We don’t know who will be calling the shots in the Red Sox front office and likely won’t for a few more weeks.
But whoever is hired will have some big decisions to make, and soon. Most of those will be focused on starting pitching, the team’s most obvious and most pressing need. Any path back to contender status for the Red Sox begins with acquiring at least two proven starting pitchers, whether they come via trade or free agency.
There will be other calls to make too, however. One may be whether the Sox will be among the bidders for San Diego Padres outfielder Juan Soto.
It’s expected that the Padres are going to slash payroll this winter. For CBT purposes, the Padres spent nearly $300 million last season, and needed a furious finish (20-7) to finish with a winning record — and even then, only barely (82-80).
The team isn’t expected to retain free agents Blake Snell and Josh Hader, but even removing them from their payroll won’t result in a big enough reduction in spending. Speculation is that the team will also shop Soto, who will be entering the final year of team control in 2024.
Soto is a marvelous offensive performer. In six seasons, he owns a career OPS of .946 and an OBP of .421, tops in the game over that span. Following a disappointing 2022 during which he was dealt from the Washington Nationals to the Padres, Soto bounced back in 2023, leading MLB in walks (132), popped 35 homers and finished with a .930 OPS.
But there are a number of factors that have to be considered should the Sox entertain bidding for him.
* As noted, Soto is a free agent after next season. The Red Sox — or any other team, for that matter — would be shipping multiple players and/or prospects to rent Soto for just one season. And the price will be costly. The Athletic’s Jim Bowden, proposing some possible packages that could land Soto, had the Red Sox giving up Alex Verdugo, Tanner Houck, outfield prospect Miguel Bleis and pitching prospect Luis Perales.
Bleis, who missed most of last season with a shoulder injury, is the No. 3 ranked prospect by SoxProspects.com while Perales is ranked No. 7 overall and is the top-ranked pitcher in the organization.
That’s a boatload to give up for one season of Soto — good as he is.
* Soto has already turned down $440 million over 15 years from the Nationals before they dealt him to San Diego, so that should give you some idea as to what it would take to extend him. Soto won’t turn 25 until later this month, and will probably be looking at a deal of at minimum a dozen years, and for perhaps as many as 15, with an AAV (average annual value) in the neighborhood of $35 million. And that doesn’t count his 2024 salary, for which he’ll be arbitration-eligible and is expected to exceed $30 million.
But as big a commitment as that would be for the Red Sox, there’s this to consider: Soto is represented by Scott Boras, who has a longstanding habit of taking his clients to free agency in order to maximize their value.
Translated: the Red Sox could give up two of of their best half-dozen or so prospects, plus additional major league pieces, and wouldn’t have much of advantage — if any — to extend him. The Sox could give the Padres a boatload of talent, only to be outbid by the Yankees or another team a year from now.
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* As great as Soto is as a hitter, he’s decidedly less than league-average as a defender. Last year, Soto was -5 in defensive runs saved as the Padres’ everyday left fielder.
It’s highly doubtful that Soto could handle the expansive right field of Fenway Park, and he certainly isn’t suitable for center. The small dimensions in left at Fenway would make patrolling left field far easier, but he’d still have to play half his games on the road, where left field requires covering far more ground.
And what would that mean for Masataka Yoshida? The Red Sox are committed to him for four more years, and Yoshida was one of the worst defensive outfielders in the American League last year. He certainly can’t be moved to another outfield spot, so obtaining Soto would effectively mean making Yoshida a very expensive DH for the remainder of his contract.
* Finally, the Red Sox are already very left-handed. Going forward, their two most productive hitters (Rafael Devers and Triston Casas) are both lefthanded. Shortstop-of-the-future Marcelo Mayer is lefthanded, and so, too, is elite outfield prospect Roman Anthony. Add in Jarren Duran and Yoshida to the mix and you’re looking at a lineup with as many as six or seven lefties by 2025.
Lefties can thrive at Fenway, and have: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn, Wade Boggs, Mo Vaughn, David Ortiz…the list is almost endless. But at some point, you have to consider that half your games are played elsewhere and some balance is needed in the lineup.
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If the name Maurico Dubon sounds familiar, it should.
Dubon has emerged as a highly valuable piece for Houston Astros, now in the ALCS. Earlier in the season, he took over at second base while Jose Altuve missed the first few months with a broken thumb, incurred during the World Baseball Classic. When Altuve returned to the lineup, Dubon began to contribute in the outfield and is probably their best defender there.
hough born in Honduras, Dubon went to high school in Sacramento and was drafted by the Red Sox in 2013.
The Red Sox, under Dave Dombrowski, included Dubon, pitching prospect Josh Pennington, infield prospect Yeison Coca and Travis Shaw to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for reliever Tyler Thornburg. It turned out to be a terrible swap for the Red Sox. Shaw hit 63 homers and knocked in 187 runs over the next two seasons for the Brewers, while Thornburg was either injured or ineffective in 41 games (ERA: 6.54) over the next two years.
And then there’s Dubon, who kicked around from Milwaukee to the San Francisco Giants and, finally, the Astros, who obtained him in May of 2022.
Ten years later after the Sox first traded him, Dubon has just now established himself as a regular, and Wednesday, was named a finalist for an American League Gold Glove at second base and, because he also plays the outfield, the “utility” Gold Glove, too. Dubon also established career highs in games played (132), homers (10) and RBI (46).
It’s a reminder that some players can take a while to establish themselves. Dombrowski is sometimes unfairly accused of dealing away too many prospects without regard to what they might someday contribute, but this is one he’d probably like to have back.
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Just a thought, but worth asking: would the new Red Sox GM/president of baseball operations consider moving Mayer for pitching help?
Executives tend to have emotional connections to players whom they draft, which is understandable. After the Red Sox finished with the fourth-worst record in 2020, the only solace that Chaim Bloom had was the opportunity to select a prized prospect like Mayer with his top pick the following summer.
Mayer represented hope for the future, a building block around whom Bloom could construct the next great Red Sox roster. In managing up to the owners, and discussing the franchise’s future with the fan base, Mayer was the carrot, the player everyone was willing to wait to develop.
But for the person hired in the next few weeks to replace Bloom, that attachment is nonexistent. To the new GM, Mayer is a highly-regarded prospect with a high ceiling — nothing less and nothing more.
And if an offer comes along in which the Red Sox could land a front-of-the-rotation starting pitcher, it’s a fair bet that proposal will be given far more consideration than it would have a few months ago.
Maybe Mikey Romero becomes the shortstop of the future. Or, with Trevor Story signed for the next four seasons, maybe it’s one of two 18-year-olds — international free agent Yoeilin Cespedes, or recent second-round pick Nazzan Zanetello.
Again, just a thought.
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EXTRA INNNGS
1) The National Baseball Hall of Fame released an eight-person ballot for to be considered by its Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for Managers/Executives/Umpires for the Class of 2024. All of the candidates had their primary contributions to the game since 1980. The list: managers Jim Leyland, Cito Gaston, Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella; executives Hank Peters and Bill White; and umpires Joe West and Ed Montague. I don’t get a vote on this one, but I’d go with Leyland and Peters here. Leyland won a World Series and three pennants to go with winning 1,769 games. Peters helped lay the foundation for the Oakland dynasty of the early 1970s, the Orioles of the late-70s and early 80s, and then began the rebuild in Cleveland for great Indians teams in the mid-1990s. Successful candidates will need to be on 75 percent of the committee’s 16-member ballot, with voting conducted on the eve of the annual Winter Meetings in early December.
2) In his brief time with the Red Sox, Kyle Schwarber demonstrated the ability to match the moment. In the 2021 postseason, he may have only hit .205 with the Sox, but he had three homers in 11 games. And ever since, Schwarber has been an October weapon. In 60 career postseason games before Thursday, Schwarber has 18 homers, including a stunning 11 “Schwarbombs” in 15 NLCS games. The only player in MLB history to out-homer Schwarber in LCS games (10) is Manny Ramirez, who had 13 in his career. And no lefthanded hitter in history — this includes Reggie Jackson, David Oritz and others — has more postseason homers than Schwarber.
3) Postseason performance can often help boost the Hall of Fame candidacies of some players. Altuve already has a pretty case to make for himself based on regular season play alone. At 33, he’s a six-time All-Star, a three-time batting champion, an AL MVP (and two other Top 5 finishes for the award), a six-time Silver Slugger winner, four 200-hit seasons, 293 stolen bases and a career OPS of .834. With 2,047 career hits, he has at least an outside shot of reaching the 3,000 plateau. But if he needs to convince voters further, he can always point to the fact that he’s clubbed more postseason home runs than anyone in the history of the game. And while you can’t compare eras — prior to 1969, the World Series was the lone postseason series — there’s no denying Altuve’s history of October excellence.
