The Best Individual Red Sox Seasons of the Century: Part Two, #25-21

With offseason activities seemingly grinding to a halt, I thought I would try something a little bit different while we wait for the last free agents to come off the board. With 25 seasons of twenty-first-century Red Sox baseball in the books, I decided that it was time rank the 25 best individual seasons of the 2000s. This is part two. You can read part one here.

I’ve done a couple of rankings like this before, but this may have been the hardest. There were just so many good seasons to choose from. To make it a little bit easier for myself, I came up with a couple of rules:

1. I decided to limit each player to their two best seasons. Without this rule, the list would consist of David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and Mookie Betts.
2. These rankings are focused mainly on regular-season performance, but I did factor in postseason performance. There are players on this list who didn’t make the postseason, but there aren't any who excelled in the postseason but had poor regular seasons (2004 Derek Lowe, 2021 Enrique Hernández)

25. 2017 Craig Kimbrel
Stats: 3.6 WAR 1.43 ERA 35 SV 69 IP 126 K 16.4 K/9 319 ERA+ 1.42 FIP 0.68 WHIP 1.42 FIP AS CYA-6

The Craig Kimbrel Red Sox experience was bookended by wildness, first in a disappointing 2016 season in which he battled a knee injury and then in the 2018 postseason when he became downright unusable. In between, however, was one of the most dominant seasons we’ve ever seen from a closer. His 1.8 BB/9 was easily the lowest of his career, and he somehow managed to strike out 126 batters in just 69 innings. Right-handed batters in particular had practically no chance against Kimbrel’s lethal fastball/power-curve combination, as he held them to a microscopic .103 batting average. The postseason, however, would be a different story, as Kimbrel allowed the go-ahead hit in Game 4 of the ALDS against the Astros. It’s hard to be too mad at that, though, because there was approximately a 0% chance the Red Sox were going to beat the 2017 Astros in Minute Maid Park with Drew Pomeranz. 

24. 2019 Rafael Devers
Stats: 5.4 WAR 156 G .311/.361/.555 129 R 201 H 54 2B 4 3B 32 HR 115 RBI .916 OPS 132 OPS+ MVP-12

It may seem hard to believe, but it’s very possible that the best version we’ve seen of Rafael Devers came during his age-22 season. In just his second full MLB campaign, Devers posted what are still-career highs in hits (201), batting average (.311), RBI (115), and OPS (.916) while leading the league with 54 doubles. He even somehow finished in the 99th percentile in Statcast’s Outs Above Average (though this seems more like a fluke every year). Though Devers' performance was undoubtedly aided by the juiced ball, he has still not matched his 5.4 WAR from 2019, leaving observers with the constant feeling that there is still more left in the tank. 

23. 2006 Jonathan Papelbon
Stats:5.0 WAR 1.85 ERA 37 SV 58.1 IP 84 K 13.0 K/9 257 ERA+ 2.45 FIP 0.77 WHIP AS

No pitcher on this list, not Keith Foulke, Craig Kimbrel, Koji Uehara, Chris Sale or even Pedro Martinez, was better on a per-inning basis than Jonathan Papelbon was in 2006. In his first full season in the closer’s role after beating out Keith Foulke in spring training, Papelbon allowed just one run over his first 38 innings and ultimately finished with a dazzling 0.92 ERA on the season. So why is he so low on this list? Unlike other closers on this list who performed in both the regular season and postseason, Papelbon was shut down with a shoulder injury in September, and the Red Sox missed the postseason for the first time in four years. 

22. 2019 Xander Bogaerts
Stats: 6.3 WAR 155 G .309/.384/.555 33 HR 117 RBI  .939 OPS 139 OPS+ AS MVP-5

I knew I had to find a way to put at least one Xander Bogaerts season on this list, and though his impact on the 2018 team was a strong contender, it’s clear that the best version of Bogaerts in a Red Sox uniform came in 2019. Fresh off inking a five-year extension, the shortstop set career highs in home runs (33), RBI (117), and OPS (.939), earning him a top-five finish in the AL MVP voting. Though FanGraphs had him about average defensively, his offensive excellence was still good enough for a career-high 6.3 WAR. It’s too bad the Red Sox pitching staff was such a disaster that season because Bogaerts could have climbed even higher in the rankings with a strong playoff performance. 

21. 2016 Rick Porcello
Stats: 4.7 WAR 22-4 3.15 ERA 33 GS 3 CG 223 IP 189 K 7.6 K/9 142 ERA+ 1.01 WHIP 3.40 FIP CYA-1

It may seem surprising to see a Cy Young winner this low in the rankings, but Rick Porcello’s 2016 award-winning season was largely a result of having the support of the league’s best offense. His 22 wins were the most of any Red Sox pitcher this century, but his 3.12 ERA pales in comparison to the best of Chris Sale and Pedro Martinez, and his 189 strikeouts was just the eight-best mark in the American League. It also doesn’t help his case that he got rocked in his only postseason start against the Indians, which set the tone for a disheartening three-game sweep. Regardless of his shortcomings, Porcello’s ability to eat up quality innings and take the ball every fifth day was invaluable for the Red Sox during their division title, making it more than worthy of a spot on this list.