It shouldn’t be very hard to get more production out of third base this year than last year. The Red Sox were dead last in OPS by third basemen in 2016, and it wasn’t particularly close. The second-worst team at the position, the Cincinnati Reds, coughed up a .701 OPS. The Red Sox? A whopping .685 mark. As fun as two months of Baseball Annihilator Travis Shaw was, it was those other months that brought him way down, and no one else really stopped the bleeding at the third – not Brock Holt, not Marco Hernandez, and certainly not Aaron Hill, who looked pretty pumpkin-like during his time in Boston.
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If Sandoval looks to shoot for better than that 50th percentile projection, there are a couple of things that could bring a better-than-expected result to him.
Matt Collins wrote about Sandoval in October on these web pages, and while he did note that being better with the glove could help, it’s not something to expect from him. The biggest improvement would have to be made to his plate discipline. A reduction in strikeouts and a newfound improvement in his walk rate would go a long way to a great comeback for Sandoval. He’s a free swinger, and takes hacks at pitches even Vlad Guerrero would lay off, so a modest improvement would do wonders. It’s unlikely, but for a player that drastically needs a career revival, that would be a nice place to start. Not everyone will have a comeback on the level of 2013 John Lackey.
A huge turnaround isn’t unheard of – especially in Boston – and when the bar’s set this low, you don’t need one. Sandoval just needs to play. He doesn’t need to be flashy, doesn’t need to be exciting, he just needs to give us anything better than the carnage we’ve seen. Keep the hype levels low, ignore the Best Shape Of His Life reports, and expect some modestly acceptable baseball from Pablo Sandoval. It’s all we can really ask for, and it’s what PECOTA thinks he’ll give.