Red Sox Video
In the first installment of this series, we broke down what went wrong with the 2024 Red Sox. We looked at Masataka Yoshida's predicament, diving deep into what to do with a guy whose only real skill is making contact, yet is making $18 million.
I don’t want it to seem like I hate Ceddanne Rafaela. He is incredibly fun to watch. He is an easy guy to root for. His speed, defense, and solid power give him a floor of at least a second-division regular.
At the same time, however, we need to be honest and realistic about his performance this year and moving forward. His 45.6% chase rate isn’t just bad; it is the “worst season of Javier Baez” bad. He has somehow walked only 15 times in 528 plate appearances, leading to a putrid on-base percentage of .281. Even when he can put the bat on the ball, he doesn’t do enough damage: his hard-hit percentage is only in the 31st percentile, and his average exit velocity is only in the 13th percentile.
What makes all this especially worrisome is that Rafaela hasn’t just improved his plate discipline as the season has gone along; he has actually gotten worse. Since his last walk on August 10 (today is September 13), Rafaela has struck out 31 times while slashing .226/.233./.353. As bad as those numbers are, the anecdotal evidence might somehow be worse:
What I fear with Rafaela is that pitchers are just not going to throw him strikes, and let him get himself out. After all, there’s a reason why there are no hitters in baseball who chase as frequently and walk as infrequently. Pitchers are smart, and if you have a glaring weakness, you can bet they are going to expose it. It only took a couple years for pitchers to realize you didn’t need to throw Javier Baez a strike, and he went from an perennial All-Star to arguably the worst hitter in baseball.
Of course, these worries would be a lot less urgent if not for the eight-year, $50 million contract extension he signed in April. There was absolutely no reason to make such a risky investment, because the chances that a flawed player like Rafaela, who only really has average offensive upside, is good enough that a $13 million a year salary ends up as a steal is extremely small. The bigger issue, however, is that the contract forces you to lock Rafaela into your starting lineup for the next eight years. No sending him down to the minors, no using him as a utility player, and most importantly, no trading him. The fact that the Red Sox are committed to paying him $13 million a year seven years from now means that he’s going to be in the starting lineup no matter what, because anything else would be admitting the contract was a mistake.
The issue with this is that the best Red Sox lineup moving forward, in my opinion, does not include Rafaela. Contracts notwithstanding, I would roll with Roman Anthony in left field, Jarren Duran in center field, and Wilyer Abreu in right field. Three young outfielders with solid power, plus defense, and decent plate discipline. Yet the need to commit to Rafaela means that one of those guys is not going to be an everyday player next year.
So what can the Sox do now? The good news is that Rafaela can be as good a center fielder as there is in the game, and there will always be a place for him on a major league roster. From an offensive standpoint, Rafaela has enough power to not be a complete zero at the bottom of the order, but his lack of plate discipline becomes a bigger issue when the rest of the lineup is striking out more than anyone in the league besides the Mariners and the Athletics.
If the Red Sox are going to commit to Rafaela playing every day, then they need to acquire more players elsewhere in the lineup that will put together quality at-bats. In that case, they can rely less on Rafaela to provide production and allow him to develop his plate discipline from “historically bad” to just “regular bad.”
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now