Least season the Red Sox were hit with a set of unexpected injuries.
Strangely enough, they were also hit with a 7.0 WAR player seemingly out of nowhere. Adrian Beltre carried the Red Sox on his back for the summer and cashed in on a big contract from the Texas Rangers because of it
Beltre’s 7.0 WAR last year was the highest in a single-season by a Red Sox since Curt Schilling’s 7.3 WAR in 2004. That year Schilling was 21-6 with a 3.26 ERA and walked only 35 batters in 226 innings.
Will the Red Sox see a performance like that in 2011? This week, we are asking you in our weekly poll (over to the right of the page).
Which player will finish with the highest WAR for the Red Sox in 2011?
– Feb. 27th weekly poll
Who’s going to be have a year like that?
After Beltre, the highest WAR on the Red Sox was Jon Lester with a 5.6 WAR. The rest of the guys you’d expect to be in the discussion had injury-shortened year so their numbers looked skewed, but they are obviously still candidates to lead the team this year.
Lots of great players to choose from but 7.0 WAR is a big time season. I would venture to guess we could see one or two of those.
So tell us who you think will lead the team in WAR, regardless of how high it is. We will revisit this at the end of the year.
I’m putting my bet on Carl Crawford.