Red Sox Earn Solid Marks So Far On Four Major Offseason Acquisitions

The Boston Red Sox looked like a potentially loaded team after a flurry of offseason moves.

The club went all out to get an ace in David Price, signing the lefty to a seven-year, $217 million contract. They unloaded four prospects — outfielder Manuel Margot, infielders Javier Guerra and Carlos Asuaje, and left-hander Logan Allen — for All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel. The Red Sox also lengthened their bullpen with Carson Smith and picked up a solid fourth outfielder in Chris Young.

But how have the Red Sox’s acquistions actually fared so far? Here are our first-quarter grades.

David Price: B-
This one is tough to grade. When you look at Price’s 5.53 ERA, you want to give the Red Sox a C at best for him. But the fact remains that it hasn’t exactly hurt Boston all that much. The left-hander still owns a 5-1 record and an American League-leading 70 strikeouts. Plus, Price does have five quality starts (including a pair of incredible outings) and a 2.71 FIP, which ranks 11th in all of baseball, according to Fangraphs.

It’s naive to write off an AL Cy Young winner, five-time All-Star and two-time AL ERA champion as a complete bust after just nine starts out of many in a new uniform, so we’re going with a safe B- here while also noting that Price definitely needs to build off recent improvements.

Carson Smith: Incomplete
Smith simply hasn’t done enough yet to get a grade in this course. The reliever spent all of April on the disabled list with a forearm strain and has only seen the mound three times to collect 2 2/3 innings. He’s allowed just two hits, an unearned run, a walk and two strikeouts, but the work isn’t sufficient yet. Red Sox manager John Farrell also said Wednesday it’s possible the right-hander could return to the DL, per The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham.

The Red Sox have had success without him, and the time he’s missed so far isn’t much considering how long the Major League Baseball season is. Smith likely will have to wait until the halfway point to get a grade from us.

Craig Kimbrel: A
The early blown save might still be fresh in Red Sox fans’ minds, but Kimbrel actually has held it down. Kimbrel has allowed five earned runs, but all of those came on two early-season home runs. Still, the hard-throwing righty has given up just six hits in 18 innings and 19 outings while striking out 29 — good for 14.5 strikeouts per nine innings — and has converted 11 of 12 save opportunities.

Chris Young: B+
We’re giving Young pretty good marks because he’s doing what the Red Sox brought him in to do. Young came in to be a fourth outfielder and a specialist against left-handed pitchers, and so far, he’s fit the bill. He’s batting .375 against lefties — compared to .154 against righties — and he hasn’t made any errors in the outfield. We knocked off a point or two for the fact that he’s hit only one home run, but overall, Young is living up to expectations.