A lot of the early fire of the hot stove is burning around the Red Sox and the American League East champions’ need to replace David Ortiz as their designated hitter.
Edwin Encarnacion has been linked to Boston. Jose Bautista has been mentioned as a possibility. Carlos Beltran’s name has come up, too.
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There’s something important to remember, though, which is that even though Ortiz had a magical farewell season at age 40 — hitting 38 home runs and leading the American League in doubles, runs batted in (tied with Encarnacion), slugging percentage and OPS — such performance in the twilight of one’s career is rare.
Encarnacion turns 34 in January, and as good as he has been, tying his career high with 42 home runs this year, his OPS+ has slid each of the past two years, from 152 in 2014, to 148 in 2015, to 133 in 2016. That’s still really good, but for the kind of money and term Encarnacion figures to command in free agency, it’s a big risk.
Bautista, who turned 36 in October, already appears to have hit the downslope. This was the first year since 2009 that he was not an All-Star, and Bautista’s OPS+ slipped to 117, down from 145 in 2015 and 161 in 2014. Some players who had a higher slugging percentage than Bautista in 2016 include Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop, Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis and Brewers shortstop Jonathan Villar. Unless you’re talking about a deal for one or two years, Bautista is not a wise investment, and even then, someone is going to be paying a premium for past performance.
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Beltran, who appeared finished early in his three-year deal with the Yankees, wound up leading New York in home runs in 2016, even though he was traded to Texas on Aug. 1. The future Hall of Famer is going to be 40 in April, which means that it shouldn’t take a multi-year deal to get him, but also that there’s a significant risk of everything falling apart at any given time. As it is, Beltran’s OPS+ in 2016 was 122, below the figure posted by the man who really should be Boston’s DH in 2017 and beyond.
That would be Hanley Ramirez, who rebounded from a rough first year of his free-agent deal to hit .286/.361/.505, good for an OPS+ of 124 while he belted 30 home runs as Boston’s first baseman. Moving from the disaster of left field to play first base, Ramirez clearly worked hard to improve with the glove, but he still wasn’t good by any measure. His natural position is DH, and he did it for 11 games in 2015 — a small sample, but an encouraging one, as he went 16-for-44 (.364) with four home runs.
Ramirez will be 33 in December, and has two years and $45.5 million left on his contract, plus a $22 million vesting option for 2019. Of the options presented, he’s the youngest and comes with the least risk attached.
With Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. looking like Boston’s outfield trio for years to come, and Xander Bogaerts and Dustin Pedroia firmly entrenched, there are two infield spots that are questions for Boston, plus the DH. In addition to Ramirez, Boston has Brock Holt and Travis Shaw at the major league level, Yoan Moncada not far off at all after his September callup, and a very promising first base prospect in Sam Travis, whose season in Triple-A was derailed by a torn ACL in May.
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The thing that makes the most sense is to use Ramirez at DH, turn younger players loose on the infield to do better defensive work while still batting capably, and turn attention away from fading free-agent sluggers.
Losing Ortiz will be a blow to the Red Sox lineup, to be sure, but there is no team better positioned to absorb it than the one that led the league in runs, hits, total bases and all three slash categories in 2016. If Boston really wants to make a big splash offensively this offseason, the way to do it still is to keep Ramirez at DH and leverage the strength of the farm system to hit the trade market, targeting Paul Goldschmidt or Jose Abreu, perhaps along with some pitching help in one of those famous Dave Dombrowski blockbusters.
The free-agent market does not have Boston’s fix for pitching, and it doesn’t have the answer for replacing Ortiz at DH. At least, for that, the solution already exists in-house with Ramirez.