McAdam: Can the Red Sox emerge as playoff contenders in a shortened season?

There's much that is unknown about baseball's return in 2020.

What, after a hiatus of more than three months, will the quality of play be like? How much of a factor will injuries be? And perhaps no question is more pertinent than this: Can baseball prevent a mass outbreak of COVID-19 cases that could interrupt or completely wipe out its season?

It will take some time for answers to emerge to these questions and no amount of speculation ahead of time is going to provide much in the way of insight.

On a more local level, there are also questions about the Red Sox and how they'll fare in the 60-game format.

A week ago, when it appeared owners and players were nearing a negotiated agreement, the Red Sox' fortunes looked to be improved. Plans were in place for an expanded playoff format that would have featured eight teams in each league qualifying for the playoffs.

Surely, a case could have been easily made that the Red Sox were among the eight best teams in the American League. Being among the top half of the teams in the league represented a low bar to clear, with the potential for one or more teams qualifying despite a sub-.500 record.

Now that the 2020 season will feature the more conventional postseason format (three division winners plus two wild card teams), the road to October will be considerably more challenging. Still, it wouldn't a huge stretch to see the Sox squeak into the playoffs.

"There's a lot of talent in that lineup,'' said one major league talent evaluator recently. "Like a lot of teams, it will come down to pitching.''

In the Red Sox' case, that's especially true of the starting rotation. But more on that in a moment.

Nearly everyone agrees that a 60-game schedule -- kindly toss aside the old wisdom about the baseball season; this time it is a sprint and not a marathon -- will result in the unexpected. With a smaller sample size, it stands to reason that some quality teams will underperform and some lesser teams will exceed expectations.

(For a perfect example of this, note that the eventual world champion Washington Nationals had a losing record after 60 games last season).

That said, here's what we know of the Red Sox' perceived positives and negatives:



First, the team strength remains its offense -- even without Mookie Betts. In a 2019 season that saw them finish third in their own division, the Red Sox managed to score 901 runs, the fourth-highest total of all MLB teams.

The offense will be diminished in the absence of Betts, one of the handful of best players in the game. But it's not as though his spot in the lineup will be filled by a replacement-level player. Alex Verdugo would seem capable of a .300/.350/.500 season. Verdugo compiled a 3.2 WAR last year despite missing most of the final two months last season.

Verdugo will be buffeted by Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers and J.D. Martinez -- all elite offensive performers. Christian Vazquez enjoyed a breakout season at the plate last year.

Meanwhile, the Sox will need a bounceback year from Andrew Benintendi, who saw his power dip and strikeouts soar. Benintendi looked lost at the plate for much of last season until and in the second half of the year, reverted back to the swing he used in college. However, Benintendi's .666 OPS over the final two months demonstrated that hardly supplied all of the answers.

There's uncertainty on the right side of the Boston infield, where both first and second base are largely unsettled. Can Jose Perazza claim second base for himself? Where does Michael Chavis fit in? How much can injury-prone Mitch Moreland provide?

Depth -- an area new chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom emphasized in his first off-season at the helm -- is greatly improved. Kevin Pillar gives the outfield a strong bench piece for all three spots. Tzu-Wei Lin, out of options, can play three infield spots and center field. And veteran catcher Jonathan Lucroy, having undergone shoulder surgery, could prove to a valuable (and versatile) piece, with the ability to help out behind the plate and at first base.

Still, the Sox, as is the case with many teams -- in normal seasons or otherwise -- will likely rise or fall based on the quality of their starting pitching. And it's here that, on paper at least, the Red Sox operate from a talent deficiency.

Three of the team's four best starters from a season ago will not be here in 2020 -- David Price was traded with Betts; Rick Porcello signed with the Mets in free agency; and Chris Sale will miss all of this year recovering from Tommy John surgery.

That leaves a rotation headed by Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi and newcomer Martin Perez.

Rodriguez blossomed into a sturdy No. 2 starter with 19 wins, a 3.81 ERA and 203.1 innings pitched and will enter the year as the team's No. 1 starter. Eovaldi remains an enigma -- a pitcher with plus-plus stuff who somehow chronically underachieves and has never shown much in the way of durability. Perez, signed as a free agent, is a back-end option whose peripheral numbers are far more encouraging than his actual numbers.

As unsettled as that trio is, the rest is worse. Ryan Weber was enjoying a strong spring training before the game was shut down in mid-March and had emerged as the favorite to nail down a spot. But Weber is approaching 30 and has pitched just 114.1 innings as a journeyman with four different organizations. Placing too much faith in him based on a handful of impressive Grapefruit League outings would seem to be the height of naivete.

The fifth spot, meanwhile, remains up for grabs from among a long list of 4A candidates. More than likely, the Sox will utilize the opener strategy for the No. 5 role.

In fact, it could be said that the success of their entire rotation will be dependent on cobbling things together. Thanks to a shortened Spring Training 2.0, teams won't be looking to their starters to provide six or more innings per outing; rather, even with the likes of Rodriguez on the mound, the Red Sox will be viewing this whole exercise as a pitching relay, with the starter -- at least in the first few weeks -- handing the baton to someone in middle relief before the baton is again passed to the high-leverage relievers.

From among more than a half-dozen or so candidates (Chris Mazza, Austin Brice, Jeffrey Springs, Matt Hall among them), the Red Sox must find trustworthy candidates to bridge the gap between starters who will be limited on pitch counts and a handful of late-inning relievers.

The runs will come. It will be all about whether the Red Sox can prevent the opposition from scoring them at an equal or greater rate.

In that regard, then, this season will not be so different after all.