You may not believe this, but the Red Sox offseason is actually getting worse.
Before we get to the particulars, the latest Sox failure is right fielder Teoscar Hernandez, who has agreed to terms with – who else? – the Los Angeles Dodgers on a one-year, $23.5 million contract. Hernandez turned 31 in October, which means he will play the entirety of the 2024 season at that age. You may remember him primarily from his career with the Toronto Blue Jays, for whom he played from 2017-22 before the Jays traded him to the Seattle Mariners last offseason for right-hander Erik Swanson.
Against the Red Sox in 71 games during his time with the Jays, Hernandez batted .,312 with 22 home runs, 64 RBI and a .999 OPS, which is to say that he absolutely pulverized Boston pitching. Fourteen of those home runs came at Fenway Park, where Hernandez posted a .955 OPS.
The point? You can understand why the Sox wanted him. Hernandez would have been precisely the kind of bat that the Red Sox needed between left-handed hitters Rafael Devers and Triston Casas in the Boston lineup. Making matters worse is the fact that Hernandez will now play right field in Los Angeles, which had an opening at the position because the Dodgers intend to play Red Sox castoff Mookie Betts at second base.
Before we get to the particulars, the Hernandez negotiation marks the latest instance in which the Red Sox have been caught in the shrapnel between the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves, who are in the midst of an arms race for both the National League and World Series championships. The Dodgers offseason acquisitions now include none other than Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Hernandez, giving Los Angeles the kind of superteam – or, as Theo Epstein once called it, uberteam – that the Sox themselves once tried to construct.
If that sounds like the worst part of a bad weekend during this Red Sox offseason, it isn’t. As usual, the devil rests in the details.