“Power righty bat” is a bit of an oversimplification of the Red Sox need. They need a hitter who specifically hits well against LHP. Their lineup should already be great against RHP.

16 comments

1. Power bats only benefit them for away games. With the short left field wall and Pesky pole in right, a great contact hitter can become a power bat.

2. Holy fuck Roman Anthony, how is he only 21!

3. Honestly our infield right now is pretty thin and has a lot of guys with bigtime platoon splits. I think given the caliber of names we’re linked to right now, it makes sense to go after *two* less-sexy players and just run a rotating infield.

   A realistic, not-terrible outcome for us would be to trade for Donovan and Sosa, and run an IF of:

   1B: Contreras/Casas

   2B: Donovan/Romy platoon

   SS: Story

   3B: Mayer/Sosa platoon

   It’s not sexy but it allows us to have a good lineup against righties and lefties, get Mayer reps on most days, maintain a pretty good defense, and have some flexibility if Story/Mayer goes down with injury, as they often do.

4. I’d point out that before his arrival in Boston, Alex Bregman also had reverse splits against lefties much like Paredes, except in his case it had become a well established trend over the course of several seasons. Having the green monster to work with helped to reverse that trajectory for Bregman during his one year in Boston, it’s entirely possible that the same would occur with a player like Paredes. In fact, Fangraphs actually notes that both his fly ball rates and pull rates are higher against lefties than they are against righties, which makes him a major candidate to improve against southpaws if put in Fenway Park for his home games. Thus I don’t believe we should preclude ourselves from acquiring Paredes on those grounds.

   Even in the circumstance that the trend of struggling against lefties continues for Paredes, adding a 123 OPS+ bat to the lineup will undoubtedly make the team better. I personally can only think of one to three batters on the team right now that I would trust to put up Paredes’ hitting numbers, those being Anthony, Contreras, and one of Abreu or Duran depending on who’s hot streaks last longer. Even if the fit isn’t a flawless one, that kind of bat is absolutely worthwhile for where we are right now.

5. Great point, Suarez’s splits are a bit baffling. But over his career he’s been better vs LHP even though he wasn’t last year. If what we’re saying is Suarez is GREAT vs RHP, well, so much the better, he’s the righty platoon. He’s a very experimental hitter who has had very different batting stances each of the past three years, and IIRC he has opened up his stance more and more and more every year. He looks for fastballs out over the plate to crush, but that sets him up to chase offspeed stuff down and away, and last year he struck out more than ever from offspeed stuff off the plate, which *sounds like* something left handed pitcher are getting him on. Also maybe it’s harder to completely sell out for pull power against left pitchers living on the outer half. Sidebar, I don’t know why left soft tossers are more of a thing than righty soft tossers but I never hear the latter get talked about as a thing.

   Also HUGE kudos for actually unearthing some new names that haven’t been talked about who seem like very feasible targets. If I hear another person say “what about Paredes/Donovan/Horner” with nothing to add but saying the names out loud I will… I don’t know but I’ll do something bad. I’ll put the cats water in a bowl they don’t like.

   My one counterpoint: I believe something like 25% of pitchers in MLB are LHP (I’m basing that on my 1999 strat-o-matic which showed percentages and that might be very out of date), so we still stand to benefit from crushing RHPs. It all counts. Synergies are real in baseball, but more than any of the major sports I think baseball is more cumulative than synergistic, meaning a big pile of talent can win without the need to tailor things to complementary skillsets. Still, you want good defense for ground ball pitching, that counts. And you want to hit the lefties. But if Sosa is just a bench guy who tags in for 25% of our at-bats at third base, I don’t think that counts as solving our IF problems. Romy Gonzalez already kinda-sorta does that for us.

6. Like a Refsnyder type 🙁

7. This is part of why I *love* the Contreras trade. He fits so well on so many levels.

   Sosa is a lefty killer but personally I’m not crazy about players with a low BA-OBP differential. Triolo has no power, at that point why not go hard for Hoerner? He’s an amazing fielder and has a career .788 OPS vs LHP (in 2025: .369/.395/.539/**.935** vs LHP).

   Like Sosa he has one year left on his contract so the package shouldn’t be massive, and he’s a year younger.

8. brendan rodgers career OPS vs lefties: 837

   last year he also hit 191 and played defense like old people fuck. and romy is better. 

   but he’d be cheap! 

9. not an oversimplification, it is exactly what they need. the Sox do not hit enough Homeruns. They are too left-handed .

10. I get the logic and in the short term, as you figure out really what the long term plan on the OF and what you truly have in guys like Mayer and Campbell, it’s not the worst plan to go get someone like Sosa and Triolo to platoon. Outside of Roman Anthony we’re still relying too much on hot steaks from guys like Story and Abreu

    But I think there’s a ceiling on your success when you’re platooning across the lineup. Yes, teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have had some really successful platoons recently but that’s because they have true everyday anchors in the lineups. Outside of Roman Anthony we’re still relying too much on hot steaks from guys like Story and Abreu to carry the lineup to then rely so heavily on the platoons. It’ll get us to the playoffs but I think it puts a real cap on potential playoff success.

11. Orr……Cora could try just playing baseball instead of obsessing over “match ups”

    I couldn’t stop laughing when Dave Robert’s gave an interview after winning the World Series 2 years in a row. It really sounded like a personal shot at Cora, but let’s face it, Cora isn’t even relevant.

    Dave Robert’s said something along the lines of “baseball isn’t all about matchups, you let the boys go out there and play, and play well. Some coaches obsess over player matchups. If I coached the team using this same nonsense we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

    He also mentioned that if a player isn’t doing well against a left handed pitcher what should you do? You allow them to bat against more lefties to GET PRACTICE and get them used to batting and doing well against the DREADED LHP

    Let’s face it, if “coaching” is obsessing over “best match ups” then why tf do we need a coach? AI could do circles around Cora.

    Oh that’s right, there’s more to baseball than “Match ups.”

    I’ve been saying it for years! Always hated this cheater and can’t wait for him to be fired.

    Edit in- As you can see with idiots like OP responding coming to Cora’s defense. Please remind me. How did the Sox do this past season when Cora obsessed over match ups?

    How did the Dodgers do after ignoring that terrible strategy and playing baseball?

    These same idiots obsessed over Cora last year saying things like “it’s still to early in the season to say!” “Give them some time! They’re going to do great!”

    Only to lose first round of the playoffs 🤣

12. Don’t really agree with any of the analysis in this post. First of all, the Red Sox could still stand to be considerably better vs. righties, considering that’s the majority of pitchers, and they project to have one of the weaker position player groups in the Majors as currently constructed (bottom third in batter WAR projections per fangraphs depth charts). Part of the appeal of Paredes is that he is above average vs. both lefties and righties — I don’t think you’re correct about him being bad vs. lefties.

    > Last year he had a .691 OPS against LHP and a .832 OPS against RHP. Perhaps that was a one year anomaly

    Well it certainly could be, considering we’re talking about 71 PAs lol. He has a career 131 wrc+ vs lefties which I think is far more indicative. Lefty/righty splits are flukey year-to-year and I don’t think 2025 should be used against Paredes in this regard.

    Paredes has one of the best batted ball profiles in the league for Fenway and is seven years younger than Suarez. Suarez projects for a .300 OBP and I’m just not interested in watching that. Paredes is a better fit for the team and it’s not even close in my mind.

    > Edmundo Sosa from Philly or Jared Triolo from Pittsburgh. Obviously those guys aren’t the sexiest names in the world, but they’d likely be cheaper and help this roster more than a big name like Paredes would.

    The post really jumps the shark here. Paredes projects for a 3.5 WAR/162 pace, he’s so much more productive overall than either of these players.

13. Like Suarez…

14. The better idea is to have hitters that can do reasonably well against both. Wilyer would be a superstar if he could hit both.

15. Have you considered Nicholas Sogard?

16. Sosa is underrated in my opinion. I’d be a fan of that acquisition.