The Red Sox are moving up the Power Rankings
PHILADELPHIA - Of all the images that should remind Red Sox fans that it is actually their team has moved on from the past, it is a glimpse at those postgame celebratory shots of the outfielders.
Andrew Benintendi. Jackie Bradley Jr. Mookie Betts. Good times.
Or let's even harken back to two years ago. Alex Verdugo. Kiké Hernandez. Hunter Renfroe. That good enough for a trip to the American League Championship Series.
And now? We have woken up in early May to find a collection that is rivaling the production of any group of outfielders the Red Sox have put out there in recent memory. And that's without what was baseball's best offensive player for first nine games of the season, Adam Duvall.
Masa Yoshida. Jarren Duran. Verdugo.
That combination - with a smattering of Yaimel Tapia, Rob Refsnyder and Hernandez - currently sits with the best combined OPS of any group in the majors (.940), not even close. The nearest collection of outfielders belong to the Cubs (.843). The worst? The Yankees' outfielders find themselves at the bottom of this chase for OPS with a combined .584.
The most recent example of this feather in Chaim Bloom's cap came during the Red Sox' four-game sweep of the Blue Jays, which was punctuated with Thursday's 11-5 win. That stretch saw Yoshida hit .529 (7-for-19) with a 1.556 OPS, Duran go 6-for-12 (.500) while boasting a 1.433 OPS, and Verdugo come away with a .467 clip (5-for-13) and 1.313 OPS.
Right now, if the Red Sox finished with their current outfield OPS, it would narrowly be the second-best in team history, just coming in after the 1979 club (.941). It is, however, better than that vaunted group from the last world championship club, with the "Three B's" finishing at .899. This year's edition, however, does currently boast the best batting average for any Red Sox outfield, coming in at .321.
Now, we aren't about to suggest that defensively this collection is on par with what you witnessed five years ago. They are a collective minus-two in Outs Above Average according to Baseball Savant, with the Dodgers leading MLB at plus-seven. (In 2018, the Red Sox ended up fourth with a plus-17.)
But, considering the offensive production, one would certainly have to file what the Red Sox are rolling out defensively - particularly with the improvement of Duran - as good enough.
There is also the matter of getting a significant bang for their buck.
According to Spotrac, the Red Sox are allocating just more than $25 million to outfielders this season, which ranks them 13th overall in baseball. It is 14.45 percent of their payroll. The team they are about to play, the Phillies, lead the list at about $68 million (28 percent of their payroll).
And when it came to identifying the right outfielders in this year's most recent free agent class to commit to, so far it appears as though the Red Sox chose wisely - at least when it came to making a good first impression.
Actually, overall, the free agent outfielders from this past offseason haven't been an across-the-board bust, by any means.
There was Judge (.863 OPS, currently injured), Brandon Nimmo (.825 OPS), Benintendi (.657), Mitch Haniger (.838), Michael Conforto (.652), Joc Pederson (.835, qualifying offer), Cody Bellinger (.939) and Trey Mancini (.698).
But for what the Red Sox needed, and the financial obligation they allocated, the additions of Yoshida and Duvall certainly seems to fit the bill.
Of course, it also helps immensely that both Duran and Verdugo figured out whatever they needed to figure out to take their respective games to the next level.
However they got here, it's working. And that is a reality many did not see coming when trying to figure out this group.