The Red Sox Signed Marwin Gonzalez I Guess
No disrespect to Marwin Gonzalez, but I miss the days when the Red Sox would sign or trade for a player and it'd make me feel something.
I was recording the Kirk Minihane Show when this news broke. Kirk actually stopped the show to ask me if I needed to leave to blog this story, and I could not have been more adamant about the lack of urgency I had to blog this news. I even stopped at McDonald's on the way home, got a cinnabun, ate it, licked my icing-covered fingers, and changed for bed before I opened my laptop to write about this. Again, no disrespect to Mr. Gonzalez. I'm sure he's a great guy. But I got about as much excitement from this signing as you get when you read that happy birthday text from the aunt you never see and only hear from once a year on your birthday. Just does nothing for me.
Anyways, let's talk about the signing. I'm going to stay consistent with my stance that probably makes no sense to you, but makes plenty of sense to me. If you had a good year in 2020, take it. It counts. Ride off into the sunset with your 2020 achievements. If you sucked in 2020, but otherwise have been pretty good then you're probably still pretty good. Gonzalez hit .211 with a .606 OPS last year in 175 plate appearances. The splits weren't great, either. He sucked against lefties and wasn't that much better against righties. The OPS against righties was over a hundred points higher (.652), but it still wasn't anything to write home about.
Being that I'm unbiased, I have to note that Gonzalez was a member of the 2017 Houston Astros. If you recall, it was an Astros fan who compiled all the data of which players had the trash can banged for them during their at-bats. Gonzalez, according to the data, had the trash can banged for him more than any other player on the Astros that year. Not percentage-wise, but total times. The now 31-year-old had 147 bangs over 776 pitches, which is 18.9% of the time. He hit .303 with a .907 OPS that year. In the three seasons since 2017, Gonzalez has hit .248 with a .713 OPS in 1,214 plate appearances. So, yeah.
Where Gonzalez comes in handy is that, like Kiké Hernandez, he can play virtually anywhere. He's played a lot of shortstop, first base, left field, third base, and second base, but has also given right field and centerfield a shot. I never understood why left field and right field are two words but centerfield isn't. I digress.
I think this move makes sense if Kiké Hernandez becomes your everyday second baseman. Hernandez, as mentioned before, has been known as a super utility guy, but the Red Sox haven't had a true everyday second baseman since Manny Machado ended Dustin Pedroia's career. Ian Kinsler was a nice stopgap for a hot second in 2018, but even he wasn't their everyday second baseman for a full season. Boston also has Christian Arroyo, who is going to see some time at second base. You can put Kiké in left against left-handed pitching to get Arroyo some playing time at second. You'll see the newly acquired Franchy Cordero in left against righties a decent amount. Now with Gonzalez in the mix, they've certainly got options and platoons all over the damn place.
Earlier today, there was a report that "rival executives" believed that Jackie Bradley Jr. returning to Boston was imminent because of the Andrew Benintendi trade, but that was before the Gonzalez signing. I don't know where adding Gonzalez leaves the Red Sox in the Bradley sweepstakes, but one would assume the likelihood of that happening has lessened even more. You might also assume now that the Red Sox are done adding players to their big league roster, but then Lou Merloni sent out this ominous tweet tonight.
I don't have to tell you this because you probably already know, but Lou knows shit. That wasn't a gut feeling tweet, so I'm fully expecting something else coming relatively soon, as pitchers and catchers are just days away from reporting down in Ft. Myers.