Presumably someone has briefed the GMs of baseball that the off-season has started. AJ Preller of the Padres knows. I get the sense he’s up 24 hours a day screaming into multiple phones with coffee dripping from his bloodshot eyes like a 1980’s Wall Street stock trader. But the rest of ‘em? Eh… maybe not so much with the trades and the signings and such.
The Red Sox in particular have been dormant, and not like a volcano about to burst, more like an open can of soda that’s been on the counter for a few days. There are a ton of players still out there on both the free agent and trade markets, some big names, some big opportunities, and the Red Sox have signed a back up outfielder and a sixth starter/sixth inning guy to one year deals. There are seemingly endless reports of the Red Sox exploring everything, stumbling from transactional cul-de-sac to transactional cul-de-sac like some inebriated modern day Vasco de Gama. Eventually all this exploring will yield something, right? Perhaps they’ll find the West Indies, or a pathway to the orient, or maybe a starting center fielder.
Here are a few of the latest rumors and Red Sox-related goings-on.
1. Are the Red Sox really going to force me to learn to spell "LeMahieu"?
Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown is reporting star free agent second baseman DJ LeMahieu is frustrated with the Yankees and has asked his representatives to “reconnect with teams that reached out early in the free agent period, including the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox and others.” LeMahieu would be a perfect fit on the Red Sox roster. He would not, however, be a perfect fit on their payroll, and as such, I don’t expect LeMahieu’s overtures to be returned.
Even so, it’s fun to think about, and not just because the Red Sox would be stealing one of the best hitters on the Yankees. Since 2019 when he signed with New York, LeMahieu has been perhaps the best second basemen in the game. He is exactly what Boston needs both because he plays second and because he’s one of the best hitters in the league. Alas, he’s 32 now and despite the fantastic recent performance and Boston’s burning need for something approaching decency at second base, I don’t see Chaim Bloom spending what it would take to add LeMahieu. Which is kind of a shame. It sure would be fun.
2. No news is not news on the Andrew Benintendi front
This Saturday brought news the Red Sox were in serious trade talks regarding left fielder Andrew Benintendi. The Sunday morning light, such that it was here in Oregon, revealed nothing more. I wrote about Benintendi back in December, the Cliffs Notes version being there’s a lot more there than perhaps it would appear given his performance over the past two seasons.
Then on Sunday I addressed the new trade rumors. I like Benintendi as a player and I think he’s more valuable than he’s shown the last few seasons. Still, it’s not surprising the Red Sox are exploring every option and given he has two years left of team control before free agency, Benintendi represents a reasonable trade option for a team with as many holes on its roster as the Red Sox.
This team isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, tearing things down however, so unless there is a starting left fielder elsewhere on the team’s radar, adding two or three potentially talented 18- or 19-year-olds to the A-ball roster is a simultaneously self-defeating and 2021-defeating idea. In contrast, trading Benintendi for a good Double-A prospect and then signing Marcel Ozuna or a similar player to a three year contract is a potentially workable strategy that could improve the team in the short and long term, though while adding salary. Even so, depending on the specifics, that could be a good way to go.
3. How is Rafael Devers not signed to a contract extension yesterday?
If you had a young, telegenic star on your roster, a joyous fan favorite, and a player with endless potential, you would probably try to sign him to a long term contract, right? Ah, but you’re not the Boston Red Sox! Ha ha I kid because I love. The Red Sox haven’t contacted third baseman Rafael Devers about a contract extension as of yet, according to his agent who spoke with Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. If we’re being truthful here, and why wouldn’t we - this is a newsletter, after all - this is typically the kind of thing that gets finished towards the end of the off-season, but there’s no time like the present when trying to keep your best players from the gruesome fate of having to be traded to the Dodgers in two years.
Devers is coming off a slightly down season, though one caveated by the fact that it was so short. Thing is, the down season was mostly a poor first eight games. Devers put up a .532 OPS in those, but an .837 OPS over the last 48. It wasn’t the stand-out performance of 2019, but I don’t doubt that had he not been denied the last 110 games of the 2020 season, his final numbers would have looked similar.
It’s hard to put too much stock in any 2020 season data, but despite his slow first two weeks, Devers’ StatCast numbers still look quite good. His average launch angle was exactly the same in 2020 as it had been in 2019, and he barreled the ball more than all but five percent of other major leaguers. The rest of the numbers bounce around a bit when comparing them to 2019 but they don’t obscure the point which is Devers didn’t fall off so much as the season ended prematurely. Going forward there’s no reason not to think of him as a star third baseman and one of the best hitters on the Red Sox.
So what might a Rafael Devers contract extension look like? Interestingly enough, one of his former minor league teammates could serve as a bit of a template. Yoan Moncada signed a five year, $70 million deal with a $25 million team option for a sixth year with the White Sox in March, 2020. Moncada was 24 at the time and the deal bought out all four of his remaining years of team control as well as one year of free agency with the option for a second. Devers is the same age as Moncada was when he signed with the same number of years of team control remaining. Further, both players have had similarly valuable careers. Devers has been worth 8.2 WAR and received down ballot MVP votes once. At the time Moncada signed, he had been worth 8.9 WAR and likewise received down ballot MVP votes once. I would guess a Devers extension would fall slightly short of Moncada’s total dollars if they did the same structure, but the similarity of the players in age and performance make Moncada’s deal a reasonable comparison for what a Devers extension could look like.
This is an opportunity to keep a homegrown star in Boston for a long time. We’ll see what the Red Sox do with it.
Would you sign Rafeal Devers to a five year, $70 million contract extension? Let me know in the comments!