For a time, we were simply impressed that Alex Verdugo didn't collapse under the weight of being traded for Mookie Betts. But as the Red Sox outfielder enters his third season in Boston, he has already reached an inflection point.
Verdugo started and ended 2021 on a strong note while delivering a healthy heaping of "meh" in between. His bat-to-ball skills, energy, and patience suggest a ceiling of the All-Star we thought Andrew Benintendi could be. With his 26th birthday approaching, Verdugo can pivot in one of two directions -- he'll either remain little more than a solidly average performer or take his game to another level.
There's reason to be hopeful that he's headed towards the latter. He excelled in his first exposure to the postseason, hitting .310 with an .835 OPS while serving as the toughest out in the American League Championship Series vs. the Astros as perhaps the lone Red Sox hitter who didn't try to play hero ball.
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SIGN UP HERE Even more encouragingly, Verdugo's turnaround actually started much earlier. He hit .328 after Aug. 1, rediscovering the take-what-they-give-you approach to all fields that made him so valuable in April before he admits getting stuck in his own head.
"There were a lot of things to build on that second half of the year, not just the playoffs," Verdugo said. "I felt like I had a two-month stretch where I kind of struggled, I was in my little funk. And then after that, the second part of the year, I just kind of found where I needed to be and took off.
"So the postseason definitely helped and being in that type of atmosphere and crowd, it's just, there's nothing like it. If you can do that there, you should be able to slow your heartbeat and do it during the regular season."
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Verdugo is capable of hitting .300 with 40 doubles and maybe 15-20 homers. Add above-average defense in left field and solid instincts on the bases, and you're looking at the Benintendi the Red Sox thought they were getting in 2016.
"I do believe there's more there," said manager Alex Cora. "The one thing that we have to very be careful of, he's a good hitter. We went through this route before with Benny: Which guy do we want? Do we want a guy that hits 30 and he compromises his swing just to hit for power? Or do we want the on-base percentage guy that hits 40 doubles, 20 homers, and scores 100 runs? I'll take those guys. I think Dugie can do it."
Asked how much better he believes he can be this year, Verdugo doesn't hesitate.
"A lot," he said. "A lot. I mean, trust me, I feel like I'm a very good player. But each year I have there's still a lot of things that I go home and I'm not happy about and I know that I could work on and be better at."
One obvious area of improvement is against left-handed pitching. A career .271 hitter vs. southpaws, Verdugo hit just .228 last year. That's where he believes he got caught in his own head.
"Last year, I struggled a little bit, I get it," Verdugo said. "But that's also part of letting everything get into your mind, right?
"It's like, you roll a snowball down a mountain, it's going to start getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It's the same thing that happened to me, where you have one or two bad games against lefties and people start talking about it. What happens? You start thinking about it, you start pressing, I'm going to do more, I'm going to do this, I'm going to show everyone.
"This year I'm going to take it back a notch. I'm just going to relax in the box against them. And they want to throw me in, away, up, down. It doesn't matter. Just stay inside of it, use the whole field and good things are going to happen. And I'm damn certain that it's going to be a new year."
Who knows -- if Verdugo plays well enough, he may just stop being the guy who was traded for Mookie and start being his own man.