The 2019 Boston Red Sox never woke up from their championship hangover. 11 months after capping off a historic 108-win season that ended with duck boats rolling down Boylston Street, the Sox were officially eliminated from postseason contention last Friday.
To call the team a disappointment would be an understatement.
With the highest payroll in Major League Baseball and an offense that ranks in the top five in the game in nearly every statistical category, a third-place finish in the AL East is simply unacceptable.
There are a handful of clear reasons for Boston’s poor performance: injury-plagued inconsistency from Chris Sale and David Price, offensive regression from Andrew Benintendi and a horrendous bullpen, to name a few. Rick Porcello also had a rough year, plus 2018 playoff heroes and offseason signings Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce proved mostly useless due to injuries as well.
While the Red Sox will be watching the 2019 postseason from home like you and me, there were some bright spots this season.
Michael Chavis burst into the big leagues with a strong first half before a shoulder injury sidelined him. Brandon Workman finally found his form, posting a 1.91 earned-run average while averaging 13 strikeouts per nine innings. Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez both continued to dominate opposing pitchers.
But the true silver linings of the 2019 Red Sox campaign can be found in a small core of young players who each had career years and all of whom are under team control through at least 2022: Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Rodriquez and Christian Vasquez.
What Devers is accomplishing at only 22-years-old is truly incredible. He has 31 home runs (most by a Red Sox third baseman ever), 114 runs batted in, 51 doubles, a .309 batting average, a .912 on-base plus slugging percentage and has a real shot to reach 200 hits. His defense has improved as well.
Finishing up his second full season in the majors, Devers will not be a free agent until 2024. Devers was expected to grow into his power, but it’s safe to say nobody anticipated an MVP-caliber season this soon. His future is very bright.
Moving from third to shortstop, Bogaerts has also had an impressive year: career-highs of 32 homers, 113 RBIs, and 51 doubles, plus a .305 average and .928 OPS. Bogaerts has emerged as a reliable leader in the Sox clubhouse and on the field, and he has solidified his place as one of the elite shortstops in the game. He is sure to be in the MVP conversation as well.
On April 1, Bogaerts signed a long-term extension that will keep him in Boston until at least 2025. The deal starts in 2020, and guarantees the star shortstop $120 million over six seasons, with a vesting option in 2026. A fan favorite and perennial All-Star, this was an excellent move by the Sox.
Christian Vásquez has always had a complicated relationship with home plate. Behind it, he has been one of the best defensive catchers of the last few years. At the plate, though, he’s been a typical offensively inept backstop.
In 2019, that changed. Vasquez has set career highs in hits (131), home runs (23), RBIs (71), and OPS (.798). Before this season, Vasquez had 10 career homers, spread out over 4 seasons. His power surge has been a welcome addition to the Sox lineup and it fully justifies the team’s decision to part ways with Blake Swihart early in the season. Vasquez becomes a free agent in 2023.
Last but certainly not least, lefty Eduardo Rodriguez has finally become the dangerous pitcher we’ve been waiting for all these years. In his fifth full season in Boston, Rodriguez sits at 19-6 with a 3.76 ERA and 205 punchouts in 196.1 innings.
In the second half, E-Rod owns a 2.79 ERA, and the Sox are 25-8 overall in games he has started. On a team with Chris Sale, arguably the best pitcher in the league over the past six years, plus a pair of Cy Young Award winners in Price and Porcello, Rodriguez has been Boston’s best starter this season. He’s been consistent, reliable, and at many times, unhittable. He’s still only 26 and doesn’t hit the market for three more years.
At the end of the day, the Red Sox find themselves in a precarious position. Heading into an offseason where key players like Betts, Martinez and Porcello could all depart, the team has no general manager. The Sox will be home in October, watching their rival New York Yankees pursue a 28th ring. It could well be a long winter in Beantown.
But whoever takes over baseball operations should still sleep well at night. Despite all the uncertainty that lays ahead, the Red Sox have a solid, young core of talent that is only getting better and many of them will be in Boston for the foreseeable future. The continued progression of Devers, Bogaerts, Vasquez and Rodriguez, among others was a silver lining in a disappointing season for the Red Sox. There are some serious reasons for optimism as the team prepares for a crucial offseason.
