This is another big one. An individual I made a trade with recently decided he wanted to get rid of some Red Sox duplicates he had and offered to just send me a bunch. So, all of the below cards were free. Tough to argue with that.
1. Xander Bogaerts. This features a cameo from Rafael Devers. Bogaerts and Devers always seemed like great friends. It was sort of concerning after Bogaerts defected that Devers would do the same. Luckily that did not happen.
2. Carlton Fisk. Is this another shot from his Game 6 World Series-winning homer? I don't really know.
3. Bobby Dalbec. Boston recently signed C.J. Cron, which spells trouble for Dalbec making the team this year.
4. Rafael Devers. This is a pretty cool shot with the stadium in the background.
5. Alex Verdugo. Last year I was planning to push Verdugo to 100 cards. He will get there this year, probably mostly due to TCDB.
6. Bobby Dalbec.
7. Xander Bogaerts.
8. J.D. Martinez. I am running out of things to say about some of these players. Martinez shows up in a ton of these packages.
9. Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber had a very odd year last year with the Phillies. He hit just .197, but walked so much that his OBP was a respectable (but not great) .343 and he hit 47 home runs and drove in 104 runs. His brief time in Boston, he hit .291 (which would have been a career high by a significant margin had it been over an entire season) but with a similar walk rate, so his OBP was .435. I still wonder what it would have been like to keep him over Martinez after 2021.
10. Chris Sale. Here's another player who shows up a ton in these packages.
11. Rafael Devers.
12. Mookie Betts. And yet another one. This package in particular contains a lot of Mookie cards. And I am kind of okay with it because I have come to realize how lucky I was to witness his tenure with Boston. He was easily one of the greatest all-around players the team has ever developed and it is so frustrating that they traded him away. And I say that as probably the biggest Connor Wong fan.
13. J.D. Martinez.
14. Andrew Benintendi. And another one. Benintendi has had such an odd career. If he has another season like last year, I'm not even sure he is a regular player anymore. It's so strange to go from the seventh overall pick to this.
15. Mookie Betts.
16. Rafael Devers.
17. Mookie Betts. I need to get back to my Diamond King Roundup posts. I left that series incomplete.
18. Mookie Betts.
19. Mookie Betts.
20. Mookie Betts.
21. Mookie Betts. See what I mean about there being a lot in this? I like this card because I had a Shohei Ohtani from this insert set.
22. Mookie Betts. I really like this one too.
23. Ted Williams. Williams likely should have won at least a couple more MVPs than his two. It's a shame he never got another chance to play in a World Series after 1946.
24. Mookie Betts.
25. Mookie Betts.
26. Chris Sale.
27. Andrew Benintendi.
28. J.D. Martinez.
29. Mookie Betts.
30. J.D. Martinez.
31. Mookie Betts.
32. Rafael Devers.
33. Chris Sale.
34. David Ortiz. In his postseason career, Ortiz hit .289/.404/.543 with 17 home runs and 61 RBIs in 85 games. His average and OBP are slightly better than his regular season numbers while his slugging percentage is slightly worse. These things tend to even out after larger samples, so this is not surprising.
35. Team Card. This is the 2018 World Championship team, one of the most dominant teams of my lifetime, and certainly the most dominant Red Sox team.
36. Rafael Devers.
37. J.D. Martinez.
38. David Ortiz.
39. Roger Clemens. I started paying attention to baseball in 1991, but didn't really watch a lot of games until around 1995, and even then could only watch nationally-televised games and superstation teams. Unfortunately that meant I missed out on a lot of the Roger Clemens dominance.
40. Xander Bogaerts.
41. Nomar Garciaparra. One thing I am beginning to think that Hall of Fame voters are getting completely wrong is that players with insanely high peaks should be in. Sandy Koufax and Dizzy Dean are in, why isn't Nomar Garciaparra in? He was easily one of the best players in the game for about a seven-year stretch.
42. Cy Young. I love this photo and have seen it several times on cards. It looks like he's in someone's backyard.
43. Roger Clemens.
44. David Ortiz.
45. Xander Bogaerts.
46. J.D. Martinez.
47. Carl Yastrzemski. Yaz won three batting titles during his career (1963, 1967, 1968). The one he won in 1968 came when he hit just .301 and was the only player in the league to hit over .300. That was when baseball decided to lower the pitching mound a little.
48. Nomar Garciaparra.
49. Wade Boggs. Boggs is another player, like Mo Vaughn, that I get kind of nostalgic about. I didn't get to see him play much, but his career in the 80's was so fascinating. How did he never come close to an MVP award?
50. David Ortiz.
51. Chris Sale.
52. Michael Chavis. Another player that appears a lot. I was thinking about some of the big prolific home run seasons around the game. 2019 was one of the biggest. I was thinking about how few Red Sox seemed to have benefited from that, but then I remembered Chavis. He hit 18 home runs. It was his rookie season so it didn't seem odd because he had great power in the minors, but he has not come close to that since.
53. Rafael Devers.
54. Pedro Martinez. As with Mookie Betts, I am happy I was able to witness the historic dominance of Pedro Martinez. I often say I have not seen anyone better than he was during his peak years with Boston.
55. Andrew Benintendi.
56. Gorkys Hernandez. This is an odd one. Hernandez was acquired to be a backup outfielder in 2019, but ended up playing in just 20 games. He hit just .143/.218/.245 with zero home runs and two RBIs. I am surprised he ended up even getting a card.
57. Christian Vazquez. Two others that clearly seemed to benefit in 2019 from the juiced ball were Christian Vazquez (23 home runs, second best is nine) and Xander Bogaerts (33, second best is 23). 1996 and 1987 are other big home run seasons.
58. Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi is often cited as an example of the team being cheap, but the Red Sox actually offered him a better deal than the one he eventually got. He thought he could get a better deal elsewhere and when that did not happen, he came back to the Red Sox, who had already moved on. Unfortunately, Corey Kluber did not work out.
59. Chris Sale.
60. Eduardo Rodriguez. This is one player I really wish would have stayed in Boston. Rodriguez was often frustrating, but when he was on, he was so good.
61. J.D. Martinez.
62. Michael Chavis.
63. Christian Vazquez.
64. Xander Bogaerts.
65. Enrique Hernandez. Hernandez recently re-signed with the Dodgers, which seems to be his preferred team.
66. Rafael Devers.
67. Jackie Bradley Jr. Maybe one of the greatest defensive center fielders in team history. I still like to go back and watch highlight videos of him on Youtube.
68. Tanner Houck. Houck has looked good this Spring. He could be in line for a starting rotation spot, but I still think he would make a good closer.
69. Xander Bogaerts.
70. Pedro Martinez.
71. Carl Yastrzemski.
72. Ted Williams.
73. Tanner Houck.
74. Nomar Garciaparra.
75. Bobby Dalbec.
76. Nick Decker. Decker was the second-round pick in 2018. He has struggled in the minors and is now 24 and still in Class A. I think he is quickly running out of time.
77. Michael Chavis.
78. Durbin Feltman. Feltman was the third-round pick in 2018. Once thought to be on the fast track to the Majors, he never really got going in the minors. He was released and spent last season in the Athletics system where his numbers improved, but back in AA ball.
79. Darwinzon Hernandez. Hernandez spent last season in the Orioles system where he put up some good numbers. Control continues to be an issue. He has good stuff, if he can harness it.
80. Dustin Pedroia. I would put Pedroia in a category similar to Nomar, though his peak is not as high. It's a shame that injuries prematurely ended his career. Had he had a few seasons of decline instead of an abrupt end, his chances of election to Cooperstown would look pretty good.
81. Rafael Devers.
82. David Price. Price will probably go down as a big free agent bust. After signing the biggest free agent contract in team history, he delivered just four seasons of mostly injury-plagued ball. 2016 was the only year he was fully healthy and he had a rough 3.99 ERA, though he did strike out 228 batters in 230 innings. In Boston, he was 46-24 with a 3.84 ERA and 609 strikeouts versus 156 walks in 588 innings. All of that can be forgiven though with his amazing performance in the 2018 World Series, for which he should have won MVP.
83. David Price.
84. Andrew Benintendi.
85. Jackie Bradley Jr.
86. J.D. Martinez. What's this? A boring Stadium Club photo?
87. Chris Sale. This one makes up for it.
88. Wade Boggs.
89. Craig Kimbrel. Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen both look like potential Hall of Famers. Kimbrel spent three seasons in Boston and saved 108 games with a 2.44 ERA and a shocking 305 strikeouts in just 184 innings. He will not wear a Red Sox cap on his plaque, but I hope he gets in all the same.
90. David Ortiz. Closing things out is a hug between Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia.
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