It may not have won the trade deadline, but team seems to have come out better
Random thoughts as the Red Sox enjoy a day off:
I don’t know if the Red Sox won the trade deadline, but they sure didn’t lose it, despite reactions and overreactions beginning at, oh, 4:01 p.m. on July 31.
(Consider this a guilty plea, but some deserve far longer sentences than I do.)
Since finally making his injury-delayed start with the Red Sox, Kyle Schwarber has been an on-base machine (.406 OBP, .863 OPS), and he’s someone you want at the plate late in the game (.975 OPS in late and clutch situations over the full season). If the Red Sox make the postseason and somehow stick around for a while, I bet he delivers a memorable moment or two.
Chaim Bloom should have picked up another reliever other than Austin Davis (who has been adequate) and Hansel Robles (who has mostly been combustible), but the Red Sox clearly got more help than it seemed at the time.
In a sense, the Red Sox picked up Bobby Dalbec at the trade deadline as well — or at least he picked himself up and started mashing like a one-man tribute to the Bash Brothers.
In 39 games since Aug. 1, or the day after the deadline, Dalbec is slashing .316/.409/.737 (for a 1.146 OPS), with 12 home runs, 22 extra-base hits and 36 RBIS in 132 plate appearances. He’s still striking out at a high rate (34 Ks in 112 at-bats), but it’s not nearly as high as it was, and he’s walked 15 times in that stretch after walking just 13 times in his first 280 at-bats.
Obviously, he’s not going to stay this hot, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this streak changed the shape of his career. He might have been another couple of 0-for-4s away from getting a one-way trip to Worcester for the rest of the summer.
Shifting views of the Betts trade: The Venn diagram of people who like to point out that Alex Verdugo has a higher batting average than Mookie Betts this season and claim Mookie never would have re-signed in Boston is a closed circle of the closed-minded.
Betts has missed 40 games, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll be durable deep into his contract, but let’s stop with the extremely selective statistical comparisons in a transparent attempt to justify trading a generational player.
Last year, Betts was second in the MVP race, first in the National League in WAR and won a World Series. He has an .887 OPS this year while excelling defensively and on the bases.
You want to compare Verdugo with an ex-red Sox outfielder, make it Andrew Benintendi, who has the exact same WAR (2.6) this season.
Enjoy the ride: The Red Sox have had their frustrating stretches, and some of their problems are self-inflicted. But they deserve a tip of the cap for being in a position to play meaningful games in late September in a season when most pegged them to be mediocre to lousy.
There are no more true pennant races, but the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Yankees being within 2 games of each other in pursuit of two wild-card slots is about as close as we get. This is going to be fun. It already is.