This Boston Red Sox utility player is extremely confusing
The Boston Red Sox have two utility players, Yu Chang and Christian Arroyo. Both players have their strengths at different parts of the game but Chang is a bit confusing to me.
So far this season, Chang is batting .146/.186/.552 with three home runs. Where he shines, however is defensively as he stands in the 93 percentile in outs above average.
What confuses me about Chang is that he isn’t a great hitter by any means, but when he makes contact with the ball it’s going 500 feet and I don’t know how to feel about that.
It’s nice having a player on this team who can hit for power, especially another righty with Adam Duvall being out for the forceable future, but having a player who could constantly hit for average as well as having the pop for power would be a nice perk too.
Boston Red Sox need Yu Chang to be a dependable infielder
As I mentioned though, defensively is where the Red Sox really like Chang as a second basemen, but preferably a shortstop to give Kiké Hernández a breather there and move him back to centerfield or second base.
In Saturday’s loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, Chang had another exhibition of his “dad strength” with his second homer in three games.
What I would like to see from Chang (besides more home runs) is to make more solid contact with the ball to get him on the base path more, thus resulting in more opportunities for Alex Verdugo/ Justin Turner/ Rafael Devers to get more RBI and score more runs since they’ve played in eight games that have been decided by one run, losing five of those games.
Something to consider which really boggles my mind, Chang may not be the player you look for to get a single or even get on base, but, he’s currently tied for third on the Red Sox for home runs with seven less games. So could giving Chang a full time role at shortstop actually benefit him and the Sox?
It’s a thought that’s hard to imagine, going from Xander Bogaerts to Yu Chang and I mean that with no disrespect to Chang, but he is no Bogaerts.
Next. Rafael Devers showing he’s ‘one of the best hitters’ in MLB. dark
But Chang provides above average defense from the shortstop position and essentially hits a homers every time he gets a hit. Will that sustain over a long baseball season? Probably not, but this season is the perfect season for Boston to try out whatever they want with World Series aspirations not being a plausible thought.