With the knowledge that Chris Sale will be opening the season on the injured list, the Boston Red Sox are once again posed with the question of who their Opening Day starter should be.
Any other year since the Sale acquisition, the obvious answer (barring health) would’ve been David Price. However, the veteran southpaw was traded across the country to the Los Angeles Dodgers in February.
That leaves two prime candidates: Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi.
If you’re basing this decision on success in 2019, then the obvious answer is Eduardo Rodriguez. The soon-to-be 27-year-old left-hander is coming off a season in which he led the Red Sox in innings (203.1), starts (34), earned run average (3.81), and ERA- (79).
Translation: from a run prevention standpoint, Rodriguez was Boston’s best starter in 2019.
However, the Venezuelan southpaw still has his fair share of deficiencies at the major league level, making this “obvious” decision hold a bit more challenge.
For example, Rodriguez led the major leagues in walks a season ago with 75. While it’s not the end of the world, free passes do drive up your pitch count, thus knocking you out of the game prematurely and forcing your bullpen into action.
Secondly, Rodriguez is notorious for getting off to slow starts to the season. Since becoming a full-time big-leaguer in 2017, Rodriguez is posting a 4.71 ERA along with peripherals both north of 4.00 in March and April. Opponents are also holding down a .318 weighted on-base average against him in those two months.
Not the end of the world, but certainly worth taking note of.
On the other hand is the right-handed flamethrower, Nathan Eovaldi. The 30-year-old is in Year 2 of his four-year, $68 million contract that has left a lot to be desired thus far. Eovaldi has been bitten by the injury bug time and time again in his pitching career, and 2019 was no exception. Last year, Eovaldi was staked to just 67.2 innings –– 54.1 as a starter.
When he was healthy, he was very hit-or-miss.
At times, Eovaldi was brilliant and showed exactly why the Red Sox made re-signing him a priority in the 2018-19 offseason. Other times, it was painful watching him gut through innings –– both as a starter and as a reliever.
However, even with the struggles, the talent remains with Eovaldi, and he has seen greater success early in the season, though not exactly predictive.
In March and April, Eovaldi has a 4.00 ERA along with sub-4.00 peripherals. While his opponents’ wOBA is worse than Rodriguez’s .324, his FIP and xFIP both best that of the southpaw.
With Sale going on the shelf to start the season and Price getting traded to the Dodgers, Eovaldi takes over as the highest-paid starter on the Opening Day roster. Not that money should play the biggest role in this decision, but it’s also worth noting.
However, when push comes to shove, the importance of getting off to a hot start is at an all-time high for the Boston Red Sox. All winter, they were stressing the notion that they’re intending on competing for a World Series in 2020. They’re not rebuilding, but rather retooling.
If that’s true, there’s nothing more important to the 2020 Red Sox than getting off to a fast start, especially with the injuries already plaguing the mighty Yankees. That starts with winning Opening Day.
If you remember correctly, the 3-8 west coast trip to open 2019 began with a blowout loss to the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day.
Translation: put your team in the best position to win Game 1 of the season.
With that, the best pick for who should start Opening Day in 2020 is none other than Eduardo Rodriguez.
While his struggles to open seasons are well-documented, that isn’t predictive enough to say Rodriguez isn’t the best man for the job of opening the season for Boston. While Eovaldi has forced the hand of interim manager Ron Roenicke by not allowing a run in his first three outings this spring, Rodriguez has been far from a slouch himself.
When looking at the whole body of work, Rodriguez has been better in the past few seasons regardless. Over their past three seasons (for Eovaldi, his third season pulled from is 2016), Rodriguez bests him in ERA (3.92-4.69), FIP (3.84-4.68), xFIP (4.09-4.17), and SIERA (4.09-4.23).
Not to mention that Rodriguez was Boston’s most dependable starter in 2019, therefore earning the right to achieve the first Opening Day nod of his career.
The Boston Red Sox are set to open up their season north of the border against the Toronto Blue Jays on March 26. With no Chris Sale available, Ron Roenicke should feel obligated to hand the ball to Eduardo Rodriguez.
One Response
ERod is the best choice out of the few options the Sox have this year. Oh well…