Red Sox: Two deals that could make 2019 team better

The Red Sox are the best team in the world right now, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get even better next season.

Winning the World Series is great and all, but now that the season is over, the Boston Red Sox are already looking for ways to continue their success. Here are a few things that could be done to make their 2019 season even better.

Trade for J.T. Realmuto

Nearly every team would be much better with J.T. Realmuto, and that does include the Red Sox. This team didn’t really know what they wanted to do at the position because pretty much each of their catchers had a decent work load, but neither were really great.

Sandy Leon and Christian Vazquez each appeared in at least 70 games throughout the regular season. Let’s take a look at some of their stats.

Leon his .177 with five home runs and 22 RBI’s throughout 265 at-bats. His WAR stood at -0.9. Vazquez hit .207 with three home runs and 16 RBI’s over the course of 251 at-bats. His WAR stood at -0.8.

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Blake Swihart also spent some time at the position. While he spent most of his career as a catcher, he bounced around every position this year and played in fewer than 30 games behind the plate. Leon and Vazquez combined to hit .192 over more than 500 at-bats.

Leon is still working with arbitration but Vazquez is slowly earning more and more. He will earn more than $13 million combined over the next three seasons with an option for a fourth.

The Red Sox won the World Series and had the best record, but their catchers could really use an upgrade and Realmuto could really be the one if they can get him.

He’s a great upgrade in every way. In 2018, he hit .277 with 21 home runs over 477 at-bats. He scored 74 times and drove in 74 runners. His WAR was 4.8, one of the best in the N.L. He’ll be earning quite a bit but is still under control for another two years.

The Red Sox already have a great offense thanks to guys like Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Andrew Benintendi and pretty much everyone else, but adding Realmuto would make them even better.

The team does have a couple prospects that they can afford to lose and should be able to make a run at Realmuto if they wanted to, and they should.

Sign Patrick Corbin

The Red Sox didn’t really have a fifth starter throughout the season. They had three solid pitchers going at least 150 innings each in Chris Sale, David Price, and Rick Porcello. They also had Eduardo Rodriguez who threw 128 innings.

Beyond that, nobody threw more than 100 innings. They had four pitchers who started between 8 and 13 games. Two of these four are now free agents and the team may want to look elsewhere for another solid starter.

One option is Patrick Corbin. He keeps getting better each year and wouldn’t even end up in the back of the rotation, maybe their number three starter. In 2018 his ERA wasa  career best 3.15 with an impressive 246 strikeouts over 200 innings pitched.

No Red Sox pitcher even reached 200 innings in 2018 and for a team who had three starters with an ERA over 4, a pitcher like Corbin would really boost their rotation. The team finished the season with a 3.75 ERA, good for eighth best in baseball.

The two pitchers who spent time as starters and are free agents are Drew Pomeranz and Nathan Evoldi. Pomeranz pitched to an ERA over 6, so having Corbin serve as a replacement would help create a great core in the rotation.

Corbin made $7,500,000 in 2018 and could probably average around $13-15 million a year in a new deal.

If the Red Sox will probably do a bunch of small or maybe even big deals, but if they do one or both of these, their 2019 campaign is almost guaranteed to be better.