Red Sox WAR leaders reflect what went right and wrong this season

Red Sox WAR leaders reflect what went right and wrong this season originally appeared in NBC Sports Boston

The Red Sox are a perfectly average team at 30-30. They haven’t strayed more than two games from .500 in nearly a month, stuck as they are with something that’s a little better than mediocre. Acceptable? Fine? Shrug?

There are many ways to get to .500 and they are not always expected. Going into the season, we assumed the unproven starting pitching staff would struggle, and that has been the team’s saving grace. Meanwhile, we figured the Rafael Devers-led offense could surprise, and that group is disappointingly in the middle of the pack.

So how did the Red Sox get here? A look at their top 10 players, as calculated by Baseball-Reference’s WAR, sheds some light. Equally revealing is who didn’t make the list: Triston Casas (injury), Brayan Bello (relative ineffectiveness), Ceddanne Rafaela (regrettable offense), to name three.

If the club had an MVP and a Cy Young Award, Houck would win both. Viewing all developments through the prism of what will help the team when it can one day compete again, Houck’s emergence is by far the most encouraging sign. He is 5-5 with a 1.85 ERA and at his current pace will definitely make his first All-Star team.

Winning teams need players like Duran, who does very well, even if he isn’t necessarily excellent in any area. He leads the league in triples (eight), which makes sense given his speed and jaw-dropping athleticism, but after stealing six bases in his first six games, he’s only hit five since. He also played solid center field when Rafaela moved to shortstop.

Duran may never be an All-Star, but he has embraced his role as a solid, productive player.

Chaim Bloom got it right, stealing Abreu from the Astros in Christian Vazquez’s deadline day deal that also yielded powerful second baseman Enmanuel Valdez. Abreu looks like a goalkeeper – not to mention a candidate for Rookie of the Year – thanks to his power, patience and defensive ability in the right field.

The Red Sox need to start introducing more players like Abreu to the big leagues if they want to truly build something special through youth.

This is what happens when you put too much into a young arm too soon.

The Red Sox decided not to play free agents as a starter this winter, signing veteran Lucas Giolito and immediately losing him to elbow surgery. Crawford advanced for a month, posting a 0.66 ERA in his first five starts. But he’s been at 5.05 since then, and the Red Sox have lost six of their last seven games.

I always asked a lot for Houck and Crawford to rotate.

Here’s one for the power of perseverance. Bernardino didn’t leave the team in spring training, surprisingly passed over in favor of veteran lefty Joely Rodriguez, who was out of options. Rodriguez was out of the big leagues in short order, and all Bernardino has done since his return is jump between opener, middle man and setup man with excellent results.

He posted a 0.72 ERA in 21 starts, intent on proving the front office wrong as he began his season in Worcester.

Even accepting that WAR is not intended to be a precise measure of value, but rather to reflect a range, it is still disconcerting to see Devers so far down the list when he is being paid as one of the top 10 players in baseball.

The Red Sox are spending $29 million on a glorified 11-homer DH. Devers needs to deliver much more.

Another Bloom acquisition that looks better than expected, though that’s not much consolation considering he’s all that’s left from the Mookie Betts trade. Wong leads all big league catchers in average at .327, and he is exceptionally athletic for the position, as evidenced by his time at second base.

That versatility should come in handy when he’s Kyle Teel’s backup, and that’s not a dig but an acknowledgment that catcher could be a position of strength in the not-too-distant future.

What could have been. Whitlock could have been having a similar season to Houck if he had stayed healthy. Instead, the oft-injured right-hander lasted just four games before hitting the injured list with an oblique strain and a 1.96 ERA.

He then felt pain in his elbow after starting rehabilitation and underwent an internal bracing procedure that will sideline him until next seasonwhen the Red Sox must decide whether they want to keep trying to start him or just put him in the bullpen, where he was lights out in 2021.

Like Whitlock, Slaten was a Rule 5 discovery, and his emergence should provide some assurance that new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow knows how to evaluate pitchers. Slaten is 3-2 with a 2.73 ERA in 21 games, and manager Alex Cora isn’t afraid to lean on the big right-hander in pressure situations.

10. Tyler O’Neill, 0.7

A week into the season, O’Neill was hitting like Shohei Ohtani. He’s cooled off since then and could now be trade bait at the deadline since he’s only signed for this season.

It’s surprising to see the former Gold Glover so low on this list given his power (11 homers) and solid defense, but after that torrid start, he’s hitting just .236, with just half as many RBIs (17) as Rafaela (33). . ).