Pablo Sandoval did not have a good first year with the Boston Red Sox, as you may have heard. Whether you want to go with the fancy stats (-2.0 fWAR, -0.9bWAR, 75 wRC+, 76 OPS+, -16.9 UZR) or the classic ones (.245/.292/.366, 10 HR, 47 RBI) it was a very, very not good year for Sandoval.

Add to the pot that it was the first year of his five-year $95 million contract, the fact that Boston’s fans and sports media have a somewhat, shall we say, “tough” reputation and the extra attention that is paid to Sandoval’s weight, and you have a recipe for some seriously spicy hot-take soup. Lo and behold, many mouths were burned. I considered putting some links here but decided to spare you. Also, a piece of advice, if you are reading an article on a mainstream sports website about Sandoval and there is a comments section, do yourself a favor and skip it and go floss. Your future self will thank you.

The reason we are are talking about this now is that we learned yesterday that Travis Shaw will be the starting third baseman for the Red Sox, rather than the player who is still owed $75 million over the next four years (with a $17 million team option or $5 million buyout for 2020). That Boston would, in the second year of his contract, start the season with Sandoval on the bench speaks to just how bad his season was last year, but also to how good Shaw has been in his limited time in the spotlight, as well. In 65 games last year, Shaw hit .270/.329/.487 with 13 home runs and, in spring training this year, he has hit .333/.377/.509, which pretty much forced the issue.

If Shaw does, in fact, continue to hit in the majors and proves himself to be an everyday third baseman for the Red Sox, that would (obviously) be a blessing for Boston, no matter what happens with Sandoval. Shaw isn’t going to be a free agent until 2022 at the earliest, and he’ll be making pennies on the dollar for the foreseeable future. It’s worth noting that Shaw’s career line in the minors is .261/.359/.445 and that he’s 25. It’s not that there aren’t players who seemingly come out of nowhere and surprise virtually everyone (see: Sandoval’s replacement with the Giants, Matt Duffy), it’s that, generally speaking, the odds are against Shaw being as good as he has looked so far. If Shaw falls victim to the small sample size mirage and Sandoval gets another chance, it’s pretty likely that Sandoval won’t have as bad a year as last year. After all, 2015 wasn’t Sandoval’s first bad year.

When you think of “Three-Time World Series Champion Pablo Sandoval,” you tend to think of his three home runs off Justin Verlander in 2012, or his catching the final out in 2014, rather than the World Series where he only played in one game and went 0-for-3 in 2010. After 2010 (which was Sandoval’s only bad year before heading to Boston) Sandoval bounced back just fine. From 2011 to 2014, he hit .279/.324/.415, good for a 125 OPS+ and an average bWAR of 3.5. While those numbers were certainly boosted by his ridiculous 2011 (.315/.357/.552, 23 HR, 6.1 bWAR, 155 OPS+) and his numbers had been slightly decreasing each year, there was no reason to think that he would completely crater immediately, hence the number of teams competing to sign him to a contract and the eventual contract that he did receive.

Here we are though, and Shaw is now Boston’s starting third baseman. If he is really as good as he’s looked in his limited at bats in the majors, he’s around until after Sandoval is long gone from Boston. In this scenario, Shaw is around for cheap, so Boston can eat some salary and trade Sandoval (the Padres were already scouting him amid rising rumors of a James Shields trade), they could keep Sandoval around as a hugely expensive bench bat or just cut him loose and kiss all those millions goodbye as a sunk cost. Even if Shaw isn’t quite what Boston hopes, Sandoval is almost certainly not going to be as bad as he was last year, so it’s pretty unlikely that the situation is quite as dire as some folks are making it out to be. Hopefully that’s not just the Friday-before-baseball-season-starts optimism talking...