Club has some options to replace Hunter Renfroe
BOSTON — When the Red Sox traded Hunter Renfroe as their final move before the MLB owners instituted a lockout last week, the Sox guaranteed two things.
One, they’d be without their best hitter vs. left-handed pitching in 2021, when Renfroe posted a team-high .885 OPS in more than 200 plate appearances against lefties.
And two, they’d also be without their best hitter vs. right-handed pitching in 2021, when Kyle Schwarber led the team with a 1.005 OPS against righties.
Renfroe is now on the Milwaukee Brewers and Schwarber is still an available free agent, but the Red Sox are in a pickle.
They need to essentially replace both sides of a platoon that contained their two most productive hitters. And given the way the roster is currently constructed, they’re likely going to be doing that with just one player.
The obvious answer is to sign a lefthanded hitting first baseman like Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo or, cross your fingers, Freddie Freeman, and then add a right-handed hitting outfielder like Seiya Suzuki, Jorge Soler or Andrew Mccutchen.
But are the Red Sox actually going to spend enough to fill both those holes adequately? All signs point to no, especially given the Sox have two internal options: Jarren Duran, the left-handed hitting outfielder, and Triston Casas, the left-handed hitting first baseman.
With the addition of Jackie Bradley Jr., that gives the Sox three additional lefthanded options while they’ve only lost one, Schwarber, who they could, and probably should, re-sign.
Before Schwarber made his Red Sox debut on Aug. 12, the Sox ranked sixth in MLB with a .762 OPS against right-handed pitching. After Aug. 12, when Schwarber returned and instantly changed the chemistry of the lineup, they catapulted up to an .849 OPS, good for first in MLB.
It’s usually easier to place a platoon righthanded bat than a platoon left-handed bat — consider the Sox paid just $3 million to sign Renfroe last offseason — and the Sox will have some options to replace Renfroe, whose .882 OPS against lefties ranked 35th out of 123 players with at least 150 plate appearances.
The point is, the Sox need another righthanded bat, and they probably need one who can play either second base or somewhere in the outfield.
As it stands, the alignment that makes the most sense is with Bradley in center field, Verdugo in right (where he was electric in 2020) and to-be-determined in left. That allows Kiké Hernandez to take over as the everyday second baseman, improving the Sox infield defense in a big way.
Where it gets tricky is if the Sox decide they want to use Bradley and Duran in the same lineup, which seems like a terrible idea.
They were two of the worst hitters in baseball at making contact last year, with Duran’s 69% contact rate ranking 409th out of 463 players (min. 100 PAS) and Bradley’s 68% contact rate ranking 422nd. Throw in Bobby Dalbec, whose 64% rate ranked 442nd, and the Sox have a serious problem if they plan to give these guys regular at-bats.
There were two areas they unquestionably needed to upgrade coming out of 2021: contact and defense.
They’ve upgraded their defense with the addition of Bradley, but damaged their contact rate while losing Renfroe and Schwarber.