Well this kinda sucks. All offseason I have been staying optimistic about the possibility of the Sox contending this year. Before the Betts/Price trade, I legitimately believed that they were world series contenders. They had a top 5 offense and had what could actually have been a pretty good rotation. Chris Sale was going to be the ace he was in years prior, Eduardo Rodriguez was going to be a solid number 2, David Price was going to be better than league average, Eovaldi was going to finally stay healthy and anchor the back end of the rotation with the league average Martin Perez. After the Betts trade, I was optimistic that the trio of E-Rod, Sale, and Eovaldi would be good enough to get the Sox into the wild card game. But now with Sale missing at least the start of the season and in all likelihood not being much of a contributor in 2020 for health reasons, I am beginning to lose a lot of optimism. There is only so much that the offense can do when half the rotation doesn’t even exist. So this brings us to the question, who is going to fill in for Chris Sale? And what about the fifth spot in the rotation? And when one of the two starters that we have gets hurt, who takes over?
The Sox don’t plan to contend this year and at this point don’t have much to lose. That puts them in the position to try literally everybody with very little consequence. Start with Brian Johnson, because he has proven before that he can be around league average. Give Tanner Houck and Bryan Mata a shot at being major league starters, because they likely won’t have the opportunity to try when the team is competitive. Try out Chris Mazza, Ryan Weber, Mike Shawaryn and Kyle Hart. Give Darwinson Hernandez a shot to start. If none of those guys work out, sign one of the available free agents like Clay Bucholz or Aaron Sanchez, both guys that have been good in the past but struggled recently. The gist is, give everybody a shot, because the team really doesn’t have anything to lose. The young guys could solidify themselves as future contributors, and even if everything goes downhill, at least management knows what they have going into 2021.
