The Boston Red Sox should pursue Eric Hosmer in free agency.
The Boston Red Sox were in on Giancarlo Stanton. Now it’s been reported that the Red Sox are out of the Stanton sweepstakes. The Red Sox were then rumored to be in on Jose Abreu. But it was just reported today that the talks with the Chicago White Sox on Abreu were “only preliminary.”
Add in Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani shooting down the Red Sox as a possible destination, and it’s been a swing and a miss on this offseason thus far for Dave Dombrowski.
But it’s only December 5, the offseason is still young, and there are free agents to be signed.
For the Red Sox, that means going all in on Eric Hosmer.
For a 93-win team, the Red Sox have a lot of problems. Their offense is inconsistent, the lack of leadership is as clear as day, the young core doesn’t seem competitive enough, and the team as a whole gets lost when it comes to October.
There is only one person on the free agent market this offseason who fills, or at the very least helps to fill, those holes and its Hosmer.
About the offense, Hosmer is a definite upgrade. Last season, Hosmer batted .318 with 25 home runs and 94 RBI.
He’s a well-rounded hitter and would benefit from playing in a place like Fenway Park. He hits to all fields and would be able to smack a lot of doubles off the Green Monster.
In his career, Hosmer is a .354 hitter at Fenway with three home runs and 17 RBI.
He would be an immediate upgrade at first base as well considering the Red Sox are in the market for first basemen.
On the leadership end of things, Hosmer is a proven leader. He has intangibles that many players wouldn’t dream of possessing. There are many positive accounts of Homer’s leadership and character out in the open. But the one of him moving his locker in between the Latin group and the one of him re-doing questions with a baseball writer are two of my favorites.
Even though the Red Sox won 93 games last season, they never seemed to have a good culture. There didn’t seem to have a leader. There was no direction.
Hence the new manager.
With the addition of Hosmer, there would be a real voice in the clubhouse. He can lead by example and most importantly through spoken word.
Hosmer’s most important quality that he can bring to the Red Sox though is not his bat, his glove, or even his significant dealings with the media.
It’s his experience.
Even though Hosmer is only 28 years old, he’s been to two World Series and has won one of them. He knows what it takes to win.
Make no mistake about it: the Red Sox’s clubhouse is full of talent.
It’s stocked to the brim with huge contracts, MVP candidates, Cy Young award winners and finalists, and lethal bats.
The one thing missing? A winner comes the postseason.
The Red Sox used to have David Ortiz to help teach the younger guys what it takes to win in October. Ortiz’s guidance is no longer there and no one else, aside from Dustin Pedroia, can be the provider of that.
Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr, and Andrew Benintendi are all fabulous ballplayers. But at the end of the day, they’ve shown almost no signs of having that winning X-factor in the postseason. Heck, throw Chris Sale and David Price in there too.
You can pretty much put the whole team in that conversation.
Hosmer knows what it takes to win. He would have no problem teaching the team those intangibles that need to be had. Alongside new-manager Alex Cora, who just won the World Series as the Bench Coach of the Houston Astros, Hosmer will be able to help focus the rest of his teammates on what it takes to win.
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When you break it down, what the Red Sox need most this offseason is some guidance. They already got their guy in manager in Cora.
Now they just need Eric Hosmer.