This past weekend, Mookie Betts returned to Fenway Park for the first time since the Red Sox traded him to the Dodgers before the 2020 season. Perhaps you heard about it. I’m not bringing this up to elicit even more discourse about the Betts trade, but to think about the best players the Red Sox have fielded since he left.
From 2015 to 2019, Betts led the Red Sox in bWAR every season, and he even won an MVP award during one of those campaigns. Since then, Alex Verdugo (2020) and Xander Bogaerts (2021 and 2022) have each been the team’s best player as measured by bWAR, although there are arguments to be made for other guys as well if we go beyond that single metric.