Opening Day Would’ve Started Red Sox’s Road To Redemption

Boston Red Sox ownership has been taking well-earned criticism ever since the completion of the long-rumored trade of Mookie Betts and David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Feb. 10.

It was going to be difficult to reverse the narrative about John Henry and Tom Werner’s sudden bout of thriftiness sending the Red Sox down a tunnel that leads to being the Miami Marlins. But ownership’s best chance would’ve been Boston getting off to a hot start in 2020 starting with its first regular-season game at the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.

Now the Coronavirus pandemic and the postponement of the start of the Major League Baseball season has delayed ownership’s shot at redemption. Ace lefty Chris Sale’s season-ending Tommy John surgery also hasn’t helped the Red Sox brass’s case that Boston can win without Betts and Price (not to mention Rick Porcello and Brock Holt, each of whom left via free agency over the winter).

After following their 2018 World Series title by flopping into third place in the American League East in 2019, the Red Sox’s only way to execute Henry’s plan to reset the club’s luxury tax penalties, outside of taking pennies on the dollar and trading off half the starting lineup in a salary purge, was to get what the Red Sox could for Betts and Price.

The Red Sox, however, are far from a skeleton team in the aftermath of the trade. And there was a glimmer of hope that by May or June people would’ve forgotten about Betts, Price, Porcello and Holt, and instead they’d be out-of-this-world in love with Boston’s reworked core.

That group starts with the left side of the infield: shortstop Xander Bogaerts and third baseman Rafael Devers. Depending on your point of view, Bogaerts, 27, is either a sucker or a savior for signing his six-year, $120 million contract extension last spring. He probably didn’t realize how quickly he would become the centerpiece of Boston’s lineup, but if that challenge was something he was wishing for he can now consider it granted. After the Red Sox’s collapse in 2019 as a team, it’s easy to forget Bogaerts had a .939 OPS and emerged as one of the game’s best players, not just best shortstops.

And however long Bogaerts holds the title of the centerpiece of the Red Sox’s offense will probably be determined by how long it takes Devers to steal it from him. The 23-year-old had a .916 OPS last season and had a .836 OPS after his late start to spring training.

J.D. Martinez, Christian Vazquez, Michael Chavis and Jackie Bradley Jr. (entering his contract year and coming off a 1.141 OPS in spring training) all also gave the Red Sox hope for having a dangerous lineup in 2020.

The pitching, however, wasn’t quite as deep even before Sale’s decision to have surgery. Eduard Rodriguez finished sixth in Cy Young voting in 2019 and allowed just two runs in his first 11 spring training innings. He has emerging ace written all over him. Nathan Eovaldi showed ace potential at earlier parts of his career, so a healthy 2020 could’ve made him at least the Red Sox’s No. 2. After that the Red Sox were set to rely on Martin Perez (5.12 ERA last season) and Ryan Weber (29 years old with just 11 big league starts to his credit) in the No. 3 and 4 slots, and they still hadn’t figured out a plan for a No. 5 starter, although an opener was probably going to get the nod.

The bullpen was sufficiently deep, led by Brandon Workman, Matt Barnes and Marcus Walden.

The beauty of opening day, though, is that it allows people to imagine a Weber or Perez emerging as a front-end starter the way Workman became a closer last season. It allows for the dream that someone like Chavis or Bobby Dalbec could hit the big leagues like a lightning strike and help the Red Sox close the gap on the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. The right amount of success in March and April would have allowed ownership to come out from under the heat lamp of criticism.

Instead the MLB season is on hold indefinitely, and so is Red Sox ownership’s shot at redemption. Maybe Boston can hold out hope that in a shortened season anything can happen.



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