The Boston Red Sox are still in search of an additional right-handed hitter in order to, as baseball chief Craig Breslow has said, “equalize” an offensive lineup dominated by left-side swingers. But slowly and steadily almost all of the most productive hitters in free agency have come off the board. Among the big names, only former Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso remain.
But there are other, perhaps lesser names still available who could be likely signed for a lower price tag than either Bregman or Alonso. The Athletic put together an inventory on Friday of all the 2024 free agent hitters who rated at least average in run production, and it includes some available hitters who could provide value for teams that either cannot or will not sign either of the remaining big two.
“Average run production” is judged for purposes of the list by the statistic Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), a measure of offensive production that adjusts for ballpark factors and other variables, then scales the results so that a score of 100 represents the average MLB hitter.
On The Athletic’s list, only four above-average hitters remain available as free agents – and two are former Red Sox players. One, J.D. Martinez, was a key member of the Red Sox’s dominant 2018 Word Series championship team. Martinez belted 43 home runs that season and drove in a league-leading 130. His 2018 wRC+ was a whopping 170. For comparison, Juan Soto’s 2024 wRC+ was 180 – and that got him a $765 million 15-year contract.
