Is Brock Holt the Only Red Sox Free Agent They Should Sign This Off-Season?
With the Red Sox hopes of a postseason run completely dashed now, it’s time to start looking ahead to the offseason. Sure, they still have a few weeks of games left but really, it’s time to start moving on from what has been a horrible season for the team. And now that Red Sox President of Operations, Dave Dombrowski gone the team is in for a big shake up.
The Red Sox, despite having a troubling season, have a lot of talent. But it’s time for them to bring their focus to the younger guys like Devers and Bogaerts. That means probably letting go of guys like Mookie Betts and JD Martinez. As much as we would like to probably see them stay, it’s time to move on. With Betts, it would be irresponsible not to trade him this season instead of letting him go for nothing next offseason because there’s no way the Red Sox give him the money he wants. So while neither one is an unrestricted free agent this year, they will need to go.
Two free agents that the Sox do have this off-season are both first basemen, Steve Pearce and Mitch Moreland. Unfortunately, the reigning World Series MVP Pearce has barely played this season due to injury. There is little chance that the Sox will try to resign him. Moreland on the other hand is a bit of a toss up. He had a pretty decent season while he was healthy this year but he may end up on another team this season simply because the Red Sox decide to develop young talent more instead of pay him. This would leave room for Michael Chavis to make a return with a starting job next year.
One of the Sox biggest issues going forward would be pitching. Last offseason, they saddled themselves with three long contracts for Price, Sale and Eovaldi. All three then went on to spend big chunks of the season injured and not playing. Due to this, their bullpen was overworked throughout the year. The other two starting pitchers for the Sox, Porcello and Rodriguez made it through the whole season but Porcello struggled most of the way through it and Rodriguez emerged as the team’s ace. Out of all these pitchers, only Porcello is a free agent. Though he actually stayed healthy this year, it may be time to let him go so there’s room to start developing more talent. And they would have a very hard time getting rid of the others to make other room.
The only older player I believe the Red Sox should consider signing in free agency is Brock Holt. The ultimate utility man has been a huge part of the Red Sox team for the last few years, stepping in any way he can to help his team. If the Sox decide to take the route of developing some of their younger players, Holt would be a great person to have on the bench to help guide them and step in to replace any of them if things aren’t going so well.
Whoever it may be that takes over the baseball operations for the Red Sox this offseason is certainly has their work cut out for them and a lot of decisions to make. It’ll be interesting to see what this team is going to look like on Opening Day 2020.
~Mary Evers (For_Evers_Young)