Nothing Happening!
So a bit on some bits: Luis Urias, tradable prospects, Alex Verdugo, and the greatest get ever, Andrew Bailey
It’s not entirely surprising that baseball’s off-season has been pretty slow. Oh, sure, Dave Dombrowski signed Aaron Nola to the largest pitching contract the Phillies have ever given out (and, I believe, the seventh largest ever for a pitcher), but that’s Dave Dombrowski for ya. And Aaron Nola is pretty good too, so this isn’t a complaint. Just about every other non-Dave Dombrowski-run team, aside from a few moves around the edges of the 40-man roster, has been quiet, including Your Boston Red Sox.*
*Sonny Gray signed with St. Louis while this piece was being edited.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to discuss though. There have been reports! Oh! There have been reports! Reports, as you must know, even more so than actual moves, are the lifeblood of the off-season.
“Report: so-and-so is talking to so-and-so!”
“Report: Team has discussed Player!”
“Report: Team would like to do a thing they haven’t done yet.”
It’s virtually endless. There are people who, through nothing but sheer genius, have figured out how to make a well-paying career out this. Reports! That’s all! Imagine!
Me? I look at Reports and think, ‘how dumb, what a waste of time.’ But that’s my lack of imagination for ya. I just don’t see stacks of cash when its staring me in the face.
Report: Idiot doesn’t see stacks of cash staring him in the face.
If I’m honest though, there haven’t even been very many Reports concerning your Boston Red Sox. And when I say ‘not very many’ I mean ‘like none.’ Apparently (about to site a Report here) the Red Sox weren’t in on Aaron Nola (or Sonny Gray) at all. Which is surprising a bit, considering all the hoopla over them upgrading their rotation.
Anyway, here are a few notes to tide you over until real things happen. Thanks, as always, for reading and subscribing.
Alex Verdugo
It seems like a pretty long shot that Alex Verdugo will be back in his role as the starting right fielder for the Boston Red Sox when the 2024 season rolls around. As you know, Verdugo has just one season left under team control and after four seasons in Boston, only one of which did he show anything more than league average offense, it seems the Red Sox would rather send him elsewhere. Maybe it’s because he’s not really ever lived up to his billing. Maybe it’s because they don’t intend to sign him to an extension and don’t want to lose him for nothing. Maybe it’s because he’s a bit of a pain in the pooper. Maybe it’s a bit of all of the above, or something else entirely. Who knows?
But, with all of that in mind, might I suggest something: not doing that.
Because here’s the thing, unless they’re prepared to go out and acquire someone else to do Verdugo’s job better than Verdugo can do it, and to pay the cost of that not insignificant acquisition, I feel like the team’s resources might be better spent elsewhere.
Now, if new POBO Craig Breslow is intent on trading for Juan Soto and moving Verdugo opens up that hole (a hole which Juan Soto would create by himself simply by arriving in Boston, but we’ll ignore that for now), fine. But that seems unlikely.
I’m not sure if you’ve checked the Red Sox projected starting lineup recently but right now the starting outfield is Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, and Alex Verdugo, with Masataka Yoshida at DH and Rob Refsnyder on the bench. That’s not awful, I’m sure other teams have a worse group, but it’s hardly amazing, and subtracting Verdugo, ignoring whatever comes in return, definitely doesn’t make the team stronger.
Perhaps Breslow is going to restructure the entire roster, in which case, fine. Perhaps Breslow believes top prospect Roman Anthony will be ready to take over right field by the All Star break next year (possible) and that makes Verdugo expendable.
But there comes a point where the team’s finite resources are better spent elsewhere and if that means losing Verdugo for nothing next off-season, that’s really not that bad.
Luis Urias
The previous Red Sox front office picked up Urias from Milwaukee in one of Chaim Blooms seemingly endless buy-low opportunity trades. My memory of Urias is of a guy who had a hot start, four hits in his first three games, and then homers in back-to-back games against Washington and the Yankees a few weeks later, and the cooled substantially. The entire package wasn’t a lot, but it was certainly better than I remember. Because, you see, I remember him being bad. But he wasn’t bad! He hit .225/.361/.337 which is pretty much spot on league average. Yes, his defense at second wasn’t great, but the entire package was fine. Like another Star Wars movie, I wasn’t super eager for Luis Urias, 2024 Red Sox Second Baseman, but it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.
Apparently Breslow wasn’t into it and shipped Urias to Seattle, where he’ll continue his idiosyncratic brand of mediocrity next season. The Red Sox got a relief pitcher with, I believe, a mustache. This kind of analysis is certainly why you keep reading this newsletter.
The hope here is that Urias’ exit indicates the team is aiming higher at second base. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that top (or second?) prospect Marcelo Mayer (pronounced: My-er) will be ready for major league duty at some point later next season. That would mean a middle infield of Trevor Story and Mayer in some configuration (I’d hope Story would move to second but we’ll fight that battle another time). Which means, if you think that’s a distinct possibility, maybe right now isn’t the time to put a lot into upgrading second base. In which case, well, Julio Luis Urias makes some sense. But Urias is gone now, so… [music swells] maybe there’s another Luis Urias-esque player in Boston’s future!
If not, hey, at least they got mustache reliever.
Andrew Bailey
Much has been written about the Red Sox acing the Yankees (and White Sox and Angels and Giants) out for Andrew Bailey’s services. Bailey recently agreed to come aboard as the new Red Sox pitching coach, replacing the somewhat recently fired Dave Bush. And I guess when it comes to pitching coaches, it’s good the team got the guy they wanted. You know, instead of a different guy that maybe they didn’t want as much. So yay.
As you can probably tell, I find it difficult to get too worked up about a pitching coach. Coaches and managers are important, but nowhere near as important as the players they coach and manage. This isn’t football where a hotshot coach can come in and reshape the team’s offensive philosophy and structures and get a completely different result. Bailey is going to be working with many of the same players that Bush worked with last season, at least as of right now. We’ll see how that goes. I’m optimistic as I can be considering his successes in Anaheim and San Francisco, but he’s a pitching coach so I’m not throwing any confetti.
Prospects
In his introductory press conference, Craig Breslow talked about how he’s willing to make big trades if necessary. He indicated that moving top prospects might be in the cards. I’ve been thinking about this since he said it. I suppose I’m a bit more on the Ben Cherington side of top prospects (keep ‘em) than the Dave Dombrowski side (trade ‘em). I’m not arguing either is correct, just that one of the things I love about following the Red Sox is watching a guy they drafted or signed internationally go up through the system and make an impact with Boston.
Those players always feel special to me, and for the first time in a little while it feels like the Red Sox are on the cusp of bringing up two or three guys who could be mainstays in Boston for a long time. So it would be a shame if the new guy came in and started moving those guys out. At least to me on a fan level it would.
There are some prospects though who feel like they could be prime trade candidates. Here are three who stand out to me.
Nick Yorke
Yorke was Boston’s first round pick in the aborted 2020 draft. He was the guy who nobody expected to go in the first round. Even more, at least from watching the MLB Network coverage, it didn’t seem like people knew who he was. And yet the Sox took him 17th overall.
Since then, Yorke has battled injuries and questions about his hit tool, which is also his carrying tool. There is still room for an impactful player at the major league level here, but considering his mediocre defensive reputation, we’re probably looking at some sort of modern version of Dan Uggla. A guy who hits but plays defense more as a requirement than anything else. The problem with Yorke though is that there are somehow as many questions now as there were when he was drafted.
So take that Yorke’s performance hasn’t put him on anyone’s ‘definite future Red Sox cornerstones’ list, and add to it that Yorke was the last guy’s guy. He was the guy the Red Sox were convinced they had pulled the wool over everyone else’s eyes on. I doubt Breslow will feel the same way about him, especially considering he’s got three years of minor league scouting and performance now on which to judge.
Blaze Jordan
It’s a similar story with Jordan, whom the Sox took in the third round of that same 2020 draft. Jordan was an over-slot guy who had huge power and hit tool questions. Still only 20 years old, Jordan has hit his way up to Double-A, which is impressive. However there are still hit big tool questions and defensively at best he looks like a first baseman but might even require a move to DH. Even so, there’s still upside her. DHs and first baseman can absolutely make big impacts, so if the new POBO doesn’t have the same attachment to Jordan as Bloom did, it seems to me this could be another guy who the Red Sox would be okay with including in a trade.
Ceddanne Rafaela
We saw Rafaela make his major league debut last season for the Red Sox. While his brutal misplay in center field that cost the Sox a game still haunts my dreams, on the whole I thought he came as advertised: good defensively (my dreams aside), with speed and a bit more pop than you’d expect, but way too swing-happy. That kind of profile can work, especially if the player continues to refine and improve, but at least right now it’s hard to imagine Rafaela in center or playing shortstop for the 2024 Red Sox.
But! He’s a guy who made it to the majors, who other teams have seen and scouted, and who has some serious tools, even with some serious drawbacks. That defense will be enticing and, especially if the new front office doesn’t believe in the bat as much as the old one, that represents an opportunity for a trade.
JBJ
I was going to write about the retirement of Jackie Bradley, Jr. but this has gone on long enough, so let’s save it for another time when we can do him more justice.
Thanks for reading and subscribing.
I heart JBJ.