Need for Nunez grows
Free agent a must as Pedroia’s fill-in
Dustin Pedroia will not be ready for the start of next season, and the Red Sox are now stuck between the urgency of short-term need and uncertainty of long-term commitment.
Pedroia underwent cartilage restoration surgery on his left knee yesterday, and the team announced he is expected to return to game action in approximately seven months, which would be the end of May.
The Red Sox are going to need a fill-in second baseman until then, and they might very well need a dependable backup even after Pedroia returns.
“Feel we can handle the second base position internally,” Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski wrote in an email. “In regards to additional depth, little early for me to answer that.”
There’s an interesting disparity in that stance: confidence that internal options can fill the void, but uncertainty about the current depth being sufficient.
Here’s the second base depth chart beyond Pedroia, in no particular order: Brock Holt, Deven Marrero, Josh Rutledge, Marco Hernandez and TzuWei Lin. The first three had an OPS below .600 this season, and the other two don’t have enough big league atbats to know what kind of hitters they’ll be.
Are there enough inhouse options to fill in at second base for two months? Sure. That’s basically the group that filled in at third base when Pablo Sandoval went belly-up in June and eventually was designated for assignment.
Is there confidence such depth can get the Red Sox through a season? Hardly. There’s a reason the Red Sox had to fast-track Rafael Devers to play third, and there’s a reason they traded for Eduardo Nunez to play anywhere.
What the Sox need is a capable second baseman who can reliably do the job while Pedroia is rehabbing but won’t become completely obsolete when he’s back in the lineup. They need Nunez again. The role for the soon-tobe free agent would be just as clear today as it was when the Red Sox acquired him from San Francisco in July. At the time, every infield position was covered, but Nunez wound up becoming the Red Sox’ regular second baseman in August because of Pedroia’s knee, and he had an .892 OPS in 38 games before suffering his own knee injury in September, a sprained PCL that was not considered a long-term concern or candidate for surgery.
Nunez would fill in for Pedroia, provide insurance behind Devers and serve as a batfirst backup to Xander Bogaerts at shortstop. He also could play the outfield in a pinch, and even if he were to get significant atbats at designated hitter, Nunez’ .774 OPS the past three years is better than all but two American League teams got from the DH position this year.
Nunez would surely come with the price tag of an everyday player, but that might be exactly what the
Sox need.
Pedroia has four years left on his contract, and this season revealed the unpredictability of a 34-year-old infielder playing with a bad knee. Pedroia had offseason knee surgery last year as well — a relatively minor meniscus cleanup — but still missed three games in April because of the knee, he went on the disabled list soon after the All-Star break because of the knee, and he was in and out of the lineup through September because of the knee.
“Obviously, we had to try and find a way to do what we did so I could be out there,” Pedroia said at season’s end. “But if you were to get it fixed, the recovery is a long time.”
Getting it fixed is what Pedroia tried to do yesterday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, and the Red Sox were not caught off guard by the decision.
Their in-house alternatives are light-hitting utility infielders. The rest of the free agent market is mostly a combination of fading All-Stars (Chase Utley, Brandon Phillips), out-of-position hypotheticals (Zack Cosart, Asdrubal Cabrera), a good second baseman with limited versatility (Neil Walker) and a former second baseman who’s mostly a left fielder now (Howie Kendrick).
Trade options are limited, both in terms of what the Red Sox can give up and what they can expect in return.
But clearly they need something.
Yesterday’s procedure should improve Pedroia’s outlook, but what exactly that means seems to be anyone’s guess. Surgery did not make him 10 years younger, and it did not come with an on-the-verge second base prospect for the Red Sox to take home.
The Red Sox could cross their fingers with Lin and Marrero for a couple of months, then cross their fingers with Pedroia for four months and three years after that.
Or they could do what they did in July and go after Nunez, uncertain how exactly they’ll use him day to day but convinced they would need him one way or another.