Late June Dispatch

Red Sox Offense Since Trading Devers

.188 BA, 30th/30
.251 OBP, 30th/30
.322 SLG, 29th/30
7% BB%, 26th/30
28% K%, 30th/30
53 wRC+, 30th/30

Harrison, Tibbs, And The Rest

Let’s start with Harrison. Yes, he was a Top 20-to-40ish prospect pre-2023 and pre-2024 across publications, but by the time of the trade, a lot of that shine had worn off. How much? Jon Heyman reported the Giants floated a trade offer of Harrison to the Orioles for free agent to be Ryan O'Hearn offer before the Devers trade, but the O’s weren’t ready to sell and didn’t consider Harrison enough on his own.

Harrison has a quality fastball and can get strikeouts, but there are a lot of questions about if he can find an array of secondary offerings that function well given the way he throws the ball. So far in the majors, when batters have made contact, they have crushed him. The chart below show xwOBACON (expected wOBA on contact), which is quality of contact based on exit velocity and launch angle.

This outlook kind of reminds me of Crawford. You really like the idea, but there is so much loud contact and homers to navigate. When the ball stays in the yard, you’re feeling great, but trouble is ever looming, and you don’t know if they’ll ever get over the hump.

Much is being made about the Red Sox sending him to Worcester to add a cutter, but the Giants had him throwing a similar pitch in late 2023 and early 2024, so it’s recycling something.

Earlier today in the Globe, the Red Sox chief baseball officer stated, "We see him as a major league starter with the upside to pitch at the front of the rotation."

Tibbs was taken with the pick after Montgomery in the first round last year, but that doesn’t tell you much. Montgomery was injured and slid, while possessing star corner outfield upside. Tibbs is more of a high floor hitter, that is limited defensively, but is likely to carve out a major league career. The lack of a headline trait, and likely being limited to LF/1B if he played at Fenway, makes it unsurprising that there has already been talk that his time in the Sox organization could be a quick, and he is a candidate to be flipped in another deal.

Jose Bello was the lottery ticket. He’s 20-years-old in the Complex League with good stuff but no chance to start.

At the time of the trade, I didn’t realize Hicks still had 2026 and 2027 to go on his contract. When pitching out of the bullpen the last three years, he’s had 20 shutdowns and 16 meltdowns.

Bregman

The Bregman’s Open To Extension Talks headlines have been churned out at warp speed pace the last few days, which really should be titled Player And Agent Have Team Over A Barrel At Gunpoint And Are Ready To Negotiate.

There’s little chance that going long term on a Bregman contract works out well beyond a couple of years, but besides signing Kyle Tucker, lol, I don’t even know what direction the team could turn for primary offense at a position of need.

Bregman was spectacular for his 226 PA introduction before injury, almost instantly ending any chance of him not opting-out of his reasonable high price, short term deal.

For much of the season, Bregman, Narvaez and Toro were the Red Sox batters most over-performing their metrics. We have seen Narvaez (83 PA, .211/.325/.338) and Toro (51 PA, .191/.255/.298) have major stat corrections recently, curious if Bregman’s outcomes will also drop back to his underlying data upon his return, or if he can keep his Pull Air % at a career high level in a crazy contract drive.

Notable that the Tigers, who Bregman rejected $175M from, are currently 51-31 while getting 78 wRC+ production from their third basemen

How this whole situation plays out will be interesting.

Duran

Duran has had 500 plate appearances in his last 110 games. In that stretch, he has batted .251/.301/.384, 6 HR, 17 SB, 8 CS, which comes out to an 86 wRC+. That ranks 118th/135 players with 350+ PA.

What looked like a Red Sox long-term catalyst last summer, has crashed down to Earth even more than preseason projections estimated. Recently, there has been reporting of multiple teams checking the temperature on trade offers. There have been reports of a high price tag, and there have been reports of his value around the game being lower (or much lower) than expected. I’ve heard in conversation that there are teams that may have him set as do not acquire.

I have no idea what to expect the Red Sox to do here. He’s been out of the leadoff spot in 5 of the past 11 games. In the past, he dramatically over-performed his solid metrics, and this year he is slightly under-performing rough metrics. Defense and decision-making have regressed alarmingly. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle of all this, but I wouldn’t be confident at all in predicting how his next year, or two, or three go.

If teams like the Phillies and Padres are sniffing around in a major seller’s market while being all-in on a championship season, it’s hard not to expect a trade. That would, theoretically, settle the Red Sox outfield long-term while shifting value to other areas of the roster.

Yoshida

Going along with the above, Yoshida is starting his rehab in a few days, and the Red Sox have talked about getting him back into the lineup more over the last week than they did over the first two months of the season. Well, they’re already playing with 4 starting outfielders now, so doesn’t Yoshida returning exacerbate the outfield/DH logjam they’re already avoiding settling?

Players Against Devers

Over the past few months, I think Chris Cotillo in particular took a lot of shit for talking about how the Red Sox clubhouse dynamic was off and how some players were not happy with Devers. I didn’t doubt that, but felt it was ridiculous by the players.

It’s been a week and a half since the trade, and after hearing some informed glimpses about the players in the clubhouse, I feel even stronger about how ridiculous some players reacted.

What I did find interesting, from what I heard, players that were most “against Devers” weren’t players that I would have logically aligned together. The most obvious candidate to be against Devers, was, but so was a player that I would have put near the last of my guesses. There is also a pitcher that I genuinely want off the team immediately after some of the stuff I was told.

To me, it sounds like the Red Sox have some cancers they need to address, but rather than performing the necessary surgery, they opted for an elective, disfiguring procedure instead.

Trade Deadline

Campbell has graduated, and Mayer and Anthony won’t be far behind. That means new players will slide into the top of the Red Sox farm rankings. But that doesn’t make them close to their equals. Arias, Garcia, Tibbs, etc. I would have no hesitation selling over the next month. If there is a team out there that is treating Arias like his current #60 BA ranking, I think it would actually be crazy for him to still be here come August 1st.

The Red Sox already saying they are buyers for a “deep postseason run” this year seems like yet another unnecessarily early, delusional, declaration.

Hamilton

In April, Will Flemming on a WEEI broadcast said he’d heard, “Crazy inside baseball rumors about packages that were offered for Hamilton that the Red Sox turned down because they believe so much in the player.”

I don’t know what was being alluded to there, but before that comment, the rumor floating around that I’d heard was Hamilton for Luis Castillo. Never dug in for confirmation or anything on that.

Hamilton has got to play every day since Devers got traded, it’s been great.

Playoffs

Yearly reminder to look at the odds, not being X games out of a spot. Surviving out of a large cluster of teams is hard, jumping multiple teams the deeper you get into a season is harder. The Red Sox have played .488 ball, they need to play .575 (93 win pace) to get to just 86 wins.

In the meantime, after Ortiz’s extraordinarily embarrassing efforts, look for the Red Sox to continue their newly launched PR crisis management tour at all expected outlets.