Article: It’s Not Just That the Red Sox Need a Right-Handed Bat

[Davy Andrews]

The Boston Red Sox need some right-handed hitters. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. But their splits during the 2024 season make that conversation a little more complicated.

I’m not trying to offer up some contrarian take here. The Red Sox need to go out and get a right-handed hitter. Rafael Devers bats from the left side, as do Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, Wilyer Abreu, Masataka Yoshida, Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kyle Teel. Now that Tyler O’Neill is a free agent, those are arguably the organization’s five best big-league hitters and three best prospects. Throw in David Hamilton at second base, and you’ve got a full left-handed lineup, complete with designated hitter. That’s not just imbalanced; it’s 10 guys all crammed onto one side of the seesaw wondering why they never seem to leave the ground. 

The Red Sox ran a wRC+ of 104 this season, which ranked 11th in baseball. If we break that down by handedness, we can see that against righties, they were at 105, which ranked 12th, and against lefties, they were 101 wRC+, which ranked 14th. In other words, against both lefties and righties, they were just a hair above league average. And you know what? That’s fine for this .500 team and this tune-up of a season, but going forward, the team wants more and will therefore need to improve. However, I need to remind you of something.

I know it feels like the Red Sox ran out a lineup stacked with lefties all season long. And it’s true, 57% of their plate appearances came from lefties this season, third-most in baseball. But keep in mind that across the league, right-handed pitchers threw 73% of all PAs. In other words, if you want to have the platoon advantage in every at-bat, you’re going to have to play a lot more left-handed hitters anyway. The Red Sox found themselves with the platoon advantage 59% of the time, which ranked seventh in baseball. They weren't just good at getting the platoon advantage; they were one of the best teams in the league at it. So sure, they need a right-handed bat or two, but because the ideal lineup isn’t perfectly balanced, you could argue that they weren’t that far out of whack. However, that argument misses some critical context.

The first piece of context is that Casas and Yoshida missed large chunks of the season, while Abreu mostly sat against lefties. That gave a lot more PAs to right-handed hitters like Rob Refsnyder and Romy Gonzalez than the ideal lineup would have. The second piece of context is the imminent arrival of all those left-handed prospects mashing their way up the farm system. The third is Boston’s performance against lefties. This season, across the league, left-handed batters put up a 106 wRC+ against righties and 89 against lefties. That’s a 17-point difference. However, looking at the entire league smooths things out a bit. If you break things down on a player-by-player basis, there were 97 left-handed hitters who got at least 50 PAs against left-handed pitchers this season. Those players saw their wRC+ drop by an average of 26 points when they faced lefties rather than righties. Now let’s look at the Boston lefties we mentioned in the first paragraph. To get the biggest and most accurate sample, these are career numbers.

Player	vs. RHP	vs. LHP	Difference
Triston Casas	129	114	-15
Jarren Duran	124	75	-49
Rafael Devers	137	98	-39
Wilyer Abreu	130	41	-89
Masataka Yoshida	121	84	-37

Casas is the only player whose delta looks anything like the rest of the league’s. Duran sees a roughly 50-point drop-off, while Yoshida and Devers are around 40. We’re only talking about 71 career PAs against lefties for Abreu, be even so, but he goes from 130 to 41, a shocking 91-point swing. Some of that drop-off is surely due to the small sample size – many of his numbers, such as hard-hit rate and strikeout rate are comparable against lefties and righties – but it explains why Abreu got just six starts against lefties all season. In all, when Boston’s left-handed hitters had to face left-handed pitchers, they ran a 73 wRC+, tied for 22nd in baseball. Ranking 22nd isn’t great, but once again, the context makes it even worse. Remember, Boston’s lefties took tons of plate appearances; their 843 PAs against left-handed pitchers ranked second-most in baseball. In other words, that 73 wRC+ was bad, but running it for so long was really bad. According to Weighted Runs Above Average, when Boston’s lefties had to face left-handed pitchers, they cost the team 22 runs, the most in baseball.

I’m throwing all of these numbers at you to make a simple point: It’s not just that the Red Sox need a right-handed bat to replace O’Neill; it’s that their current lefties are particularly vulnerable to big, scary platoon splits. Casas and Devers are the only lefties whose bats are anywhere near league-average against lefties. Duran’s glove and baserunning make him an everyday player no matter what, but Abreu got platooned for a reason. As for Yoshida, the designated hitter has to add serious thump to a team’s lineup, so the fact that the Red Sox started Yoshida and his career 84 wRC+ in more than a third of their games against left-handed starters is just plain ugly. Rosters are limited, and you can only platoon so many spots. All in all, you'd rather assemble a roster full of good players and worry about their handedness later. However, if you're platooning two spots, then the right-handed bats that make up the small sides of those platoons need to be very good, or the team is going to stay lopsided. Some of the team's most important players are themselves quite imbalanced, and that makes the job of balancing both the lineup card and the roster even more difficult.

View full article

[moonslav59]

I could see us hoping tge return of Story and Grissom plus maybe the Campbell arrival does the trick.

i could see us trading Aubrey and DHam for a RHB or pitching 

[Bellhorn04]

Reese McGuire was an interesting choice for the picture. 😃