2020 ZiPS Projections: Boston Red Sox

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Boston Red Sox.

Batters

Last winter, my job was to temper expectations, noting that while the Red Sox had just won 108 games and the World Series, their baseline expectation was absolutely not 100 wins, and indeed, that they were a team with significant holes and depth issues. Now, it’s the opposite; people’s feelings about the Red Sox have taken a harsher turn than when Hulk Hogan turned on Macho Man Randy Savage in 1996. A lot went wrong in 2019, more than you’d expect in a typical season, and the roster justified more than their lackluster 84-78.

Naturally, there’s a “but” involved. The Red Sox have spent the winter trying to offload Mookie Betts to save money. It should go without saying, but this would be a serious hit to their 2020 hopes. While it might be tempting to compare the loss of Betts to Washington’s loss Bryce Harper — a loss the Nationals survived — Washington was able to essentially replace Harper’s production with Victor Robles and Juan Soto. Mookie Betts is a better player than Harper, and Robles and Soto are better than anyone the Red Sox have. The team could pick up a major league outfielder in a Betts trade, of course, but even an average player would still be a four-win hit from the Betts expectation.

And that’s a big deal. Boston’s not a 100-win team dropping to 96 wins in this scenario; they’re more like a 92-win team dropping to an 88-win one. The latter fall constitutes a much larger change in the trajectory of their fate. It also assumes they pick up a two-win player — someone like Manuel Margot — in such a trade. They may not, and Boston’s lack of depth means the internal options are far worse. ZiPS projects Jackie Bradley Jr. to be the team’s third-best outfielder. Now, keep scrolling until you get to the projected fourth-best outfielder, Jarren Duran, a speedy center fielder without enough defense to be compelling yet.

Now, not every outfield option is listed as being an outfielder, but those options are no more exciting. You could stick Michael Chavis in right and José Peraza at second, but if you were a kid and saw that combo in a toy store window, would you include it on a list to Santa? J.D. Martinez can theoretically play the outfield, but he’s a lousy defensive outfielder and the team doesn’t have Edwin Encarnación or a Cron brother hanging around.

The rest of the team’s front-end lineup talent remains wonderful. Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers are both stars, and Andrew Benintendi, despite not really cashing in on baseball’s new orbit of Planet Home Run, is at least solid and retains significant upside. Bradley inevitably plays like a Double-A journeyman for six weeks every season, but somehow ends up with the same Jackie Bradley Average Season every year. The catching position is in its best state in years thanks to the team finally dissolving The World’s Most Disappointing Cerberus and letting Christian Vazquez roll with the job, rather than benching him at the first sign of an offensive slump.

The team’s determination to reset its luxury tax penalties has left it in a place where the front office has left first base on autopilot. Like that mediocre relationship two people keep going back to because “Hey, we already have the house keys and know which cereal the other likes,” Mitch Moreland will return for a fourth season for some reason.

I feel kind of sorry for poor Rusney Castillo. No, he’s not suffering any hardships, as he’s getting paid his $70-plus million, but he could probably help the Red Sox as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but won’t get the chance, since the Red Sox would have to count him towards the luxury tax if he went back onto the 40-man roster. So Rusney persists as an unfortunate loophole.

Pitchers

ZiPS will remain a believer in Chris Sale until he proves otherwise, so while I would take the under on his WAR, I can understand the computer still retaining most of its silicon love for him. The primary problem with the rotation is that while it looks pretty good on paper — at least the top three starters — if something goes wrong, it will go wrong and quickly, and the Red Sox could go from being moderately happy with their situation to desperately trying to find Edwin Jackson’s cell phone number.

It’s strange to think about, but this was a team that could have really used Rick Porcello, who is at least somewhat durable. And as horrifying as it sounds, even Andrew Cashner returning had some merit given the contours of the roster. A healthy
Nathan Eovaldi would go a long way, as he was a mess last year; unsurprisingly, ZiPS is suspicious of a pitcher who saw his walk rate triple, no matter the reason for it. The computer’s also not banking on Martín Pérez returning to first-half 2019 form, but I guess it’s possible the Red Sox figure out how to get his cutter to cut mustard again rather than cheese.

All bets are off on if David Price is included in a Betts trade or is dealt in a standalone one. Losing Betts and Price may be fatal to the team’s realistic playoff hopes.

The bullpen, on the other hand, looks like a relatively deep, stable group, even if one devoid of Big Names. Boston appear to have won the gamble when they chose not to retain Craig Kimbrel or Joe Kelly, but the pen mostly survived, rather than actually replacing that lost production. ZiPS thinks every reliever in the pen, with the exception of Darwinzon Hernandez, is likely to be average or better. Hernandez’s projection isn’t even awful, and is one of the best projections ZiPS has ever churned out for a pitcher who issues so many walks. It’s not such a deep bullpen that it can’t fall apart, but it’s likely more stable than the rotation is.

Prospects

The sparseness of this section is a reflection on just how weak Boston’s farm system is. A team can survive without spending money. A team can survive without a farm system. A team can’t survive without both. With minimal talent coming in through either route, the front office has few short-term options other than hoping the core erodes slowly enough for one problem or the other to resolve itself.

ZiPS does like Triston Casas, and in terms of projected career WAR remaining, he’s the sixth ranked first baseman among the 20 teams that have had their ZiPS writeups so far, behind Cody Bellinger, Pete Alonso, Freddie Freeman, Miguel Sanó, and Josh Bell. Now, baseball’s not exactly flooded with top-notch first base prospects these days, but he’s the most valuable asset in the organization. ZiPS also sees an interesting ceiling for Bryan Mata, thinks that C.J. Chatham might be OK at short, and that Duran will be a reasonable fourth outfielder if things break the right way.

And that’s it, at least the part of the farm system that’s relevant on a projection level. There are more prospects in the very low minors and it would be surprising if they all ended up without big league careers, but when looking at the middle and upper minors, where ZiPS easily has the most value, there just isn’t much there there.

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.