The Boston Red Sox are stuck in an uncomfortable medium between retooling and rebuilding.
The hope is that they can put themselves in a good position financially to have a chance to make a competitive offer for their presumptive 2021 free agent Mookie Betts, which has forced them to explore the trade market for David Price, Nathan Eovaldi, and Jackie Bradley, Jr. Just about anybody you could consider to be overpaid, even if just marginal, found their name appear in rumors.
However, the end goal from an ownership standpoint is to shed salary and be as competitive as humanly possible in 2020. To do that, they will need to address the flaws that proved to be fatal in 2019. Among them was starting pitching depth.
Not many teams can recover from three of their top four starting pitchers going down with injuries, but the Red Sox were in trouble the moment Nathan Eovaldi went down. That’s no disrespect to the likes of Brian Johnson, Ryan Weber, and Hector Velazquez, but they’re just not the types of pitchers a team like the Red Sox can count on for six weeks like they had to last season.
One of them getting the ball every fifth day was enough. But when two or sometimes three games out of every five involved them in a ket capacity, it’s a cause for legitimate concern.
Depth is key, and the Red Sox higher-ups are off to a good start with the signing of left-handed pitcher Martín Pérez. They can be happy, but shouldn’t be satisfied with just that move, which then poses this question: Who can they bring in for cheap that can contribute productive innings?
The answer is just as easy: Alex Wood.
Red Sox fans may remember Wood as the guy who gave up a pinch-hit home run to Eduardo Nuñez in the 2018 World Series. But the 28-year-old southpaw is much more than just some pitcher who got tagged for a big home run in a crucial spot.
Injuries limited Wood to just seven starts and 35.1 innings pitched in 2019, but his 2018 was nothing short of impressive. Over 151.2 innings, Wood posted a 3.53 FIP, a FIP- of 88, and a SIERA of 3.90. He also has an ERA+ of 116 (16 runs above league average) since the start of 2016.
He’s not a world-beater by any means, but the left-hander is certainly very good for a guy likely earning $10 million to $13 million a season. He’s a guy who can slide into the bullpen and get big outs, or he can take the ball every fifth day and be a very dependable starting pitcher.
What makes him so effective is his curveball, which he threw 750 times in 2018 to the tune of a 1.91 FIP, a .244 xwOBA, and 69 strikeouts.
While we wait for Cole and Bumgarner to sign, Alex Wood sits there as one of the more underrated arms available.
In 2018 (last full season), he had a 3.68 ERA/3.53 FIP/3.72xFIP on top of having one of the better knucklecurves in the game (2.77 FIP since 2018).
Really nice arm pic.twitter.com/qrpU1uMdkt
— Jordan Leandre (@JordanLeandre55) December 10, 2019
It remains to be seen what the market even is for the former Dodger. But one thing is for certain, he should be on the Red Sox radar.
