The Red Sox announced Monday morning that they’ve designated infielder Pablo Reyes for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to newly acquired first baseman/outfielder Garrett Cooper, whom the Sox added in a cash deal with the Cubs over the weekend.
Reyes has been with the Sox dating back to last season but is out to a brutal start at the plate, hitting just .183/.234/.217 with a 29.7% strikeout rate in his first 64 plate appearances. It’s a far cry from the .287/.339/.377 slash he posted through 185 trips to the plate with the ’23 Sox, when he punched out in only 11.4% of his turns at the plate. Reyes’ 19 strikeouts on the season are already just two fewer than the 21 he posted in nearly three times as much action last year.
The 30-year-old Reyes has appeared in parts of six big league seasons but never topped last year’s 185 plate appearances. He’s a lifetime .248/.309/.349 hitter in 572 plate appearances between the Pirates, Brewers and Sox. He’s played every position on the diamond with the exception of catcher, including a four-inning cameo on the mound. Reyes has drawn solid ratings at third base, in particular, though his versatility has in a way prevented him from picking up a meaningful sample at any single position; his 289 career frames at the hot corner are the most he’s tallied at any one spot.
Reyes is out of minor league options, so the Sox didn’t have the ability to simply send him down to Triple-A Worcester without first exposing him to waivers. They’ll have a week to trade Reyes, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him. He’s previously been outrighted in his career (twice, in fact), which gives him the right to reject a minor league assignment in the event that he does clear waivers.
Crazy how fast they have already moved on from Kevin Pillar.
Wrong Sox
“Wrong Sox”…True. It’s the wrong “Sox”, but I have a hard time believing the Wsox have 4-5 OFs better than Kevin Pillar. Granted, nobody(outside of Chicago)is really watching the Wsox these days, so maybe Pillar is really scuffling, but I’m still surprised. And I’m not just saying that because Pillar always rakes for me in “MLB The Show”.
It had to be done, Pablo wasn’t doing the job on offense or defense.
Looking forward to seeing what Grissom can do.
If you believe the article he’s a ‘newly acquired’ grissom, must be a new and improved version beyond the guy they traded for over the offseason. Maybe with some extra defense built into the glove.
The bat will be welcome for the offense, I’m just curious/worried about the defense/errors.
Grissom produced a healthy dose of errors, even while throwing over to a better 1B target in Atlanta than anything Boston can put on the field.
GASox – Yeah he does have a reputation for below average defense, but if he can be an average glove with an above average bat I’ll be happy.
Sale has been pitching great! Already made 5 starts, 0.92 WHIP, 33 K’s in 31 innings. He will definitely be pitching against the Sox next week, not sure which day because the Braves have a couple days off before then.
Unfortunately Houck is slated to go again the Twinkies a couple games before the ATL series, it would’ve been fun to see the two mirror images dueling one another – young vs old, left vs right, both putting up quality starts with similar mirror action on the pitches.
GASox – I would have added “ornery vs ornery”. LOL!
Interesting trivia question, who are the only two current Red Sox players to have ever faced Sale in a regular season MLB game? Don’t cheat by looking it up ;O)
Fever – one of them is easy, has to be Ref.
The second one I’m not sure about. Is it a trick question where you’re counting someone currently in the minor leagues and not technically a true red sox yet?
Because we were talking about grissom elsewhere if you made me guess I’d pick him, as he maybe was the inspiration for the question. But that’s pure guesswork, not knowlege of seeing him vs sale.
GASox – Great job getting Ref!!
The second player?
None other than Mr. Cooper :O)
And here’s the best part …. it was in his 2nd-ever MLB game back in July 2017, and he was with the Yankees at the time.
I was thinking McGuire.
dewey – That would have been a good guess, but he had played only around 40 games in 2018-2019 before all of Sale’s injuries started kicking in.
“Newly acquired” references Garrett Cooper, whom they acquired Saturday and have not yet added to the roster.
They’ll need a different move for Vaughn Grissom tomorrow.
Steve – It’s my fault for bringing up Grissom, sometimes my brain jumps ahead.. LOL!
Fever – no taking all the blame, I’m equal at fault at a minimum. Somehow I swear I saw grissom listed as the corresponding move, maybe just because we’re expecting something to come down within the next 24 hours regarding it.
I’m almost surprised the sox didn’t do more musical chairs with this opportunity – go shorthanded off the bench, let hamilton go down, add a spare ‘pen arm for today, then send the arm down in favor of grissom.
The glut of underhitting sub-par fielding infielders werent doing much for bench bats anyways, and, you dont need that many backup SS.
At least give more of the pen guys extra recovering time during the stretch of games without a day off. Houck soaking up innings did help that yesterday though…
GASox – I knew the article was about Cooper all along, I just don’t expect much from him nor do I have much interest in him. Perhaps because over the past few years I’ve seen this type of Red Sox acquisition so often that my mind has become numb to it. LOL!
My bad for steering the topic in a different direction.
So you don’t think Chase Anderson is in jeopardy at all after Pivetta or Bello or Whitlock return? He’s not making much more than minimum.
“I just don’t expect much from him”…”Coop” can hit a little bit and play 1b or the OF corners. When your next best 1B option is Bobby Dalbec, I’m thinking Garrett Cooper is a nice little pickup. Especially when all it cost was cash, not players.
I think he may be. His spot and the kid newly called up from Pawtucket, Uwasawa have the most to prove at the moment.
Of course that depends on *knock on wood* no further injuries.
Cooper could be the next Steve Pearce who I don’t expect much from the deal was announced…
mlb – Yes as a 2-3 month fill-in I’m sure he will be suitable.
GASox – You can’t stop injuries, you can only hope to contain them ;O)
dewey – I don’t think that’s likely, Pearce was a very good hitter prior to joining the Red Sox.
He had an .868 OPS when the trade happened, and had an OPS as high as .930 just a few seasons prior.
Garrett has never been that good, but maybe he can be as good as 1976 Cecil Cooper?
Is this GASox from the old Royal Rooters site?
No sir chebert. Although, formerly of AtlSoxFan on this site. Also iirc ck80 and/or atlsoxfan on the mlb website for redsox.com back when they had embedded message boards before they discontinued them.
GASox – What are embedded message boards?
And you never posted on Boston.com or SOSH?
Back… oh, I’m not sure when, probably at least 5 or more years now, on the bottom of the articles on the redsox.com website they used to have a message board like our comment threads here, except set into a frame at the bottom of the web page. Then, the day of a redsox game, groups of a ton of us would pick that day’s article to make it the ‘game thread’… then as we watched the game, everyone would talk in real-time about things as play was happening. By the end of a game the threadnwould have a couple thousand comments.
I want to say it was powered by livefyre near the end. Then they shut it down and id lost info on where the back-up place everyone would meet was. So, it was kinda cool for while it lasted.
Boston.com or SOSH? Nope, can’t say I ever would’ve.
Fever- Maybe it was divine punishment over turning down the interview during the Sox ST broadcast while Jamaal was talking during that game early on? Saying “not today, not today”. Just kidding of course.
His play did regress of course, then nobody did really expect him to maintain the numbers he put up half a season last year after getting him for nothing from Oakland out of nowhere after having never before really doing anything. Was (and is) always nice to see a career milb kid have something to remember fondly.
john – Agreed! Which ST broadcast was that? I’d like to re-watch it because I don’t remember that happening, I must have missed it.
Fever- It was an early ST game. jamaal was in the dugout and forget what the topic was. TC was the broadcaster, with believe Youk there as well in the booth? Pablo was hanging behind Jamaal, making some kind of funny faces and TC said something to Jamaal, who turned and asked Pablo if he wanted to be interviewed and he waved a little embarrasingly “not today, not today”. They all continued to joke around a few more seconds before continuing on with whatever it was they were talking about before is all remember.
One of those things like about ST and light moments anyway.
Just don’t expect the same glove work as Rafaela. The problem is giving Rafaela a break at SS.
Looks like dalbec wins out as the remaining 3B depth piece, and, by Tues one of hamilton/valdez are headed down. A bit surprising given Pablo’s positional versatility, but, apparently the team feels improved health issues around the corner.
That 5 game hitting streak seems to have made some impression anyways, as has a possible change to his swing – remember how I’d highlighted his negative 2 degree launch angle and lack of pop infield fly balls,
(Assuming Reyes even gets claimed, (or traded) instead of being outrighted.)
Honestly of the three you’d think Hamilton and Valdez BOTH get sent down just to preserve depth, as well as let them continue to work on defense. But, as I said, maybe Breslow thinks Reyes can pass through waivers right now.
Maybe this is signaling a shift to prioritizing defense a little more as well for the MLB-club infield, one can only hope.
GASox – I know most defensive stats are BS, but any idea how Pablo could have gotten “solid ratings at 3B” when he has 4 errors in just 78 innings at the position this season? Maybe the ratings are very old?
Fever – maybe viewed through a lens comparative to Devers?
Steve was referring to Pablo’s career at 3rd, not just this year.
Additionally, while errors are easy to understand, they are not, in themselves, a great way to measure defensive ability.
Imagine two 3rd basemen. One never moves more then one step to his left or right, and as a result commits no errors on the season as he never gets to any balls. The other guy has amazing range and commits 10 errors.
The guy with the better range has more errors yet is almost certainly a better defender as he likely made countless plays that the other guy didn’t.
Canuck – That’s what I figured, old ratings. Defensive analytics are so volatile, yet another reason why I don’t put a lot of stock in them.
As for the range thing, that is a separate subject. I don’t think anyone here believes Devers has superior range because of all his errors …. right GASox ‘O)
The only true way to gauge a player’s defense is to watch it closely every day, it’s that simple. There are so many factors involved. What if a player makes a great grab but an awful throw to 1B? What if the 1B makes a great play to catch that awful throw? What if the exit velo on a groundball to 3B is 20 MPH faster than average?
One thing errors DO prove, the number of routine plays that were botched.
“One thing errors DO prove, the number of routine plays that were botched.”
Not always. Outfielders dive for balls and miss turning a single into a triple. If the ball doesn’t touch the glove, it’s not an error, yet he turned a routine single into a triple
Matt Chapman last year made a few diving plays where he had to go outside the foul line, got up and threw wide to first. He got an error on plays where some players wouldn’t have even gotten to the ball. The plays were anything but routine, yet because there was technically time to throw out the runner, he gets the E.
I agree some errors are just errors, but some are tougher then others and some don’t even get the errors they probably deserve.
Defense, in general, is just really hard to properly quantify with stats. Or at least harder to quantify then offense.
Canuck – Not true about the ball needing to touch the glove to be an error (please see below). But I certainly agree with your overall premise that many plays which SHOULD be errors are not scored as such. It was especially noticeable last year when MLB ordered all official scorers to hold back on error calls unless it was an extremely glaring error.
However it is extremely rare for an officially scored error to truly not be one.
baseballrulesacademy.com/official-rule/mlb/9-12-er…
“It is not necessary that the fielder touch the ball to be charged with an error. If a ground ball goes through a fielder’s legs or a fly ball falls untouched and, in the scorer’s judgment, the fielder could have handled the ball with ordinary effort, the Official Scorer shall charge such fielder with an error.”
Fever – Devers did make it out to nail O’neill so that counts for some kinda range right 😉
Here’s the way I consider it. I blend a lot of eye test with the numbers. The analytics does give you a hint at things to look for. If you blend them all together, you’re still going to get a fairly accurate picture of how a guy will do at a position.
You’re maybe talking the difference between a guy like Bogey who did pretty good at SS in Boston, but, analytics saw him as below average. That’s a good example IMO of how it can fail.
The guy who gets charged some errors for attempting plays, or, moving further than others will? He’s not earning 20 or 30 errors a year from that. Maybe a handful. And you’ve also got to consider MLB’s preference to not score an error an error whenever possible. It should even out to some degree.
“The only true way to gauge a player’s defense is to watch it closely every day, it’s that simple.”
“One thing errors DO prove, the number of routine plays that were botched.”
It’s like youre addicted to saying dumb things in an authoritative tone..
@Canuckle
Couldn’t agree more, and Chapman is a great example, expecially when he had Olsen as a picking machine at 1B. Essentially he threw it in Olsen’s zip code and it was hoovered. A great 1B covers a lot of average or necessarily rushed work from 3B or SS and gets little credit….
Errors are by nature subjective and thus prone to inaccuracy on best….
Fever – my favorite piece of that rule quote that I often think about, is, “with ordinary effort”…
Very subjective.
Is it ordinary effort for your average player? Ordinary effort for the particular player’s abilities? Does ordinary effort start at the crack of the bat? What is a guy with amazing speed and instincts gets to a ball almost no other player would because of an amazing jump and impeccable route, BUT comes up short of gloving it? Do you say it’s ordinary effort for only the time the ball is finally in reach to catch?
There’s a lot of ways that the preferences of scorers come into play on a given situation. Usually they get it right, but there’s been more than one instance that have really left me scratching my head, and, I think it’s those couple words that the scorers hinge on to justify their thoughts.
That is a very accurate assessment!!
Boggarts had extremely limited range for a ss. He is sure handed, but was a below average fielding ss, because of his lack of range.
Raw – And what handle did you use before your current one?
I see you’re bringing your crap to yet another article. Hope you’re not planning to stalk me again.
GASox – That’s the thing about defense in general, two people can look at a play and come up with two entirely different opinions of the fielder’s performance on said play. It’s not black and white, there’s so much gray area and bias involved in scoring that it’s just not reliable. But with the way scorers these days don’t give errors unless it’s really egregious, the only thing we can trust is a scoring error must have truly been an error.
One thing that always annoyed me is when the fielder “loses it in the lights” and it is therefore called a base hit because of it. I don’t buy that at all, if a fielder can’t track the path of the ball because they took their eyes off it that’s on them.
Fever – Did you leave off the word “theoretically” in your last sentence? “shall charge such fielder with an error”. My total for Devers is now approximately 200 misplayed balls in addition to the 130 that apparently were clearly errors they were forced to count.
Score keeping is a joke and getting worse. I’ve seen Devers miss balls between his legs, under his glove, off his foot while stationary, off the heal of his glove on a backhand, to his side since he didn’t want to get in front of it and one of my favorites when he goes to his left and the high hop nearly hits him in the face so the ball passes between the glove and face. All non-errors!!! So his 130 should be no less than 330 which is well beyond an acceptable level for any fielder but he plays on because of politics. Truly pathetic.
A’sfanini – I’m always astonished by comments like yours.
Chapman = 73/2664 errors to total chances
Devers – 130/2261 errors to total chances
I get that a 1B can save a few errors but he has 400 more total chances and almost half as many errors. Give Olson 20 saves to help Chapman, he’s still one of the best of all time and deserves the compliments and Devers is the worst of all time. If Boston had Chapman instead of Devers they probably would have averaged at least 10 more wins a year during their time playing including the Bloom era.
Be thankful for what you’ve had, it can always be 10 times worse!!!
TF – I totally agree, lots of errors not being scored as such.
At least Cespedes will take over 3B in 2027.
Why do you think he wore #2. His idol. Just hit for more power at times was the only difference imho
Guess you never played under the lights or at sunset.
My guess is however these ” metrics” are arrived at it is done by someone that doesn’t understand baseball, at more than a very basic level. There are just too many examples, that are way out of whack!!
history – I totally agree. So many of these analysts don’t follow baseball or even like it, they took the job just because of the pay.
Stats should be a supplement, they shouldn’t replace human eyes.
I doubt anyone is claiming Reyes. He did okay last year, but every team has a guy like this. Valdez probably gets thru as well, but he is young enough that a bad team should take a flier.
Joe – Enmanuel Valdez has to options remaining, so will not receive a DFA, he will simply be optioned to Worcester.
@GASox
My best baseball pal – a huge Sox fan, (we flew across in 2013 for ALDS A’s in Detroit, Sox vs Ray’s, & ALCS Sox vs Detroit games) – he still believes Dalbec will come good…
Defensively he’s OK, offensively I don’t see time going back 3/4 years…pre Sophomore…
As fan, I still believe dalbec is more than this season or the last few has shown. My comments the past week since being around more probably give that away though.
It comes down to usage and regular ABs. And, not riding the bench for stretches… that is the biggest difference between 2020/21 and now. I don’t think we will see a sustained full season of 2020 numbers again. But I also don’t think he’s at the end, all washed up like dan Uggla turned into.
Yep, you like Dalbec.
We all get that for sure.
A’s fan: And I’d like to fly to England and watch my favorite team Liverpool play at Anfield. (“You’ll Never Walk Alone”).
Even if Reyes does not get claimed, the Red Sox have Nick Sogard and Chase Meidroth at AAA who play multiple infield positions and are much better hitters than Pablo Reyes! All of the 3 would need to be added to the 40-man to be called up to Boston (including Reyes). Sogard is Rule 5 eligible after the season, so the will need to be added to the 40-man roster. If Boston needs an infielder at this point, I could easily see Sogard getting the call even if the Red Sox keep Reyes (assuming he clears waivers).
The Red Sox roster stands at 38 right now, so they will be looking to add players who exercise opt-out on May 1. Look for an infielder and reliever to be added this week to fill the 40-man!
Good points. Maybe Luetge or Guererro will be the reliever added.
All in – Agree 100%, Guerrero throws 100+ MPH, so he would be something the Red Sox do not have in the bullpen.
The Reyes DFA makes no sense unless the Red Sox add someone different as they currently have NO (zero) position players on the 40-man roster who are not in Boston or are currently on the DL. There is literally no one to call up.
Pablo Reyes? I’m not buying it. I think it is Pablo Ozuna in disguise trying another trick to get back to MLB. They bust you on age, try the ol’ name change trick.
Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen them both in the same room at the same time….
Pablo may go unclaimed and wind up in AAA.
Suit, very possible. But, I’d assume 2023’s numbers and his utility potential get him a home at least with a nothing to lose club like the White Sox, if not somewhere even better than that.
Right now I’m more curious what the lineup card will look like the next couple days while Yoshida sits again.
Your best defense comes with dalbec at first, and Cooper or Ref handling DH duties.
Cora’s boy Hamilton *should* be the one to go down, and, here’s why:
We’ve already seen Devers and Casas go down at the same time. If dalbec went down, and Devers had any trouble, you need valdez to be an emergency 3B where he played in the minors for HOU. That’d certainly be better than moving ref/cooper/hamilton over there even if you could slide a catcher to 1B in a pinch.
Dalbec sharing dh duties keeps his 5 game hit streak bat in the lineup, and reduces injury risk while fielding, but not hitting or base-running. And I think sitting him and removing those regular ABs undoes some of the progress we’re seeing. What a guy did 3 weeks ago isn’t as important as what he’s doing lately.
So while both hamilton & valdez haven’t gotten things done, one had more emergency value and the other doesn’t.
The fact remains, this club is still very weak at 3B depth.
GASox – Speaking of Houston, not fair the Sox have to wait until August to play them. I’m not counting them out, they are still only 6 games out of first place and they are getting back some of their injured players.
Fever – Houston is playing better than their record suggests.
They’re also 0-7 in one-run games this year. Let that sink in. No way that trend continues.
GASox – I’m not a Hader hater, but what the hell is wrong with him??? Another hidden injury?
With Hader, cosider this nugget:
His era vs fip has a whopping 5-run difference!
Metrics generally like what he’s doing. If you threw out whatever that abysmal ATL showing was where he gave up 4 runs with only one out recorded, he’s nowhere near as bad. Still not great, but a lot better than it was.
HOU has a reputation for finding something else in their arms. I wonder if the rough early games reflected them asking him to do something differently, or, maybe it was just pressure to live up to the contract.
But except for ATL Hader really has settled down a lot since then. Its worth watching of course, but I suspect things will improve.
GASox – It’s just in the back of my mind how volatile closers can be.
Remember Edwin Diaz’s first year with the Mets?
Cooper at DH? I’m pretty sure that’s not why he was acquired.
There is no situation on this roster where Yoshida playing the field is the best option.
Apparently I didn’t read your whole comment.
I doubt Dalbec has a better glove than Cooper, though.
Fielding metric like dalbec better, but we all know the issues with those.
You’ve also got to consider 28yo vs 33yo, floor and ceiling, all that.
Obviously cooper wasn’t gotten to ride the bench. At the same time, the effort to get Cooper would’ve started before dalbec began really stringing together his hitting streak where not much was being expected.
As a team you have to want Bobby to finally be putting something together again. I’d hope while the dh slot was wide open due to yoshida’s discomfort, you let things ride and see how it keeps playing out.
You are correct though, the thought in seeking to pursue Cooper wasn’t to stick him in a pure bench role at that time.
Cora’s boy Hamilton *should* be the one to go down
==============================
Does this happen with other teams, where certain players are considered the managers “pet players”? Or is it just a RS thing?
I think it happens to a degree with other teams to. Not every manager is as blatant/open in comments about certain players, or, players from certain regions, as Cora has been that give the impression of that favoritism.
Cora has like 15 “boys” apparently.
GA and Joe – Nepotism has been a founding philosophy since the early 1900s. The long history has led to long biases whether it comes to skin color or country of origin.
I blame the poor farm system on the lack of equitable reviews of skills in the managers and coaches. The good old boy system has prevailed and dragged the program down. Breslow’s changes were refreshing but he needs to do a lot more and it needs to be about the best candidate getting the job not the best connected.
As soon as Cora is gone there is a whole string of firing that should happen including the highly lauded and untalented manager at AA. Fresh blood needs to be brought into the coaching community within the Red Sox organization.
The difference the current pitching coaches are making is the essence of what Boston needs to do to improve the farm system training just like they did the MLB pitching training.
The sooner Cora goes the sooner the whole program can improve and the nepotism can be significantly reduced.
I’ll say 2 things for Pablo: he’s consistently inconsistent, and he’s made a nice career as a utility player who doesn’t play any position particularly well defensively.
Red Sux gonna Red Sux…
What a clever comment.
He’ll be back Cora loves him
Sweet = Lets hope Cora joins him!!!
nooo not our best closer, with a career ERA of 0
It’s not as though any of the options they’ve been running out in the infield are realistically MLB-caliber, but I’m still a little surprised to see them keep Dalbec or Valdez over Reyes, especially considering that both of them have options. But given how awful the defense from Reyes/Hamilton/Valdez has been I suppose it makes sense to keep at least one competent defender on the roster in Dalbec. Either way, Cooper and Grissom will be very welcome arrivals.
Red sox are kinda underrated
liberalsteve – Or just maybe their opponents so far were over rated!!
Sox did not need to DFA anyone. Cooper and Grissom were both already on the 40 man roster, which was only at 39 after the DFA of Joely Rodriguez.
They do need to create another place on the active roster, most likely they will option Enmanuel Valdez to Worcester, since he has 2 options left and is being replaced by Grissom anyway.
Not sure why the DFAd Reyes when they could have just demoted Hamilton or Dalbec. I guess Cora still wants those guys around. Hamilton might be a useful ghost runner. Beyond that, he brings very little.
Ketch: You are correct. The 40 man roster is at 38 now. They might have something else in the works.
soxprospects.com/40man.htm
Technically you are correct: both valdez and Hamilton could’ve been optioned, or dalbec, without the DFA of Reyes.
However, you have to consider what each brings to the table.
Reyes has versatility, no question. But boston has no need for more OF depth. Not omly can cooper also play the OF, adding to oneill, Yoshida, Duran, abreu, refsnyder, moving ceddane in an ultimate pinch… OF is covered on the 26 man for sure. So what can he add? His defense is sub-par. His bat hasn’t played up well. At ss you’re better with ceddane backed by Hamilton or valdez in emergency than Reyes. Dalbec is hands down a better 3B. 1B you’ve got cooper, dalbec, sliding a catcher over in an emergency. So that OF experience doesn’t bring value right now
Fact is, Reyes was expendable if he passes through waivers. He wasn’t doing any one thing well enough to stick on the roster with the current needs.
If your goal is to either give a player with room for growth mlb experience, or, go with the best combination of offensive and defensive production, Reyes loses out. The *only* argument to keep him where he was is if you are afraid of losing him through waivers, or, think you need that extra depth going forward with injury risk.
That’s about right. Hamilton and Dalbec have some upside, even if we haven’t seen it. Reyes is your basic -0- WAR player.
GA: If you feel like it, please go here and rear the exchange between me and FPG.
mlbtraderumors.com/2024/04/nl-central-notes-imanag…
If you agree that FPG is confusing facts and opinions, please see if you can explain the difference to him. The only facts we have about the Red Sox spending is now much they have actually spent and their CBT calculation. How to evaluate whether or not they are cheap from there is all a matter of opinion. It is an opinion whether or not to pay attention to the actual spending numbers or the CBT calculation. Also, each person will have their own opinion about what is a cheap level of spending. I know you believe that each person is entitled to their opinion.
FPG is a troll. You’d be better suited discussing baseball with a pillow.
As much as I dont like Reyes, I think Dalbec should have been the target
koudey – If Cooper gets hurt in this first game Dalbec is the back-up Reyes doesn’t have a comparable role so he’s more expendable.
Well, they could have gone one game with Reyes at 1B and recalled Dalbec from Worcester. Dalbec can be demoted; Reyes cannot.
Kelch – While Dalbec isn’t a quality back-up he is a last resort back-up. The price for a Pablo Reyes is a dime a dozen. The system has more comparable players than Dalbec and if the stock pile is low you don’t toss the guy who is closest to the front line even if he can come back up. You dump the guy who is worth a penny amongst a bunch of pennies. He was the weakest link.
This comment has nothing to do with this article, but I don’t know who to ask. The Tuesday chat has a link in The Opener to ask a question beforehand. On Sunday there is no Opener. Can someone please tell me how I can get on the Sunday chat to ask a question?
Addition by subtraction. Removing Reyes and Joely from the roster is great news. I hope they find another team to play for, but they ran out of time to perform with the Sox (imo).
I wonder what the corresponding move will be for Grissom tomorrow. Yoshida to the IL? Hamilton/Dalbec DFA’d? I feel like it has to be Hamilton or Yoshida. You need some backups at the corner IF spot, and that’s currently Dalbec.
Joemo = Well said. I would start finding trading partners for Yoshida. The depth that could come from dealing his $18MM could reduce the issues for back-ups while the starters mend.
Yoshi has proven to not be a $18MM player so trade him for 4 players costing roughly $5MM and don’t get a lot of playing time. Make sure one or two can play the corners and then send Dalbec down and use the others to upgrade the back-up rolls because more injuries will happen. A $2MM bump in payroll is meaningless in 2024.
Troll – If Breslow can find a way to dump Yoshida, give him an award. I’m sure he could be useful on a team that really needs a LH OF bat. What the Red Sox needed, even last year, was a RH power hitting OF. Yoshida has been a LH, soft contact hitter. It looks like they have that in O’Neill. I would say if he could swap bad contracts that would be a win, I don’t really have a partner in mind but someone like Tim Anderson. Some veteran IF on a bad deal. You wouldn’t even need to throw in a prospect to sweeten the deal.
Roster spots will become tight soon, and Yoshida could be the next casualty.
Joemo – Yoshida is a real challenge to move and it seems unlikely they dump the contract. So maybe an Anderson deal might improve the situation to some degree but maybe they could trade Yoshida for Kyle Hendricks.
With Bellinger and Suzuki out as well as Hendricks, the Cubs gain an outfielder who needs to play every day and the Red Sox get a low rotation SP who is hurt and is only on a one year contract. If they need to throw in guys like Hamilton for his speed or a lower level prospect then do it to save the upcoming years of $18MM. Also, Hendrick might learn something about his current pitching issues that would allow him to be a viable piece of pitching depth.
Someone in the front office just needs to find the right need to move Yoshida. He’s not horrible, he’s just doesn’t fit the Red Sox needs.
Hamilton and Dalbec have options. They aren’t going to be DFA”d.
Joemo – Hamilton and Dalbec have options and can be optioned to AAA Worcester, so no DFA is necessary.
Whoops, got a little dfa happy. Thanks
Why do the Red Sox Pablo Reyes when they Chase Meidroth in AAA who plays 2B and 3B.
‘Infielder Chase Meidroth (No. 13) doesn’t chase. The 22-year-old has been a proverbial on-base machine, posting a .255/.463/.340 line thanks to a disciplined approach that has produced more than twice as many walks (16) as strikeouts (7), and the lowest chase rate (13 percent) among the 254 Triple A hitters who have faced at least 100 pitches out of the strike zone.’
The quote was from Alex Speier of the Boston Globe.
Fun – Cool handle paesano.