Earlier today, the Boston Red Sox released three-time All-Star Hanley Ramirez to make room for Dustin Pedroia, who is coming back from knee surgery and will play his first baseball game of the season for the big club at some point this weekend.
Ramirez has struggled mightily this season, batting a mere .254 and hitting only six home runs in 177 at bats. Ramirez was on a seemingly short leash with the Red Sox after producing just a .750 OPS in 2017 and contributing to a toxic locker room environment with his lethargic, apathetic demeanor. If all the negativity around Ramirez's performance and attitude wasn’t enough motivation for the Red Sox, the 34-year-old first baseman had a $22M vesting option for next season that was dependent on him seeing 496 plate appearances--because 500 would make too much sense. Effectively, the Red Sox dumped the underperforming, overpaid former star player and saved themselves a massive chunk of change that could allow them to target a player like Manny Machado or maybe even Bryce Harper next season.
My take: My initial reaction was pure disgust. I saw this one coming from a mile away; I desperately wanted Pedroia’s return to mean the end of the absolutely brutal Jackie Bradley Jr. era. He stinks, and I’m so sick of hearing about how valuable his defense is. So freaking sick of it. For some weird reason, the Red Sox put a ton of stock into defense and defensive metrics, so of course they clung onto JBJ. Of course Ramirez was struggling--I get that. A .708 OPS is bad, especially after hitting .330 in the month of April. Want to know what’s worse than a .708 OPS? A freaking .528 OPS. That is so bad. Jackie Bradley should not be a major league baseball player. He has the lowest ceiling and the lowest floor of any player on the Red Sox roster, and it’s depressing to see the ball club hold on to him because he was really good in July two years ago.
After some reflection, I’ve calmed down a little bit. Getting out of another year of Hanley’s grotesquely massive contract is a pretty big deal. Like I wrote earlier in the blog, $22M is nothing to scoff at when it means the opportunity to target a top-tier player in an absolutely stacked 2018 free agent class. Regardless, I’m upset that Hanley wasn’t what we needed him to be this year and that we really aren’t giving him the chance to fill his maximum potential. If Hanley had been the All-Star hitter that we saw in 2016, he might’ve been the piece to put the Sox over the top in 2018. Instead, Dombrowski and Co. decided to cut their losses and save some cash for the 2019 offseason.
Even if cutting Hanley is the sensible thing to do, it’s disappointing to know that Red Sox management isn’t all in on the 2018 Boston Red Sox.
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