The Andrew Benintendi trade didn’t look so hot for the Red Sox last year when the left fielder won a Gold Glove and batted .276 with a .324 on-base percentage for the Royals.
Sure, Benintendi’s batting average and OBP weren’t too impressive. But he hit much better than Franchy Cordero, who batted .189 with a .237 on-base percentage and 37.5% strikeout percentage.
The trade certainly looks better this season though — five starts into Josh Winckowski’s big league career. Franchy Cordero also is hitting the ball very hard.
Boston acquired Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell (ankle injury this season), Luis De La Rosa and Freddy Valdez in the three-team trade with the Royals and Mets.
Benintendi will be a free agent after this season. He’s having a strong year with a .306 batting average and .373 on-base percentage. But he’s slugging only .391. Eighty-one percent of hits have been singles.
Meanwhile, Winckowski is under team control through his pre-arbitration and arbitration seasons. Cordero is under team control through 2024.
Winckowski took the loss vs. the Cubs on Saturday but he allowed just one earned run in 6 innings.
He again induced a lot of weak contact. Cubs batters had just a 75.8 mph average exit velocity against the righty who turned 24 this past Tuesday.
Winckowski is 3-2 with a 3.12 ERA (26 innings, nine earned) and 1.38 WHIP in five starts. He has a 1.96 ERA (23 innings, five earned) over his past four starts while filling in for injured Nathan Eovaldi.
His average exit velocity against (88.1 mph) ranks in the 64th percentile.
“I think everyone that has watched Wink pitch knows he is such a competitor again like (Chris) Murphy (another Red Sox prospect) but also he takes it to the next level with that,” Red Sox catching prospect Kole Cottam said. “He has the velocity. The stuff is there. But he tries to just get everybody out. He’s not chasing the strikeouts as much as he has in the past, which forces people to swing the bat and he induces that weak contact.”
Winckowski’s sinker has averaged 94.2 mph so far. He also has thrown a slider, four-seamer, changeup and cutter.
He has a .271 batting average against in his past four starts. But that’s not too telling of a stat right now. After all, Winckowski, gave up hits of 64.5 mph, 37.7 mph, 68 mph, 47.3 mph, 80.1 mph and 88.8 mph vs. the Cubs.
“The strikeouts will come with him, no question, down the road just with the stuff he has,” Cottam said. “But I think that is a tip of the cap to our development, Wink’s maturity and development of trying to go at the hitters and really try to force them to beat him rather than him trying to just strike them out all the time. He’s vastly improving as a pitcher every outing.”
He hasn’t faced great competition yet. He will in the coming weeks. But he certainly is showing he can be a reliable big league pitcher (whether as a future reliever or backend starter).
Cordero’s advanced stats are quite impressive.
He ranks in the 99th percentile in max exit velocity, 93rd percentile in hard hit percentage and 85th percentile in average exit velocity, per Baseball Savant. He’s also in the 85th percentile or higher in sprint speed, expected weighted on-base average, expected batting average and expected slugging percentage.
Meanwhile, De La Rosa could emerge as one of Boston’s better pitching prospects in the coming years.
The 19-year-old from the Dominican Republic is pitching in the Florida Complex League. He has a 1.26 ERA (14 ⅓ innings, two runs) and 0.98 WHIP in four outings, three starts. He has allowed just five hits and struck out 20. He has issued nine walks and hit three batters.
Opponents are batting .104 against him.
The righty — who throws a four-seamer, slider and changeup — pitched Saturday vs. the Florida Complex League Twins. He allowed one hit and three walks while striking out five over 3 ⅓ scoreless innings.
He turns 20 on Wednesday.
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