Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Jarren Duran is not ready to be a major league outfielder, let alone the starting center fielder on a team on the outskirts of a playoff race.
And while Duran — whose defensive struggles were on full display in Boston’s blowout loss to the Royals on Sunday — deserves his fair share of blame, it’s the Red Sox who should be criticized for thrusting him into a role he’s not ready for. When it comes to their outfield, the Red Sox have been making it up as they go since Dec. 1, when they pulled the trigger on the the confusing trade that sent Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers for Jackie Bradley Jr. and two prospects.
That deal, in a vacuum, made little sense unless or until chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom was going to make another outfield addition. As the lockout dragged on, visions of Kyle Schwarber and Seiya Suzuki danced in the heads of Red Sox fans. But as business reopened, it was an infield addition (Trevor Story) that shook up the roster while the outfield was left untouched. By Opening Day, the unlikely starting outfield of Alex Verdugo, Kiké Hernández and Bradley was set.
Consider how many possibilities the Red Sox have tried — or at least considered — in their outfield since spring training… and how few of them have worked out.
Jarren Duran criticism is fair, but Boston Red Sox have been…
In late March, after the Story signing, manager Alex Cora said the Red Sox planned to have J.D. Martinez play “a lot of outfield,” especially against lefties. 110 games into the season, Martinez has yet to play a single inning in the field. Then came the let’s-convert-Christian Arroyo-to-outfield experiment. He has made a grand total of 17 appearances in right and has looked uncomfortable out there at times. Instead of using Bradley as a defensive-minded role player and maximizing his matchups offensively, the Red Sox had no choice to play him every day. That, as we learned, didn’t work out.
Hernández’s mid-June injury threw a clear wrench into things and the Red Sox, with no better option, turned Duran into an everyday center fielder even though he isn’t ready for the assignment. They made the curious decision to play him in center and Bradley in right, only to momentarily reverse course and flip them leading up to the All-Star break. Then came the post-deadline musical chairs of installing Tommy Pham in left, moving Verdugo to right and releasing Bradley while choosing to keep Jaylin Davis (a right-handed bat) on the roster.
Every plan has, in some form, failed, leading to an attempt at another. Obviously, the Hernández injury is a big deal. But the forces in motion around it deserve some criticism, too.
The Red Sox didn’t enter the season with enough outfield depth. Asking Arroyo to be Bradley’s platoon partner at a position he had never played before was always a big ask. And while guys like Rob Refsnyder, Franchy Cordero and Davis, have given temporary jolts, no one has done enough to usurp Duran as the top solution. Every Hernández setback has put more responsibility on the shoulders of Duran. Hernández is getting closer to a return but by the time he comes back, it may be too late.
It’s fair to question the outfield plan from the beginning. If the Sox had made another addition, replacing Hernández likely would have been much more tenable as Bradley, temporarily, could have moved back to center, where he’s still elite.
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A reshuffling of the deck was needed at the deadline but again, the Sox hit the wrong notes. Displacing Verdugo, who was the only stable part of the outfield, probably wasn’t the answer. It’s hard to argue that Bradley’s offensive performance wasn’t release-worthy, but it’s not like Duran (entered Sunday hitting .152 since July 3) is exactly lighting it up at the plate either. A more reasonable path would have been adding a natural right fielder, keeping Verdugo in left and moving Bradley to center while having Duran come off the bench. The low acquisition of Pham, plus his impact as a right-handed bat at the top of the lineup, was likely intriguing to Bloom and co. But the effects of the move on the rest of the roster are questionable at best.
Just three years ago, the Red Sox had one of the best outfields in the baseball with Andrew Benintendi in left, Bradley in center and Mookie Betts in right. Now, it’s as piecemeal as it gets.