Boston Red Sox: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

The Pitching Staff

Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi sit atop the Boston Red Sox rotation as of now, but neither has a particularly reliable health record. Rodriguez was great last year and turned out to be the Sox’s best pitcher, but at that, he still tallied an ERA just under four.

Maybe Rodriguez can improve on that if he can once again remain healthy and rack up 30+ starts like he did a year ago. Maybe he reverts back to the middle of the pack now that the limelight is on him as the Red Sox’s number one.

Eovaldi has number one stuff, but his health is a big question mark. That points to the bottom half of this rotation probably going to have to be picking up the slack. If E-Rod and Eovaldi can stay healthy, I think they can both have nice years, but who is going to fill the 3-5 spots in the rotation?

Martin Perez had a great camp and first half for Minnesota last year but tailed off as the season went on. Brian Johnson has found himself to be a swing guy these last several years for the Sox as a sixth starter type that can fill in and spot-start when guys get injured. But how will he fare if he’s locked into the rotation for the entirety of the season? Will his numbers even be good enough to keep him up?

The rest of the starts will have to go to younger guys and I would look at Ryan Weber to lead that group. After him, I think we could also see a fair amount of Tanner Houck, Mike Shawaryn, Kyle Hart, and maybe even Daniel McGrath making their share of starts for the club.

Another route the Sox can go is moving to Collin McHugh, who they just picked up when they DFA’d Hector Velazquez, as their fourth of fifth starter to get another veteran arm in there. McHugh has spent the majority of these past few seasons as a bullpen long relief option for the Astros, but this could be his shot to get back into a starting role.

None of these options appear to be too fantastic, but at the same time, the Boston Red Sox are in a spot right now where they’re going to have to get some quality innings out of some of their younger guys. So, 2020 will probably be an experimental year for them.

The biggest weakness of the Red Sox in 2019 was their bullpen, and even though they bring back pretty much the same crew of arms, I actually think this will be the strength of their pitching staff in 2020, though still not good enough to carry them to a decent record.

Reliability was a big issue for the Sox last season as the Red Sox bullpen lead the league in blown saves (31), but I think in 2020 we’re going to see Darwinzon Hernandez and Josh Taylor both step up as power lefties in their second full season as locked in commodities of this bullpen.

It’s also worth noting how good Brandon Workman was last year with a 10-1 record, 1.88 ERA, and 16 saves as the Sox’s best reliever. We saw an uptick in his fastball velocity from 91.6 in 2018 to 93.2 last season as well as a huge leap to a 13.06 K/9 rate all on the back of his higher usage of a power curveball off of the fastball.

Workman is currently one of the best relievers in baseball and I think we’ll be seeing another very good season out of him where he could potentially be moved to a playoff contender mid-season. Overall, I think the Sox’s bullpen will be better than last year though very overworked.