FORT MYERS, Fla. – Alex Cora understands the doubt.
How could he not? This is the second time in the last three years that the Red Sox have reported to spring training on the heels of a last-place season. And they’ve been picked to finish at the bottom again this year; hypothesizing that their losses outweigh their gains this offseason, Fangraphs’ ZiPS projections have Boston ending up with a 79-83 record.
Hey, that’s one game better than last year.
“The way we played last year, I don’t blame them,” Cora commiserated on Tuesday.
And since that final game in early October, the Red Sox have said goodbye to 32 players who appeared in at least one game last year, including Xander Bogaerts, JD Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Christian Vázquez (again), to name a few. In their place are 16 newcomers on the 40-man roster.
Still, the season is unwritten, and he thinks fans should give this team a chance. This week’s PECOTA projections are a bit kinder, currently making the Red Sox the fourth-place team, with a .502 winning percentage. Fangraphs’ Steamer projections are very high on Japanese star Masataka Yoshida, and the bullpen is markedly better thanks to the additions of Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, and Richard Bleier.
“I’m not gonna come here and say that we’re gonna play Nov. 5, or whenever Game 7 or Game 6 of the World Series is,” Cora told reporters. “But we’re going to get better. I always say, we’ve got a good baseball team, you know. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have done it before. Some of them they’ve been together in other venues and they were successful. Hopefully, we can accomplish that here in Boston.”
He also thinks the larger bases – one of three MLB rule changes – look like pizza boxes. Jerry Remy would’ve loved that.
It sounds like those hoping to see Yoshida and Rafael Devers hit back-to-back this year will be disappointed.
Speaking to reporters at JetBlue Park for the first time this Sox Spring, Alex Cora said he hoped to keep Yoshida and Devers separated in the lineup.
With Yoshida expected to be the leadoff man, Devers will find himself hitting third.
Yoshida is also a question mark, as he’s never played in the majors. Still, the clear appeal of batting him in the leadoff spot is his ability to get on base; over seven seasons in Japan’s Nippon league, the 29-year-old displayed mind-blowing plate discipline, drawing 427 walks to 307 strikeouts in 781 career games between the Orix Buffaloes and their minor-league affiliate.
It makes sense that the manager wouldn’t want to put two lefty hitters at the top of the lineup, but it brings up another issue: If not Yoshida, who will protect the superstar?
A former superstar would like to know. In January, David Ortiz went on WEEI and publicly voiced concerns that the Red Sox lineup couldn’t bolster the young slugger, leaving him exposed to strategic pitching.
“If I’m facing him, I’m pitching around him, regardless. No doubt about it… I have been there before, and if I had no one behind me, they won’t pitch to me… You have to find someone who can consistently protect him so he can continue to keep seeing pitches,” he said.
Remember Game 6 of the 2013 World Series? Ortiz had collected 11 hits over the previous five games, including pairs of doubles and home runs, and hadn’t struck out once. In what turned out to be the deciding game, St. Louis waved the white flag, intentionally walking him three times. But Ortiz added a fourth walk, scored twice, and the Red Sox clinched a championship at home for the first time since 1918.
The following season, Ortiz hit 35 home runs, while no one else in the lineup collected more than 17. In an unfortunate case of deja vu, Devers hit 27 homers last season and was the only Sox hitter with more than 16. Yoshida hit 20+ home runs in four of his last five seasons in Japan.
Devers is coming off a somewhat disappointing season. After starting strong and making his second consecutive All-Star team, a hamstring ailment landed him on the Injured List. Whereas he hit .324/.379/.601 with 22 home runs and 28 doubles in the first half (86 games), he only managed a .249/.325/.388 line, 14 doubles, and five home runs in the second half (55 games).
Still, the third baseman finished the season with 42 doubles and the aforementioned 27 home runs and was a finalist for the Hank Aaron and Silver Slugger awards, but the pressure is undoubtedly higher now that he’s signed to the longest and richest contract in franchise history; he needs to succeed, but the Red Sox also need to set him up for success.
In the early years, Ortiz had Manny Ramirez, and for the first six seasons of his career, Devers had some combination of Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and/or JD Martinez. This year, he has Kiké Hernández, Triston Casas, Justin Turner, Adam Duvall, maybe Adalberto Mondesí? Trevor Story could return from elbow surgery at some point, but chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has refused to rule out an entire season on the sidelines.
It’s a roster with immense potential, but also some serious risk. The Red Sox will need a lot to go right, or the biggest investment in franchise history will find himself alone in the lineup.
Cora is welcoming a slew of newcomers to Fort Myers, and admitted on Tuesday that one of this offseason’s acquisitions surprised him.
According to the Red Sox skipper, Adalberto Mondesí is “like Xander-esque as far as like, tall, strong, big legs.” Cora told reporters – including MassLive’s Christopher Smith – that he thought the middle infielder would be “smaller.”
Unfortunately, the similarities pretty much end there. While Mondesí brings some serious speed to the table (he stole 43 bases in 2019 and led MLB with 24 in 2020) that should play well on the new, larger bases, his bat leaves much to be desired.
Since his 2016 debut, Mondesí is a .244/.280/.408 hitter; over the same span, Bogaerts hit .295/.365/.480. Mondesí has played 358 career regular-season games, with 54 doubles, 20 triples, and 38 home runs; Bogaerts hit 243 doubles, 11 triples, and 136 home runs over 946 games between 2016-22 (he debuted in 2013). Mondesí has a career 30.2% strikeout rate and 4.4% walk rate; Bogaerts has an 18% SO% and 9.4% BB% over that span.
Chalk some of that up to the Mondesí not getting regular playing time, but it wasn’t always because the Royals had an everyday player blocking him. Whereas the new Padres shortstop has been consistently healthy throughout the first decade of his career, the newcomer has been on the Injured List more than half a dozen times since 2018. He played a career-high 102 games in 2019, but didn’t exceed 75 games in any of the other six seasons of his career. And on Tuesday, Bloom said he wouldn’t bet on Mondesí being ready for Opening Day, calling it the “best-case scenario.”
We’ll probably hear that phrase a lot this year.
Speaking of Bogaerts, he’ll have a familiar face joining him in San Diego; Michael Wacha is signing with the Padres, too.
