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Surely, Boston Red Sox fans can’t believe David Ortiz is retiring. We understand. Your great-aunt who couldn’t tell a Carl Yastrzemski from a hole in the ground understands.

But Big Papi is indeed hanging ’em up.

The question now is, who can replace him?

The answer may be Edwin Encarnacion.

Granted, no one will ever truly replace Ortiz. The 10-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion will forever be a part of Red Sox lore. He was there when the Curse of the Bambino was lifted and for all the salad days that followed. He’ll never need to buy another meal in Massachusetts. 

He also hit 38 home runs, tallied 127 RBI and paced MLB with a 1.021 OPS in his farewell season. Clearly, Ortiz is rolling off the race track with gas sloshing in his tank.

On Thursday, Boston exercised its $17.2 million option on Ortiz for 2017 “as a formality,” per the team’s official Twitter feed.

That leaves the door cracked on an eleventh-hour change of heart, with Ortiz busting out of the phone booth in full Superman regalia to redeem Boston’s unceremonious division-series exit.

Back in reality, the defending American League East champion Red Sox will have to move on without their designated hitter, lineup anchor and franchise icon.

Which brings us back to Encarnacion, Ortiz’s friend and compatriot.

The 33-year-old Dominican posted a .263/.357/.529 slash line with 42 home runs last season for the Toronto Blue Jays while tying Ortiz for the AL lead with 127 RBI. He’s surpassed 30 homers in each of the last five campaigns and 100 RBI in four of them.

He delivered some huge moments in the postseason, including a Joe Carter-esque walk-off bomb in the AL Wild Card Game.

He’s also one of a precious few impact bats available in a weak free-agent class. 

That means demand for his services will be high. Considering his age and defensive limitations, however, his most serious suitors will be American League clubs in need of a DH.

That could include everyone from the Jays to the Baltimore Orioles to the Houston Astros to the Texas Rangers. 

If you’re looking for an ideal landing spot for Encarnacion, however, you couldn’t do much better than Beantown.

“The Red Sox know that they need to reinforce the middle of the lineup,” Ortiz said during a July 12 news conference, per ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick. “And sorry, Blue Jays, but who better than Encarnacion to do that?”

MLB investigated and absolved Ortiz for tampering, per Crasnick. The fit is simply too obvious. It’s like noting the sky is blue or that Bill Simmons is fond of Boston sports teams.

Encarnacion spent the first four-plus years of his career with the Cincinnati Reds before a 2009 trade to Toronto. 

He’s made himself exceedingly comfortable in the AL East. Other than the Reds’ Great American Ball Park and Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre, the stadiums in which Encarnacion has hit the most home runs are: Oriole Park at Camden Yards (16), Yankee Stadium (15) and Fenway Park (14).

The prospect of the right-handed swinging Encarnacion taking aim at the Green Monster and feasting in other AL East yards should leave Sox fans salivating.

“I think maybe the Green Monster helps,” Encarnacion said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive.com. “We are pull hitters. And we have that wall right there. I see the ball good here in this stadium. I love every time I come to play here.”

The Red Sox have an enviable farm system. They’re the division champs. They’ve got AL MVP candidate Mookie Betts at the forefront of a burgeoning lineup that led MLB in runs scored and OPS.

They don’t need Encarnacion. The riches they’d surrender to secure his services could squeeze the budget down the road, particularly on the back end of a long-term deal—unless he discovers Ortiz’s fountain of youth.

The Jays are expected to extend Encarnacion the qualifying offer, per Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball, meaning he’d cost a draft pick.

The Red Sox, however, can handle it. They’ve got the budget and the minor league depth.

There are other free-agent options, including Mark Trumbo, who hit 47 home runs for the Baltimore Orioles last season, and Encarnacion’s Blue Jays teammate, Jose Bautista. 

Then there’s Pablo Sandoval—remember him?—who is working his way back from shoulder surgery and could be in the mix at DH with Brock Holt, Travis Shaw and Yoan Moncada all possibilities at third base, per the Associated Press (h/t the Boston Herald).

The Red Sox can’t count on the prayer of a slimmed-down Kung Fu Panda, though. This team wants to win now and win later, and Encarnacion would help accomplish the former without precluding the latter.

“I do think that they will go very hard after Encarnacion,” CSNNE’s Sean McAdam said on The Baseball Show (h/t Matt Dolloff of CBS Boston). “That seems to be the guy they think is closest to providing near the production that Ortiz has given them in recent years.”

No one will ever replace Ortiz. That much is certain.

If the Sox are searching for the best facsimile, however, Encarnacion is probably their guy.

All statistics courtesy of MLB.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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The Boston Red Sox are betting on a strong rebound from Clay Buchholz in 2017 after announcing they had picked up the starting pitcher’s contract option.  

Jon Heyman of Todays Knuckleball reported in October the Red Sox were “seriously thinking” about picking up Buchholz’s option despite posting a 4.78 ERA in 2016, and some people in MLB felt he could have received a multiyear deal as a free agent because of the lack of free-agent pitching options.

Buchholz’s option is for $13.5 million and included a $500,000 buyout, per Baseball-Reference.com. His tenure with the Red Sox has featured stretches of brilliance but has also been marred by bouts of inconsistency and injury. 

Since Buchholz’s first full season in 2008, he has never made 30 starts in a season. His single-season high in innings pitched is 189.1 during the 2012 campaign, though he’s failed to reach the 140-inning barrier each of the last two seasons. 

Things reached a point for Buchholz in 2016 in which Red Sox manager John Farrell moved him to the bullpen. He did finish the season strong and was able to make Boston’s playoff rotation, starting Game 3 of the American League Division Series against Cleveland. 

The Red Sox will be happy if there is a happy medium with Buchholz in 2017. They are fortunate to have more depth in the starting rotation. They should benefit from Rick Porcello’s 22-win form, David Price’s ability to do more than he offered in his first season with the team and, hopefully, a full year out of Eduardo Rodriguez.

Buchholz doesn’t have to be the star in the rotation anymore. He just has to provide the team with something around a league-average performance as the No. 4 or 5 option for manager John Farrell.

The Red Sox will rise or fall based on their loaded offense in 2017, but their pitching depth is going to play a key role in determining just how far the team is able to go with Buchholz being one of the great unknowns for Boston.

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The Boston Red Sox announced Tuesday the organization will not fill its vacant general manager position following the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ hiring of Mike Hazen as their GM, according to Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald. 

The team did name Eddie Romero the senior vice president and assistant general manager, per Mastrodonato. He previously served as the club’s vice president of international scouting and has been a member of the organization for 11 years.

“The Red Sox are very pleased to announce Eddie’s promotion to Assistant General Manager,” said president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said in a press release. “This is a very talented individual who we think can make a real impact for us with his background in player evaluation and his knowledge of our minor league system. A native Spanish speaker, his ability to communicate with both players and staff is significant, especially in today’s game. We look forward to having Eddie onboard to assist our efforts to improve our ball club.”

The Red Sox have certainly undergone a shake-up in the front office this offseason, as the vice president of amateur and international scouting, Amiel Sawdaye, followed Hazen to Arizona to become his assistant general manager. 

According to Scott Lauber of ESPN.com, Sawdaye “is credited with directing the club’s wildly successful 2011 draft that yielded outfielders Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr., catcher/left fielder Blake Swihart and third baseman Travis Shaw, among others.”

Lauber also reported Sawdaye was considered a candidate to fill the vacant general manager position before his departure. But Dombrowski already had the final say on personnel decisions and other matters, leaving Lauber to speculate he may simply continue to rely on Romero and a circle of assistants. 

In essence, then, it appears Dombrowski will continue to serve as the Red Sox’s de facto general manager. 

The departures are likely to continue, as well. According to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, “senior baseball analyst Tom Tippett revealed his plans to leave the organization at the end of the month when his contract expires” and the team “also is losing director of sports medicine services Dan Dyrek.”

Bench coach Torey Lovullo is considered a leading candidate for the Diamondbacks’ vacant managerial position, per Abraham, and he will potentially garner interest from other teams as well.

The retirement of David Ortiz may have garnered the majority of the headlines in Boston, but the Red Sox will have a much different look behind the scenes as well in 2017.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Following the Boston Red Sox‘s elimination from the postseason, second baseman Dustin Pedroia has undergone surgery on his left knee.

Continue for updates.  

Latest on Pedroia’s Timeline for Return

Thursday, Oct. 13

According to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, Pedroia is expected to be ready in time for the start of spring training after undergoing knee surgery.

Per Abraham, Pedroia suffered the injury in mid-September during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

After injuries threw his career off track the previous two years, Pedroia was seemingly back to his old self in 2016. The former American League MVP hit .318 with 15 home runs, 74 RBI and 105 runs scored, which marked his best statistical season since 2011.

In addition to Pedroia’s offensive exploits, FanGraphs rated him as the second-most valuable defensive second baseman in 2016 behind only Cesar Hernandez of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Pedroia struggled at the plate in Boston’s American League Division Series loss to the Cleveland Indians, as he went just 2-for-12 for a .167 batting average with two runs scored in three games.

While Pedroia and the Red Sox wanted to send David Ortiz off with another World Series championship, the early exit may prove beneficial to Pedroia and his recovery.

He has some added time to rehab and get back into game condition prior to spring training, which means he should enter the 2017 regular season in good health so long as the current timeline holds true to form.

Boston boasts some middle infield depth if Pedroia’s injury takes longer to heal than anticipated, as Brock Holt is capable of filling in. However, early indications suggest that won’t be necessary, which is positive news for a Red Sox team that will need all the offense it can get next season without Big Papi.

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For the first time in more than a decade, the Boston Red Sox head into the offseason knowing that David Ortiz and his larger-than-life personality won’t be a fixture in the middle of their lineup when the team reports for spring training next year.

“No one wanted it to end like this,” said Xander Bogaerts, Boston’s 24-year-old shortstop, following the Cleveland Indians‘ series-clinching Game 3 victory over the Red Sox in the American League Division Series, per the Providence Journal‘s Tim Britton.

Whether the “it” Bogaerts was referring to was Boston’s season or Ortiz’s career is irrelevant—he’s right.

The team wasted little time in making one of its biggest offseason decisions, deciding to maintain the status quo in the dugout for 2017.

“John Farrell will be our manager for 2017,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters Tuesday, per the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato. “So he is all set and his full staff will be invited back. … Everybody is welcome back. I think they did a very fine job for us.”

Exactly how the roster he’ll be managing will look come Opening Day, however, isn’t quite as clear.

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Despite being swept out of the 2016 American League Division Series by the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox reaffirmed their commitment to manager John Farrell on Tuesday. 

Dave Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations, announced Farrell will stay with the team in 2017, according to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe.

In February 2015, the Red Sox extended Farrell’s deal to keep him on board through the 2017 season, with an option for 2018. Dombrowski declined to say whether Boston will exercise that option.

“Something of that magnitude I need to sit down with ownership and discuss that,” he said, according to Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald.

While the Red Sox finished the regular season with a 93-69 record, their postseason exit led to some criticism of Farrell’s handling of his team.

In particular, many questioned his decision to pinch-hit Chris Young for Andrew Benintendi in the bottom of the seventh inning in Game 3 of the ALDS. While Young walked during the at-bat, Boston was without Benintendi to lead off the bottom of the ninth as it looked to come back from a 4-3 deficit.

Boston.com’s Chad Finn was among those who thought Farrell made a big mistake:

Eric Wilbur of Boston.com thought the ALDS as a whole helped to illustrate the gulf between Farrell and a tactically astute manger such as the Indians’ Terry Francona:

Yet, this series perhaps exposed Farrell’s shortcomings as a big league manager all the same. You could give him and [Francona] two seats to deal with, and Farrell would probably still lose playing musical chairs to his old friend.

Farrell doesn’t have to stay because of the success that the Red Sox found this year, winning the American league East after back-to-back last-place finishes. He needs to go because of the continued promise of watching his in-game decisions backfire, and particularly after watching Francona manage circles around him, almost as if he were in his pickup willingly doing donuts on Farrell’s own manicured lawn.

In August, Abraham also took issue with how Farrell handled Red Sox pitchers:

Farrell also has had less of an effect on the pitching staff than you would have expected from an accomplished former pitching coach. Certainly, he needs to respect boundaries and let coaches do their jobs. But Farrell should be having more direct impact on somebody like David Price.

As a pitching coach, Farrell was an authority figure with the pitchers to a point that some feared him. He was their boss. As the manager, he seems too much like their protector.

Expectations will be high for the Red Sox in 2017, yet it’s doubtful a slow start to next year would result in Farrell’s firing in the first few months. The team hasn’t fired a manager in the middle of a season since Jimy Williams in 2001. Even Bobby Valentine finished out a disastrous 2012 campaign before losing his job.

With only one more guaranteed year left on his deal, Farrell will be under heavy pressure to deliver. Anything short of a trip to the American League Championship Series could put his job in serious jeopardy.

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He was supposed to be wiping champagne from his eyes, rather than tears.

It was supposed to end that way for David Ortiz. Not this way.

That’s what I thought. That’s what we all thought.

But it did end this way Monday night at Fenway Park. It ended with the Cleveland Indians celebrating a sweep of Ortiz’s Boston Red Sox and the Fenway fans celebrating Ortiz’s career one more time.

“Pa-pi! Pa-pi!” they chanted in the eighth inning as Ortiz left for a pinch runner in the middle of a rally that seemed destined to send this American League Division Series into Tuesday and beyond.

“Pa-pi! Pa-pi!” they chanted again after that rally and a ninth-inning rally fell short, as the Indians charged onto the field at the end of a thrilling 4-3 Game 3 win.

Ortiz was already gone by then, up the tunnel to the Red Sox clubhouse the moment the final out settled into Lonnie Chisenhall’s glove in right field. He returned a few minutes later, walking alone to the Fenway mound, acknowledging the cheers from fans who had to be disappointed but were not devastated.

Ortiz was responsible for some of each emotion, because his 1-for-9 in the series contributed to the Boston power outage that sent him home earlier than expected. But no one in New England can feel devastated, for the simple reason that Ortiz’s 14-year Red Sox career forever changed the way we will think of this franchise.

He arrived in 2003, when the Curse of the Bambino was in full force. He leaves with the curse a distant memory, with three World Series rings and too many big moments to mention.

He leaves a team that is in fine shape for the future, with a lineup filled with great young talent and even more on the way. Ortiz was an MVP candidate at age 40 in his fantastic final season, but the likelier winner is Mookie Betts, the superb right fielder who turned 24 on Friday.

Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. couldn’t deliver enough for Ortiz against the Indians, and 21-year-old Yoan Moncada proved in September that he wasn’t yet ready to give the Red Sox another spark.

But the franchise is in good hands, and it’s no shame to lose a best-of-five series to an Indians team that now becomes the favorite to go to the World Series and try to end its own championship drought.

“They played unbelievable baseball, and that’s what the game is all about,” Ortiz said at a press conference.

He congratulated Terry Francona, the manager who won the first two of those three World Series crowns with Ortiz in Boston and has now turned the Indians franchise around.

We’re shortchanging Francona and his team with all this Papi focus, but if I know Tito, he’ll understand and won’t mind. He knows what Ortiz meant to Boston and baseball, and he could feel as well as anyone how much Monday’s game was about the iconic Red Sox star.

It was that way with each at-bat, with everyone understanding this could be Ortiz’s final game. It was that way in the sixth inning, when Ortiz’s sacrifice fly cut the Indians’ lead to 4-2. It was that way even more in the eighth, when Ortiz came to the plate representing the tying run.

Francona went to closer Cody Allen, and Allen didn’t throw Ortiz a single strike. Ortiz walked to first base and waved his arms to ask the fans for more noise. When Hanley Ramirez followed with a single that made it 4-3, Red Sox manager John Farrell had no choice but to pinch run for Ortiz at second base.

He left to cheers and chants, and then he stood on the top step of the dugout, a cheerleader for the rest of this game and perhaps the rest of his life.

He wanted it to go on, but it wasn’t to be.

“What [the Indians] did to us, we were expecting to do to them, because we thought we were the best team,” Ortiz said. “In the playoffs, it’s not about the best, it’s about who played the best. And they played the best.”

So often, it was Ortiz who played the best in October. In 85 postseason games, he drove in 61 runs, tied with his longtime rival Derek Jeter for the fourth most of all time (behind Bernie Williams, Manny Ramirez and David Justice).

Ortiz was the Most Valuable Player of the famous 2004 American League Championship Series against Jeter’s New York Yankees, and also of the 2013 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. His grand slam in the 2013 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers stands as one of the most dramatic moments in recent baseball history.

There was nothing like that in this series, not for him and not for the Red Sox. But there was a moment, and it came when Ortiz walked to the mound after it was over.

He had already spoken to his teammates, telling them they should be proud of their worst-to-first season and optimistic about their future. He walked to the field with cameras all around him, and he went to the mound with the realization this really was going to be it.

“I’ve been trying to hold my emotions,” he said. “At that last second, I couldn’t hold it anymore.”

He’ll be back at Fenway for sure, back to see friends and back for a number retirement ceremony sometime in the future. But as he walked off the field wiping away a tear, he knew he wouldn’t ever be back as an active player.

There’s sadness in that, for sure. He loved playing, and even many who don’t care a bit about the Red Sox loved watching him play.

But imagine the sadness this sweep would have brought in the days before Ortiz first wore a Red Sox uniform. In his 14 seasons, a curse was reversed and a franchise was changed.

If this was the way it had to end, that will have to be just fine.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Although the season didn’t end as planned, the Boston Red Sox enjoyed a fantastic 2016 campaign, with one of the highlights being a high-powered offense that provided three players with 30 or more home runs and 100 or more RBI for the first time in franchise history, per MLB Stat of the Day.

Doing the honors were outfielder Mookie Betts, designated hitter David Ortiz and first baseman Hanley Ramirez, all of whom enjoyed fascinating season for entirely different reasons.

The 24-year-old Betts had a breakout campaign that places him among the American League MVP favorites, finishing with a .318 batting average, 31 homers, 26 stolen bases, 113 RBI and 122 runs—one of the more well-rounded stat lines you’ll ever see, in addition to play solid defense.

Ortiz, 40 years old and on the opposite end of the career spectrum, announced his impending retirement prior to the season and then proved that he’s still good enough to play a couple more years, though he made it clear he has no such intention.

Then there was 32-year-old Ramirez, who disappointed tremendously last year in his first season with the Red Sox but finally came on strong in the second half of 2016, ultimately having a fantastic campaign while successfully making a position switch to first base.

Of course, the ultimate goal was a World Series, and on that account the Red Sox fell short, getting swept in the ALDS by the Cleveland Indians.

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There was maximum tension in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Boston Red Sox twice stayed alive with two outs and two strikes, but they could not push the tying run home, and the Cleveland Indians emerged with a 4-3 victory to sweep their American League Division Series.

Travis Shaw popped out to right field on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and Lonnie Chisenhall settled under the ball to seal the Indians’ victory.

Cleveland swept the series in three games, winning the first two at Progressive Field before securing the final contest at Fenway Park.

Indians manager Terry Francona beat the team he led to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 before he was fired after the 2011 season.

Josh Tomlin earned the win for Cleveland, while Clay Buchholz took the loss.

Former Red Sox Coco Crisp hit a two-run homer, and that hit proved decisive.

The Indians will face the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.

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Fact: David Price gave up 5 ER in 3.1 IP in the Red Sox‘s 6-0 loss to the Indians on Friday. He is now 0-8 in his career in postseason starts. 

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: B/R Insights

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