OPS+, 2017 vs. 2016
C Leon -47
1B Ramirez -25
2B Pedroia -10
SS Bogaerts -18
3B Holt -52
LF Benintendi -7
CF Bradley -22
RF Betts -26
4th OF Young -29
That's everyone. The entire team -- all of the guys who played last year -- is down. Many of them are drastically down. Moreland is up slightly over his last year in TX but is still below league average. Panda is gone, obviously, and Holt has only played in 35ish games. But the fact remains: except for our back-up catcher, not a single regular player is having even as good a year as he did last year -- forget about a better year.
Why?
I don't think there's a single cause -- it's tempting to say "Chili Davis sucks," but Chili Davis was the hitting coach last year, too. And, in fact, there are a few different potential causes that make sense:
-- For
Leon and
Holt, I'd be more than willing to chalk up 2016 (and in Holt's case, 2015) as the outlier. I don't think they are good at hitting baseballs. At least Leon provides some defensive value.
--
Bradley is a streaky hitter: his 2016 happened to include a long hot streak that he hasn't replicated this year. I'd say there's reason to hope he could have another before the year is out and close that gap a bit. That said, even if 2016 is the outlier, his defense is so good that, even at this level of offense, he's a great starting CF.
--
Pedroia and
Benintendi are close enough to matching last year's numbers that I wouldn't look too hard for a real, dramatic cause. But you could easily see Pedroia's nagging injuries hurting him a bit, and Benintendi wouldn't be the first rookie to have a bit of trouble adjusting to the league's adjustments. Indeed, the latter is already figuring it out, and I'd bet on him matching or exceeding last year's number by October. And while Pedroia's arrow is clearly pointing down, Benintendi's is pointing up.
--
Ramirez and
Young are declining. In Ramirez's case, the shoulder injury has probably hastened the decline, and in Young's, he simply hasn't had a ton of playing time, which makes his error bars a little bigger.
-- That leaves
Bogaerts and
Betts, the two most important guys and, unfortunately, the two I'm most worried about. With both, there's been a visible change: Bogaerts isn't pulling the ball, and Betts is popping up too many hittable pitches. With Bogaerts, I'd buy (and hope) that it's related to the hand injury (and, indeed, he's already turning it around). With Betts, it feels like something is off mechanically, and I don't know how that gets fixed. I'm willing to bet it does at some point, though.
I'm not sure what the conclusion is here, but I think it's more about roster construction than about coaching -- in other words, we shouldn't have expected these guys to perform as well as they did in 2016. In particular, I'd single out Leon and Holt as guys who I wish weren't getting enough at-bats to make it onto this list.
And as for what to do next, I think fixing Betts is obviously a huge priority, but I also think they need to have a plan for 2018 and beyond that doesn't rely on Ramirez and Pedroia playing like they did in 2016 anymore. To me, that means going after a middle-of-the-order bat who can slot in at 1B (or DH) and having a better middle-infield backup plan under the assumption that we won't get 150 games from Pedroia. You go get a Justin Bour or whoever to replace Moreland, and you don't need Ramirez to be Vintage Hanley (which is good, because we're going to want to ease off of him to avoid triggering his 2019 option).