A Wild Week For The Red Sox
Chris Sale
Photo Credit: Elaine Thompson
The past 10 days have been quite the ride for the Boston Red Sox. From locking up their ace and starting shortstop to contract extensions to losing 5 of their first 6 games of the season, it has been anything but boring for the defending World Champs. It all started on March 23 with Spring Training coming to an end, and the Red Sox signing Chris Sale to a 5 Year $145 million extension that will take him through the 2024 season that also includes a 2025 club option. For a top 3 pitcher in baseball and arguably the best pitcher in baseball over the last 3-5 years, this is a pretty good deal. He’s still under contract for the 2019 season for $15 million and then gets bumped up to an average of $29 million over the next 5 years. Meanwhile Strasburg, Scherzer and Greinke are all making over $35 million a year. Sale probably could have gotten closer to that number had he played out the season and hit the free agency market, but it looks like he was happy to stay right in Boston.
Xander Bogaerts
Photo Credit: USA Today
The Red Sox then followed this extension up with another extension for none other than Xander Bogaerts. Outside of Pedroia, Bogaerts is the only remaining player from the 2013 World Series run and now with 2 rings to his name, an All-Star appearance and 2 Silver Sluggers, it was time for Bogaerts to get paid. Bogaerts, just like Sale was entering his final year under contract with the Red Sox and would have been hitting free agency at the end of the season. And just like Sale as well, I’d say that Xander took a hometown discount. I was really nervous about a Xander extension due to his agent being Scott Boras. Boras is obviously notable for getting teams to pay over the moon for his clients but somehow the Red Sox managed to get Boagerts to a team friendly deal for 6 years worth $120 million dollars that also includes a vesting option for 2026 should he hit 535 plate appearances in the season prior. Now Bogaerts is a interesting case, because I’ll be the first to admit that he’s not always been the most consistent player. Bogaerts has had some good years but also some down years, granted his career batting average is still above .280. In my opinion Bogaerts probably could have gotten more money had he hit free agency, and the only thing that kept him from getting a $200+ million deal was his lack of homerun power and average defense. He’s a contact hitter and doubles machine so all in all, a good team friendly deal for the Red Sox.
Now all the while these contract extensions were being signed, the MLB regular season got underway last Thursday and the Red Sox apparently haven’t gotten the message. They stand at 1-5 on their west coast tour against the Mariners and Athletics. Up until last night when Sale made his 2nd start, the Red Sox pitching has been rough to say the least. They gave up 12, 6, 6, 10, 7 in their first five games. Obviously very hard to win ball games when you gotta score 8+ to have a chance. The biggest issue hasn’t been the bullpen, which you would likely assume, it’s been the starting pitching. Sale got rocked in his first start giving up 7 runs, Eovaldi gave up 6 runs in 5 innings, E-Rod gave up 5 runs in 4.1 innings, Porcello 4 runs in 2.2 innings and Price with the best outing of all with 4 runs in 6 innings. The second time through the rotation started out a lot better last night with Sale only giving up 1 run in 6 innings pitched but of course the bats stopped working. Actually the bats haven’t worked at all in the A’s series as the Red Sox are scoreless in 2 games with 20 Ks combined. The Red Sox still have 2 more against the A’s and then 3 against Arizona so hopefully they can get this turned around on the road because Opening Day at Fenway isn’t until next Tuesday. Also these west coast games starting at 10 o’clock is the worst.
Thanny