We Can't Fix This

Because even forced good news isn't bad

There’s an old Saturday Night Live sketch that I love from 2012 that comes to mind having just watched the latest Red Sox loss, a 1-0 defeat to the Toronto Blue Jays. The premise of the sketch is a courtroom TV show, like The People’s Court from the 1980s, but the court is located in Maine. The twist is the judge and all the people in the court are actually from the Louisiana bayou. You can watch it here if you’re so inclined. It’s bizarre and doesn’t make much sense, but if you watch it 10 or 20 times it starts to be quite funny.

I’ve found that to be true of a number of things. The more you experience something, the funnier it can get. After a while you are in on the joke, and after that, it’s almost like it was your joke in the first place. And then something unfunny has become something hilarious that you want to share with your friends.

We haven’t hit that point for the Red Sox offense yet, but we are trending strongly in that direction.

So let’s get into it. First, a quick thanks for reading Sox Outsider. If you’re new here, welcome. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. It’s free. Just click the button. Thanks.

The first thing to note is the Red Sox aren’t hitting. You probably knew that, but in case you’re just returning from attempting to break the World’s Record for the longest nap I’d mention it. The second thing to note, and a thing that is very under-reported when discussing the Red Sox struggles at the plate, is that neither is almost ever other team. If you looked at the Red Sox team OPS of .619 and thought, oh my gosh, the entire team is hitting like Danny Santana, you’d be right. The entire team is hitting like Danny Santana. But, many other teams are hitting at sub-Danny Santana levels. Seven teams are below the Red Sox by OPS and three have team-level OPSs that start with a 5. The Reds team OPS looks like David Ortiz’s slugging career percentage. The 14th best hitting team in baseball right now is the Miami Marlins and they have a .690 team OPS.

So that’s the context. Hitting is way down league-wide. The potential reasons for it are many. It might be the abbreviated spring training, it might be the cold weather, it might be the new baseball, it might be what they’re doing to the new baseball, it might be aliens. It might be all of those things, it might be none. We don’t know. It’s definitely something larger than the Red Sox as a whole, though they are definitely feeling the effects.

So okay that’s the background. But what about the Red Sox? What is there to do to fix it on a team-specific level? It’s not a fun answer but I think the most prudent thing to do to fix it is to do…

nothing.

Keep playing baseball games. Keep running the best Red Sox hitters out there. The weather will warm up. The best hitters will warm up, too. And heck the ball will probably change and in two months we’ll all be complaining about how 70 homers is too much for a player to hit in a single month.

Part of the reason not doing anything is the best course of action for the Red Sox it’s still so early in the season. But another part, probably equal in size to the first part, is that there just aren’t any good courses of action to take. This is illustrated best, I think, by Jon Tomase of NBC Sports. Tomase wrote an article yesterday outlining three steps the Red Sox should take to get better right now. You can read that here, if you’re so inclined, but to summarize it quickly, the three steps are:

1) bring up first base prospect Triston Casas from Triple-A
2) bring up relief prospect Frank German from Double-A
3) trade for A’s starting pitcher Frankie Montas

Bringing up Casas makes sense. Bobby Dalbec has struggled and Casas is a prospect with a big bat and a .900 OPS. This isn’t a crazy suggestion at all. There are some ancillary issues it presents, like we’re about to shrink the roster by two spots at the end of April anyway and if we brought up Casas now we’d have add him to the 40 man roster, which means losing an additional player at a time when we’re already losing depth.

But if that’s the only issue and making that move will solve a big hole in the lineup, heck you make that move anyway every time. However, the Red Sox won’t take this step until it’s very clear that A) Dalbec isn’t working out and B) Casas will be the permanent replacement. Are those two things completely clear? Are they prepared to effectively throw Dalbec over the side (i.e. either back to Triple-A or into a bench/pinch hitting role) on the basis of one bad month? Has Casas effectively proved he’s ready for the big leagues on the basis of one pretty good but hardly great month? I don’t see either of those things as being decided. There is a cost to making this move and the Red Sox aren’t going to want to incur that cost until they absolutely have to. Which means very likely not now.

German is another suggestion along those same lines. Bringing him up would necessitate adding him to the 40 man and because he’s a pitcher and there can only be 13 pitchers on the major league roster, we’re talking about losing a third pitcher out of the major league bullpen to add a guy from Double-A. Also, it’s not like they’d bring up German and immediately slot him in the 8th or 9th inning. No, he’d pitch in low leverage situations at first, like all relievers do, and really like all relievers brought up from Double-A do. His impact would be muted for a while, in other words. If the front office decides he’s ready and they’re willing to lose the players to waivers to do it, fine, but I don’t think they want to take the hit to the organization’s depth for such a small addition.

As for adding Montas, sure. What’s it cost? Clearly the A’s are willing to deal anyone, but they’re not going to give a good starter away, so what are the Red Sox going to give up? It’s well and good to say “get that guy” but other teams have this pesky need to get players back.

It’s not exact, but the Baseball Trade Values trade simulator says it would cost the Red Sox the equivalent of Nick Yorke, the team’s 2020 1st round pick and currently their third best prospect, to get the deal done. If Yorke feels like too much, another option of about the same value would be the Red Sox best starting pitching prospect, Brayan Bello, 2020 overslot third round pick and power-hitting third baseman Blaze Jordan, and outfield prospect Jaren Duran.

Maybe it’s worth it do do that. Maybe the Red Sox should make that trade. Maybe the A’s would make that trade. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

The point is though, those are the best options. A double-A reliever? A desperate trade of Boston’s best prospects that would leave a permanent hole in the farm system?

I don’t say all this to beat on Tomase, whose writing I like, but to point out that the decisions have been made here. This is the team. There are some up-and-down guys who can be moved around on the margins, and of course the trade deadline represents an opportunity to make bigger moves, but there really isn’t that much that can be done at this point. I understand the desire to move things around. Things are going badly. So fix it! Fix it! But there really isn’t much fixing to be done. Though I suppose that doesn’t make for a great article, a fact I’m probably demonstrating right here.

Thanks for reading.