Everything Happens At Once: Rafaela Extended, Story Done, Pivetta Hurt, Fenway Opens, '04 Team Honored, Sox Lose!

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Forgive my lack of a newsletter yesterday. There was simply too much to discuss and I just didn’t have the time to get my head around it all. Also, I’m pretty useless after a Red Sox loss for at least a few hours. Yes, decades into life I’m still *that* guy when my team loses. I’m an absolute joy to life with, let me tell you.

Cleaning up some loose ends after (yet another) Red Sox loss...

Trevor Story

The big story is Trevor Story. He needs surgery on his shoulder, recovery for which will take six months. Thus, see ya. He’s gone for the year. This is a big problem for the Red Sox, but more importantly what will become of all my Story puns?

It wasn’t clear, at least to me, that Story was still the All Star Rockies Trevor Story anymore. There was a lot of talk about sticking him at the front of the lineup and letting the accolades roll in, but I don’t think he’s that guy anymore. It would be nice! But injuries aside (which you can’t really do, but go with me here) he’s four years out from the last semi-elite season, and his batted ball data is (SMALL SAMPLE ALERT!) a disaster. It was so last season as well, which is a larger sample, but he was also hurt then, so it’s debatable how useful that data is.

Point being the Red Sox lost their starting shortstop and a good teammate and that sucks. But it’s way easier to replace a good fielding shortstop who hit .220/.290/.330 than it is a good fielding shortstop who hit .290/.350/.520. The Red Sox were hoping they had the latter but at least to this point in the season they had the former.

So replacing Story’s production on the field wouldn’t be so difficult in theory but in practice it’s a bit of a problem. That’s because, despite all the other guys on the roster who they could put at short (Pablo Reyes, Romy Gonzalez, David Hamilton, Vaughn Grissom if/when he gets healthy), the Red Sox don’t have anyone who can actually field the position anywhere close to as well as Story could.

And in fact, all the guys listed above are either question marks (Grissom) or marginal major leaguers (everyone else). The clear and obvious thing to do is fire up the ol’ hot tub, go back in time, and sign Xander Bogaerts. Short of that, there’s only one guy on the 40 man who can play shortstop at a major league level and that’s… Boston’s current starting center fielder.

Oh, Red Sox, you do so much to bring my forehead closer to my desk.

Ceddanne Rafaela

Yes, that’s right, Ceddanne Rafaela, who just signed an eight-year contract extension to play center field, is pretty much the only one on the roster who can play shortstop. Fantastic. And he’s hitting .194/.244/.333 so he’ll fit right in!

Let’s talk about the contract first. It’s interesting. On the face of it, you kinda go, huh? I’m not sure why this was necessary. Rafaela is undeniably talented, but he’s also got some holes in his game. He can play a gold glove-level center field, he can play shortstop too (!), he’s fast, and he’s got some pop in his bat. However, he swings at everything and gets himself out constantly. This leads to a lot of strikeouts, but also a lot of weak contact. Both of these things will result in a lot of outs.

This season, Rafaela is swinging at 48.9 percent of pitches outside the zone. OUTSIDE THE ZONE! That’s insane. The Major League average is 31 percent. Triston Casas swings at 24.6 percent (again, all 2024 numbers so grains of salt). This isn’t necessarily a death knell for Rafaela’s career, but it’s hard to see him being more than a defensive specialist without improving in this specific area.

That all said, none of that is news to the Red Sox and they still signed this contract. This leads me to believe they believe Rafaela will get better. Dan Symborski at FanGraphs wrote a piece on the extension which is worth reading in its entirety, but the bottom line(s) are Rafaela A) should be able to hit better than he is now (something the Red Sox obviously expect), and B) is an elite defensive player right now and that has lots of value.

Extensions like this one and Brayan Bello’s are done for two reasons. To minimize the cost of a player’s expense through arbitration and to keep the player under team control for longer. In the first case, I’m not sure Rafaela was in danger of breaking the bank when it comes to arbitration. The money is set in stone now so that helps the Red Sox budget for it, I guess, but I don’t see a scenario where the Red Sox are saving much money here (or in the Bello deal) up through arbitration.

What this deal does do is two things. It guarantees Rafaela’s money and essentially his spot on the roster for the next eight seasons (there’s a ninth year team option, but as an option it’s not a guarantee). Previously the Red Sox could have sent him down, cut him, whatever, and the ramifications would have been minimal. Now they’re not minimal.

The other thing the deal does, and in my opinion the real reason to do it from the team’s standpoint, is it extends Rafaela’s time in Boston. Previously Rafaela would have been a free agent following the 2029 season. Now the Sox have him for 2030 and 2031, and there’s a team option for the 2032 season, at which point, let’s be honest, the sun will certainly have exploded. So three more years of Rafaela are now guaranteed, assuming the sun holds together.

As a general rule I love deals like this. I love locking up young players to long-term deals and keeping them in Boston for most of if not all of their careers. The Red Sox have lost a lot of talent over the years because they didn’t sign them to contracts like this. That all said, I’m not sure I really get this from the Red Sox standpoint. I don’t think Rafaela is likely to become a star and blow through his arbitration projections. Beyond that, would a 29 year old Rafaela get a lot more on the free agent market than a three year, $40 million deal? Because that’s what the Red Sox have him for assuming they pick up the option year. Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination on my part.

I’ll say this though, the fact that the Red Sox locked Rafaela up is a point in his favor. I’ve not been particularly high on him, but if the Red Sox are committing this kind of money and this many years to him, maybe I’m missing something. I hope I’m missing something.

In Other News…

It’s not clear how serious Nick Pivetta’s injury is, but if he’s forced to miss a lot of time it could be catastrophic to the Red Sox starting rotation. We’re 11 games into the year and already they’ve lost for the season their would-have-been Opening Day starter in Lucas Giolito and their starting star-adjacent shortstop in Trevor Story. This team isn’t deep enough that they can keep chugging along while taking hits like this. Pretty soon the bat signal is going to light up and Cooper Criswell is going to show up wearing a cape. At that point things will be bad.

On the field, my thoughts are minimal beyond the occasional swear word. Losing to the Orioles sucks, blowing a 5-0 lead sucks even more, and losing to them on opening day at Fenway is somehow worse still. I’m not sure that’s breaking news to anyone, but my thoughts on the first two games are YUCK and &#%$$@($.

Also, we’ll get into team defense soon, maybe sooner than anyone wants to if things keep going as they have been.

As always, thanks for reading and subscribing.

As you likely noticed, I didn’t talk about the ‘04 team or Tim Wakefield above. I wrote about Wake after his passing in October. I encourage you to read that (you can do that here). I’m hoping to find a free moment to write more about the 2004 team in the near future, so I’m gonna table that topic for now.