The Sox are in a weird spot with 2B, already having Chavis and Peraza, with Dalbec/Chavis spliting duties at first, and Downs in the wings. A Chavis/Peraza/Dalbec cluster is "fine", and each of them has some upside, but are not guys you want to rely on for a playoff team right now.
I think 2b is a good bellwether for figuring out how much they are trying to compete now, vs rebuild. If they are rebuilding, no reason to do anything there now. But if they want to compete this year, Wong or maybe LaMahieu make sense on a short deal. Either way, I doubt they sign anyone longer than two years.
Most likely, this offseason is all about pitching.
Had 2020 been a normal year, Jeter would have probably spend half the year in AA and half in AAA and would have had an outside chance of the 2b job in 2021. Hard to really know where any of the minor league guys are right now though. Maybe that's still the case.
Kinda like Tanner Houck. I saw him a few times prior to this year as a starter and wasn't all that impressed. He couldn't really strike guys out. I also saw him in the bullpen in Pawtucket where he looked really great from August on and was striking out batters. I thought he would stay there but the Sox used him as a starter in the AFL and he was striking out even more batters. He carried that over this year in his limited time and his K% jumped yet again. The problem is the sample sizes are so small.
Since August 3rd, 2019: (Paw, AFL, Bos)
58.1 ip, 2.01 era, 71k/28bb, 6 HR, 241 BF,
29.5% K rate, 11.6% BB rate 2.1% HR rate
Prior:
231.0 ip, 4.28era 198k/107bb, 15 HR. 1013 BF,
19.5% K rate, 10.6% BB rate, 1.5% HR rate
Those are 2 completely different pitchers and a 1st round pick figuring something out at age 23 after moving to the pen isn't that uncommon. He could also revert back to the guy who doesn't really strike guys out. His swinging strike% in the MLB isn't much higher than the MLB average (20.5% to 19.6%) but his K rate was 33.3%, the MLB average is 23.4%. There's also a lot of wiggle room between 19.5% and 29.%. In a world of incomplete information, the information is even more incomplete.