hernandez gets significant time in center, who does he displace in the outfield? Are the Red Sox going to platoon Alex Verdugo? I sure hope not. Verdugo has hit both lefties and righties well in his career so there’s no need to take him out of the lineup beyond injury and normal rest. Are they going to platoon Andrew Benintendi? That might make more sense as Benintendi has hit worse against left-handed pitching over his career. The only problem is, are the Red Sox going to make Benintendi a platoon outfielder? They could, but that’s a pretty significant proposition and a pretty significant blow to his value as an everyday player.
They could do that though. Against left-handers, they could employ an outfield of Hunter Renfroe in left, Hernandez in center, and Verdugo in right. That might have to be adjusted later in games as opposing teams go to the pen for right-handed relievers, though a good manager can minimize damage in such situations. But if that’s the plan, I have to ask: why keep Benintendi at all?
If he’s only good enough to be a platoon player, his value is diminished in the eyes of the Red Sox. But he’s not a platoon player yet. If there is a team that values him as an every day player, that team values him more than Boston does by definition, and thus that would make coming up with an acceptable trade package that much easier to pull off. Any team can look up his splits at Baseball Reference, sure, but there is hope Benintendi can do more than what he’s shown on the field to date, both in terms of his overall production and his performance against lefties. Up until this point it seemed Boston’s front office shared that hope, but perhaps they don’t.
Thing is, I don’t think Benintendi is only a platoon player. He should be on the roster and he should play every day, or as close to every day as he can. Benintendi has some problems (I’ve covered him here in some detail), but if you look at his performance against lefties over time, he’s actually gotten better.
Benintendi’s 2016 was just 34 games, but I threw it in there anyway. Discount it if you like, but either way you can see he’s improved against lefties over his career, to the point where he was actually good against them in 2019 (I left 2020 out because it’s just 14 injured games). Oddly, it’s his performance against right-handed pitchers that has gone downhill. So I don’t know how I feel about making him a platoon player. And I don’t love dealing him because I think there’s more in there than we’ve seen.
Beyond Benintendi though, using Hernandez in center field potentially opens up second base for someone else to play a larger role, likely either Christian Arroyo or Michael Chavis. I’ve long assumed Chavis would start the season in Triple-A barring an injury, but perhaps this is a bit of a hole that he could exploit with a good spring. He’d have to beat out Arroyo anyway, but at least he wouldn’t have to beat out Hernandez as well.
But we’ll come back to second base another time, because the interesting thing about this idea to me is how I missed it. Hernandez has played over 1,100 innings in center in his career, a fact I noted in my center field write-up last week. In fact, he’s played center for the Dodgers every season since 2014, just not ever all that much. He’s typically played about 150 innings in center or a bit under 10 percent of the season, with the exception of 2018 when he played 372 innings. But the interesting year is 2019, which saw him play 134 innings in center for LA. That season he graded out as the best defensive center fielder in baseball by UZR/150 among players who played at least 100 innings at the position. The best in baseball! That’s nuts. If you look at another defensive metric, Total Zone, Hernandez grades out very well over his career as a center fielder. In fact it’s the only place he’s an above average defender. Not that that’s great news, particularly.
Defense is still something we’re struggling to correctly assess and I know Total Zone and UZR have their flaws. That said, that they both agree on this one point is certainly food for thought. It’s also worth pointing out that the Red Sox have much better ways of properly assessing defense than what are publicly available. So that they think Hernandez can play center field regularly should tell us, if not the specifics of their defensive analysis, at least it skips down to the end of the page for us.
The Red Sox like Enrique Hernandez in center field. Whether that’s a back-up plan if JBJ goes elsewhere or that’s the plan until, as I wrote last week, Jarren Duran shows up in Boston, remains to be seen. But clearly there is depth upon depth here.
Oh, and the second bit of Red Sox related news (this from way back at the top of the page) is Boston has reportedly been deep in discussions with a Japanese relief pitcher, Hirokazu Sawamura. We’ll cover that more if and when he signs, but if nothing else the Red Sox aren’t done tinkering with the 2021 roster. More to come on that front. Clearly.