There is no question that the 2023 season was extremely difficult for the Red Sox and their fans. Although they appeared feisty at times, this was a club with a low ceiling, and it ended with the Sox finishing last in the AL East for the third time in four years.
Now that the 2023 season is over, it’s time for the final edition of our monthly player power rankings. For most renditions this season, we’ve used performance over the previous month as the primary means of evaluation; however, because this is the final edition for 2023, these rankings will be a more holistic look at the season, with no single month’s performance, including September,
tipping the scales more than any other. With that in mind, we’ll continue to use a very lenient playing time bar for inclusion: players on the 40-man roster who have at least 30 plate appearances or 10 innings pitched, or who appeared in a game in September, are all eligible. Let us now move on from this preamble and to the rankings.
Editor’s note: The previous rankings featured 34 players.
40. Kaleb Ort (Previous Rank: Unranked).
Ort was a workhorse for the bullpen in April, but his productivity never lived up to the role, so he wound up bouncing back and forth between the farm and Boston before suffering an elbow injury in July, which he just began rehabbing in mid-September.
39. Bobby Dalbec (Previous Rank: Unranked).
MiLB: July 7 International League – Syracuse Mets vs Worcester Red Sox
Photo: Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
After making slightly more than 800 plate appearances in 2021 and 2022, Dalbec’s role in the big leagues was significantly curtailed in 2023. He played only 10 games before mid-September (and none in July and August). Many of the same flaws that plagued him earlier were present this year, including his extraordinarily high strikeout percentage, which increased to 52.9%, albeit in a smaller sample size. Dalbec appeared to be a future key member for the Red Sox at one point, but his limited use this year suggests the organization is shifting gears.
38. David Hamilton (Previous Ranking: 29)
Hamilton was one of many guys given a chance to shore up the middle infield, and like many of his colleagues, he made sure no one forgot Xander Bogaerts was gone or Trevor Story was injured. In fairness, the 26-year-old only made 39 plate appearances, but his 25 wRC+ and defensive issues indicated that he still has some development to do.
37. Corey Kluber (Previous Rank: Unranked).
Kluber was signed to help buttress up the Red Sox rotation, but his 2023 season was a complete catastrophe, with a 6.57 FIP in nine starts before being banished to the bullpen toward the end of May. Kluber’s FIP increased to 8.81 as a reliever before a shoulder injury interrupted his season. The Red Sox have a $11 million club option on Kluber for 2024, but there’s little reason for them to exercise it.
36. Justin Garza (Previous Rank: Unranked).
A slew of walks jeopardized Garza’s return to the Major Leagues. The 29-year-old appeared in 21 games for Cleveland in 2021, but he only made 17 appearances with Boston this summer, with a 7.36 ERA and a 13.2 percent walk rate, the most among Red Sox pitchers with at least 10 innings worked in 2023. Following his demotion at the end of July, he spent the rest of the year in Worcester.
