Hurley: Red Sox' Pablo Sandoval Era Will Only Get Worse In 2016
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Spring training is always a fascinating time of year in that despite loads of evidence to the contrary, most every team and fan base begins the year with a renewed sense of optimism. For whatever reason, to many folks, last year's faults are history, ready to be washed away by the magic that comes from the calendar showing a different year.
But the reality is that leopards can't change their spots, zebras don't change their stripes, and Sandovals don't change their eating habits. Essentially we know much more about a lot of these players than the wave of optimism might suggest.
And so, with Pablo Sandoval having arrived in camp showing a stunning lack of self-awareness, there's some comfort in making the proclamation that Year Two of the Pablo Sandoval era in Boston will be disastrous.
Last month, "it" began. "It" was the efforts from the Red Sox to try to convince the world that Pablo Sandoval spent the offseason dedicated to getting better and proving that last year's showing was the exception, not the new rule. And "it" came when manager John Farrell told the assembled media at a baseball dinner that Sandoval had lost 20-22 pounds.
The fact that the manager was including a two-pound range (as if two pounds on a guy who appears to be pushing three bills matter) should have set off some BS meters. And the fact that Sandoval showed up looking as big as ever, claiming that the team never asked him to lose weight and that he has nothing to prove? Nobody is believing that.
"You know, I don't got nothing to prove," he said, sweat pouring down his forehead, before later changing his message and saying he did have something to prove.
"It's not a disappointment," he said of last year. "It's baseball."
"Not at all," he said of the pressure of playing in Boston perhaps affecting his performance.
"I don't try to lose weight," he said of his offseason. "I don't weigh in at all. ... I don't weigh in all offseason."
"I don't worry about numbers; I worry about wins," he said when asked about his stats falling year by year. "You can see all the years that the numbers went down, how many championships that I got. So that's what I worry [about]."
After a disastrous season in the field, you figure he at least probably took some grounders and made some throws through the winter, right?
"I did no work in the field, nothing," he said. "So that's what I did different, just focusing on being healthy, agility-stuff, lifting weights, track and field, all that stuff, that's what I was doing."
No work in the field. Nothing.
Oh.
For more than a year now, there's been this idea trumpeted that "Sandoval has always played big." But in his time with the Red Sox, he's clearly been bigger than he was with the Giants, and that doesn't bode well for someone who will turn 30 this summer. His career is trending in a bad, bad direction -- his .949 fielding percentage last year was the third-worst among major league third basemen, and his .245 batting average was 54 points off his average from his first three big league seasons. It was the fourth straight season in which Sandoval's batting average has gone down. And it was so bad that he had to abandon switch-hitting, dropping one of the skills which likely helped him land such a lucrative contract in free agency.
His 10 home runs were two fewer than Dustin Pedroia, who is not a power hitter and played in 33 fewer games than Sandoval. Mike Napoli had a dreadful half-season with the Red Sox yet managed to hit 13 dingers in 141 fewer at-bats than Sandoval.
Among qualified players, Sandoval ranked dead-last on the team in OPS.
Among qualified third basemen in Major League Baseball, he ranked -- you guessed it -- dead last in OPS.
Farrell executed his usual circling of the wagons when pressed with questions about Sandoval. The skill of taking bullets on behalf of the organization is one that the manager's perfected in his first three years of saying nothing, and he put it on display Sunday.
"I can't tell you if he got on a scale or not," said Farrell of the man he described last month as being 20-22 pounds lighter. Farrell then said that Sandoval "looked like he was in better condition" when he saw the third baseman in January and that the team never gave Sandoval a specific number of pounds to shed in the offseason.
"There was the need for Pablo to come back into camp in better overall condition," he said. "I will say that typically when you come back in better shape, you're probably going to lose weight. But to give a specific number of how many pounds were to be lost, we didn't give that to him. ... We also gave a very clear message to Pablo that coming back in better shape was a marker and a goal for us."
Farrell, straight-faced, added: "I can tell you that the work that he put in this offseason, watching it first-hand, we feel like he's in better condition today when he walks in here."
Dan Shaughnessy, quite unsatisfied with the answers early in Farrell's press conference, pressed harder for a better explanation from the manager about the team's expectations for Sandoval vs. the condition in which Sandoval arrived.
"We outlined to him that he needed to come back in better condition, and along with that you anticipate there's the potential for weight to be dropped is there," Farrell said, somewhat losing control of the message. "But there wasn't a specific number given that said, 'Hey, we want you to come in at this weight.'"
Poor Farrell.
When you come back in better shape, you're probably going to lose weight.
Well ...
If he entered spring training looking a bit healthier, appearing to be somewhat agile, or even feigning interest in getting better like Hanley Ramirez has done, then maybe there'd be some way to find a reason to believe an improvement is on the way. But this?
That? In conjunction with the comments, the picture provides zero reason for anyone to believe Sandoval will be any better in 2016 than he was in 2015. Considering everybody spends spring training finding bright spots and reason for positivity, that's a pretty damning statement on the guy who will be given at least $75 million between now and 2020.
But hey, the Panda is in the house, right?!
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
