Tomase: We'll be left to wonder 'what if' with Andrew Benintendi originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Andrew Benintendi era started with unlimited promise. It ends with the outfielder exiled to Kansas City for a bunch of players you've never heard of.
This is the story of a fall from grace.
It's hard to reconcile the Benintendi who arrived in 2016, just a year after being drafted No. 7 overall, with the one that was officially shipped to the Royals on Wednesday night in a three-way deal with the Mets.
Benintendi arrived as a savior and quickly became a heartthrob, kickstarting a third-place Red Sox team that went 19-8 in September to win the AL East. Though the Red Sox were swept by the Indians, Benintendi still made an impact, homering in his first postseason at-bat.
With his curly locks and aww-shucks smile, he became an immediate fan favorite, drawing swooning crowds at the team's Foxwoods winter weekend. There seemed to be no limit to his ability or popularity. He frequently broke Red Sox Twitter, be it by leaping over a fence in Tampa, pulling some Michael Jackson "Billie Jean" moves during a "win, dance, repeat" celebration, or by eventually cutting his hair.
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He never fully delivered on the promise of 2016, though. He finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2017, but the campaign still qualified as a disappointment. Benintendi hit .271 with 20 homers and 90 RBIs, but he wasn't the force the Red Sox envisioned. His struggles prompted president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski periodically to hector manager John Farrell and the coaching staff with the same question: "Why isn't Benny hitting?"
A year later, everything seemed OK when Benintendi roared out of the gate under new manager Alex Cora. He entered the All-Star break hitting .297 with 14 homers and 57 RBIs. His .897 OPS suggested borderline elite performance. If the Red Sox hadn't already boasted five All-Stars, Benintendi might've visited Washington for that Midsummer Classic.
A strange thing happened on his way to stardom, however: Benintendi got derailed. He hit .279 with just two homers and a .727 OPS in the second half. His playoff numbers were equally pedestrian, except we didn't really notice, because the Red Sox rampaged to a title and Benintendi delivered one of the signature plays of the postseason with a game-saving catch off Houston's Alex Bregman to give the Red Sox a 3-1 ALCS lead.
There was no avoiding his decline in 2019, however. Benintendi's walks dropped to a career-low 59, his strikeouts soared to a career-high 140, and his power outage continued to the tune of only 13 home runs. Far from a linchpin, Benintendi instead morphed into a JAG -- Just Another Guy -- when he should've been making the leap.
Making matters worse, he seemed completely lost at the plate, scrapping the approach that had made him a line drive machine in favor of the launch angle revolution, a style that simply did not suit him. It became painful to watch him flail at breaking balls off the plate while taking fastballs down the middle. He seemingly lost his ability to recognize pitches, let alone hammer them.
The 2020 season offered the opportunity for redemption, and Red Sox officials gushed about his progress during spring training 2.0 that summer. Manager Ron Roenicke declared him the breakout star of camp, but when the games started for real, Benintendi looked worse than ever.
He hit just .103 in 39 at-bats before the Red Sox mercifully pulled the plug. He missed the rest of the season with a rib injury, kicking off a debate over whether he should be traded now or later. The now crowd suggested he'd be completely worthless if he struggled again in 2021; better to trade him while he could still be sold as a change-of-scenery candidate. Those pushing for trading him later figured his value couldn't fall any lower.
It turns out that Chaim Bloom resides in the first camp, and we'll know soon enough whether he gave up too early or got out just in time. The return will reportedly be five players, but however well those prospects play, this much is nearly certain -- they'll never match the talent we expected Benintendi to be.
