Red Sox Are Dominating the Spring Training Leaderboards. Just Not the Red Sox We Were Hoping For.

None of this matters. I know it, you know it, Nate Eaton knows it. It’s spring training. The goal is to get back in shape, to get your work in, to align with the rhythms of baseball if you prefer to get a little mystical with it. No one is checking the spring training leaderboards because they don’t matter. Except for me. I’m checking them, and, uh, there are kind of a lot of Red Sox up there. No, they’re not the Red Sox you’d like to see at the top of the leaderboards. Jarren Duran? Abset. Wilyer Abreu? Literally absent. Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman, Triston Casas, Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell? No, nope, nay, negative, definitely not. Here are your Red Sox spring training superstars. Enjoy them while you can.

If you do nothing more than go to MLB.com, click STATS, and then sort by OPS, Nate Eaton’s at the top of the list. I don’t even know what the criteria are to qualify for this leaderboard, but I don’t care much. Eaton’s got a 1.260 OPS, because he’s somehow gone 4-for-14 with five walks. Oh, and all four of his hits are extra-base hits. He’s got two doubles, a triple, and a homer, so despite a .286 batting average, he’s got a .474 on-base percentage and a .786 slugging percentage. The guy’s got a grand slam? Want to see some Nate Eaton highlights? Of course you do!

The only time I wrote a whole article about Nate Eaton, it was about how he should maybe give up hitting and try to become a pitcher. All of a sudden he’s the Kid Who Only Hits Homers. According to MLB.com, he's the best hitter in baseball right now. But wait, there’s more.

Second on the list: Trayce Thompson, with a 1.214 OPS. Like Eaton, he’s on there because he’s done nothing but slug and walk. Thompson is 5-for-18 with three walks, three homers, and a double. He’s probably incredibly embarrassed about that one single he hit. You know you want some Trayce Thompson highlights too.

Did you see that second homer? It looked sounded like the hardest-hit ball in the history of the world. Also, Thompson has a .278 batting average.

Checking in at 12 and 13, we have Marcelo Mayer (.956 OPS) and Nick Sogard (.929). Once again, neither player is batting .300. They’ve just been slugging. Mayer’s got a homer and a triple among his five hits, and Sogard’s got a homer and a double. Down at number 20 is David Hamilton, with an .821 OPS and a .235 batting average.

If you’re keeping score at home, that makes five Red Sox in the top 25, according to OPS. Five! Only one other team even has three. And somehow, the likeliest outcome is that only one of these players will make the only day roster. And somehow, when you look at the team stats, the Red Sox aren’t in the top 10 in batting average, on-base percentage, or slugging. And somehow, their five players at the top of the OPS leaderboard are batting a combined .277. I could keep going. I've got a lot of and somehows. Spring training is weird. Luckily, none of this matters.