MLB Notebook: Red Sox need Eduardo Nunez now more than ever; what MLB can learn from Hitchcock

When the 2017 season ended, it seemed like a good idea for the Red Sox to retain Eduardo Nunez.

Three weeks later, it’s no longer a good idea – it’s imperative.

The news that Dustin Pedroia underwent major knee surgery last week is the most obvious reason behind the increased urgency. In a best-case scenario, Pedroia could be back by late May or early June.

But there are people in the medical community – and some in the Red Sox organization, too – who privately doubt that timetable.  Some believe Pedroia could end up missing the first half of the season.

And when he returns, it seems obvious that the team will have to monitor his playing time judiciously.

Why then, does president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski suggest that the Sox don’t need to acquire another piece to the roster to 1) play second in Pedroia’s absence or 2) provide better depth and insurance upon his return.

Dombrowski told NBCSports Boston that Pedroia’s surgery “(doesn’t) really affect our off-season plans,’’ adding that he believes the Sox “have multiple internal candidates to play second base until Pedey returns.’’

The Sox do, indeed, have multiple internal candidates, with Brock Holt, Deven Marrero, Tzu-Wei Lin, Josh Rutledge and Marco Hernandez all, for now, under team control.

But a closer examination reveals that every candidate on the list is flawed. Holt saw a dramatic dip in his performance last season and has battled concussion issues for each of the last three seasons. Marrero, while a skilled defender who showed marked improved against left-handed pitching last season, still has a career .568 OPS at the big league level. Lin shone as an emergency call-up straight from Portland, has a combined 300 at-bats above the Double A level in pro ball.

Meanwhile, both Rutledge (hip) and Hernandez (shoulder) are each returning from seasons lost to injury and remain largely unproven.

Do those sound like adequate options for a team with championship aspirations?

Nunez would solve that issue, and also prove valuable in other capacities. He helped spark an offensive uptick from the first game he arrived and very quickly became one of the most popular players in an otherwise joyless clubhouse.

The Red Sox could use all the veteran leadership they can get now, and Nunez checks that box.

He even displayed better-than-average power with a career-best homer every 20.6 at-bats and a slugging percentage (.539) that was tops on the team over the final two months of the season.

But Nunez’s real appeal is his versatility. In addition to being able to handle second base on a full-time basis, he has the ability to play short and third, too, and has played some outfield in the past. Undoubtedly, he could become sufficient at first base with some work in spring training.

Take a look at the two teams in the playoffs. The Astros have Marwyn Gonzalez, who was a natural shortstop who grew into someone who became Houston’s regular left fielder. Similarly, the Dodgers took a converted shortstop – Chris Taylor – and made him their center fielder.

That sort of flexibility – Ben Zobrist with the Cubs is yet another example – has become a key component to a lot of successful teams. The number of injuries, increased travel and longer seasons has made depth more paramount than ever before.

Nunez could be a handy insurance policy at short if something happens to Xander Bogaerts, and the same goes for Rafael Devers at third.

Some have suggested that Nunez will want to go somewhere where he can be guaranteed everyday status at a set position. But that’s seldom been the case in a major league career that is now eight years long, and only once has he played more than 114 games in a season.

If the Red Sox provide him with the security of a multi-year deal and pay him the going rate for his versatility, Nunez would be more than happy to return to Boston.

Which makes it all the more logical to get him signed.

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Game 2 on Wednesday night was indeed unforgettable and a World Series game to treasure. It ranks up there with Game 7 of the 2011 Series as a modern-day Fall Classic classic.

But forgive me one complaint. In a 7-6, 11-inning game, how is it that 10 runs in a 13-run game were accounted for by home runs? For that matter, when you take Game 1 into account, 14 of the first 17 runs scored in the 2017 World Series scored as the result of homers.

In one sense, that shouldn’t be so surprising. The game has been trending in that direction for some time now, as hitters often take an all-or-nothing approach at the plate.  Often, games get reduced to the proverbial “three true outcomes:” walk, strikeout, and home run.

There are plenty of reasons for this development. There’s no shame in striking out any more, as hitters adjust their swings and calculate launch angles. Meanwhile, pitching staffs are chock-full of powerful relievers who routinely top 95 mph with their fastballs.

Within the context of Wednesday’s game, the home runs were thrilling because, especially in the late innings and into extra innings, nearly every home run represented a lead change. And fans love homers for their sudden impact and the thrill of watching balls hit more than 400 feet.

But something is lost when the game is nearly totally dependent on homers for offense and excitement. One could certainly make the case that the most exciting aspect of Game 2 was the game-tying run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

Yasiel Puig had opened the inning with a homer (naturally) to bring the Dodgers within a run, but the Astros got two quick strikeouts to leave the Dodgers with one last out. But Logan Forsythe worked a walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch, and then scored on a single to right by Kiki Hernandez.

On the single by Hernandez, all of Dodger Stadium – and tens of millions of viewers at home -- watched as Forsythe rounded third and expertly slid into home, just ahead of a near-perfect throw from hard-charging right fielder Josh Reddick and an accompanying sweep tag by Houston catcher Brian McCann.

It was precisely this bit of drama that is non-existent in a game dominated by homers. Part of baseball’s inherent charm is the ability to build tension within an inning as one team rallies and the other tries desperately to hold the other off.

Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock once explained the difference between surprise and suspense.

The former, Hitchcock reasoned, could take place in a scene if two people were sitting at a table with a bomb hidden underneath, unbeknownst to all. At the time of the explosion, there would be great surprise, but its impact would be momentary.

Suspense, he countered, takes place when two people are seated at a table, but viewers know there’s a bomb underneath. The public knows that the bomb is likely to detonate and is invested in the scene more because of the accompanying anticipation. Each minute that ticks off serves to raise the anxiety. When will the bomb go off? Will the people seated leave in time?

That’s the difference between a runner on first and second, and the possibility of a run or a big inning versus the sudden surprise of a homer.

With homers, sustaining that tension is impossible. I fear that the game is evolving into a glorified home run derby, where the lone bit of suspense is the one-on-one battle between fireballing pitcher and power-obsessed hitter.

The nuance is gone, the strategy is virtually non-existent and the emphasis is limited to waiting for the next big boom.

Baseball can – and should - be so much more than that.

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An examination of the teams in the post-season consistently reveals some key players on every roster who arrived as part of smaller deals – low-profile personnel moves that pay unexpectedly big dividends.

Case in point: Justin Turner, who was signed almost as a free agent almost as afterthought a week before spring training began in 2014 and has emerged as perhaps the Dodgers’ best all-around player.

Case in point: Brandon Morrow, signed to a minor league deal last January, who has since developed into a key high-leverage late-inning reliever for the elite Los Angeles bullpen.

Case in point:  Marwyn Gonzalez, who was selected in the Rule 5 draft in 2011 by the Red Sox and immediately dealt to the Astros in a pre-arranged deal for the immortal Duarte.

Case in point: Brad Peacock, little more than throw-in in a multi-player deal between Oakland and the Astros that mostly centered around Chris Carter and Jed Lowrie. Peacock quietly won 13 games and posted a 3.00 ERA while serving as a back-end starter and staff swingman, and becoming the star of Game 3 of the World Series.

The point is that the best teams often find key pieces in unexpected places, the result of good identification and projection by a scouting staff.

It’s precisely this kind of move that’s been lacking in Dombrowski’s tenure with the Red Sox. He’s made some fine blockbuster deals – for Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel, most notably. But those were mammoth deals that were supposed to yield big results.

The trick is to do that with less-heralded players, where a team isn’t giving up a bushel of top prospects in return, and coming away with a gem anyway.

Dombrowski’s done it before in his career, signing a player waived by the Astros late in spring training and
winding up with a bargain-basement finding. That same player went on to post a .912 OPS, then hit 60 homers the next two seasons combined.

That player, of course, was J.D. Martinez, whom Dombrowski is very likely to pursue again this winter, but who will this time require a nine-figure deal to land.

No Red Sox fan would turn up their nose at Martinez, who would provide the necessary punch in the middle of a Boston lineup that was without much power last season.

A more impressive transaction, however, would involve a low-profile free agent or a small deal which lands the Red Sox a little-known player who develops into a star.

Those sort of transactions help with payroll and guard against the strip-mining of an organization’s farm system.