The Red Sox made a big investment in Ceddanne Rafaela last season, extending the youngster on an eight-year, $50MM deal in April. At the time, he had just 38 MLB games under his belt. They weren’t the most successful 38 games, either. Rafaela had a .672 OPS and 76 wRC+ with an abysmal 6:37 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Despite his blistering speed, he only had four stolen bases to that point, and he had already been caught stealing twice. Yet, his elite defensive capabilities must have helped the Red Sox look past his struggles on the other side of the ball.
Rafaela was long praised for his outfield defense as a prospect, and he lived up to the hype in the majors. By the end of the 2024 season, he had racked up 12 Defensive Runs Saved and a +7 Fielding Run Value in just 748.0 career innings as a center fielder. On the one hand, we have to be careful when looking at defensive metrics in such a small sample size. On the other hand, if Rafaela could keep those numbers up over a full season of work, he’d be one of the best fielders in the sport.
As if his performance in center field weren’t impressive enough, Rafaela has also appeared in 87 games at shortstop, 14 games at second base, and 4 games at third in his brief MLB tenure. He had plenty of infield experience in the minors. In fact, he began his pro career as a full-time infielder in 2018 and didn’t play the outfield until 2021. However, he took to center field so naturally that it soon became his primary position. By the time he made his MLB debut, it seemed safe to say he was a full-time center fielder.
But not so fast. As Trevor Story spent significant time on the IL in 2023 and ’24, the Red Sox needed help in the infield. Rafaela started five games at shortstop during his brief big league cup of coffee in 2023. The following year, the Red Sox temporarily named him their primary shortstop when Story went down with a shoulder injury in early April. He ended up playing more shortstop than any position and more shortstop than anyone else on Boston’s roster.
Rafaela’s versatility proved to be invaluable to the Red Sox in 2024. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that he wasn’t more than a backup plan at short. His defense at the position was poor according to just about every available metric. Over 692.0 career innings at shortstop from 2023-24, Rafaela has made six fielding errors and four throwing errors. He has -3 Defensive Runs Saved and a -8 Fielding Run Value. Once again, it’s important to take defensive metrics in a small sample size with a grain of salt. Still, it’s impossible not to notice the world of difference between Rafaela’s performance in center field and at shortstop.
With that in mind, it was hardly controversial when Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow told reporters (including Sean McAdam of MassLive) that the Red Sox plan to keep Rafaela in center field “as much as possible.” With Rafaela in center full-time, the Red Sox could play 2024 Gold Glove finalist Jarren Duran in left field and 2024 Gold Glove winner Wilyer Abreu in right, giving them, perhaps, the best defensive outfield in the sport. Yet, McAdam raises the question of what Boston will do once star prospect Roman Anthony is ready for the majors. That shouldn’t take long, considering Anthony put up a .982 OPS and a 162 wRC+ in 35 games at Triple-A last season. Neither Anthony nor Duran is quite as talented as Rafaela in center field, but both can play the position. More to the point, Rafaela has shown far less promise at the plate. Duran has an .832 OPS and a 126 wRC+ over the past two seasons, while Anthony has spent the last two years tearing up the minor leagues. Similarly, Abreu has a .794 OPS and a 117 wRC+ over 160 MLB games. No matter how strong Rafaela’s defense might be, his .664 OPS and 79 wRC+ in 180 career games pale in comparison to those numbers.
Despite a potential logjam in the outfield, Breslow made it clear that the Red Sox don’t want Rafaela playing the infield (per McAdam). That’s not exactly a shocking revelation. After all, Rafael Devers has third base on lock, and Story should be the full-time shortstop as long as he’s healthy. Boston doesn’t have a guaranteed starter at second base, but David Hamilton was a stronger offensive player and a better infield defender than Rafaela in 2024. Vaughn Grissom has yet to show that he’s ready for regular playing time, but he’s still young, and presumably, the Red Sox would like to give him a chance to prove himself after an injury-plagued 2024 campaign.
Ultimately, however, this isn’t really about the other options in the infield. Simply put, the Red Sox want Rafaela to focus on the position where he’s most valuable. Indeed, Breslow thinks that moving between the infield and the outfield might have hampered his performance in both spots: “I’m not sure we saw the best of him even defensively because of the fact that he was switching back and forth between center and shortstop.”
It’s hard to argue with Breslow’s logic. At the same time, it’s worth wondering what the Red Sox plan to do with Rafaela once Anthony demands a promotion. Similarly, it’s worth wondering what this means about Boston’s purported pursuit of a right-handed bat. Could a slightly crowded outfield picture prevent Breslow from adding the righty bat his lineup so badly needs?
The simplest answer is that Rafaela can take on a fourth outfielder role if/when he finds himself squeezed out of the starting lineup. He could also be the short side of a platoon with Abreu, who struggles against southpaws. In addition, it’s not as if Breslow completely closed the door on Rafaela returning to the infield. Perhaps if Story suffers another injury, Rafaela will be back on the dirt after all. A role like that might not be what the Red Sox had in mind when they signed him to a $50MM contract, but it’s not as if his $1.25MM salary for the 2025 season is an overpay for a Gold Glove-caliber bench player. Maybe Boston will eventually try to trade an outfielder, but there’s no reason to think they’re in a rush to get Rafaela – or Duran, Abreu, or Anthony – off their hands. Besides, Anthony isn’t even on the 40-man yet, and there’s plenty that could happen to affect Rafaela’s potential role between now and Opening Day.
Image courtesy of Imagn.
That is surprising to me because that adds to the outfield logjam and doesn’t help the infield situation
Do they really expect to have Vaughan Grissom and Trevor story as everyday starters on opening day? Do they really expect to keep Duran, abreu, Rafaela, Anthony, and yoshida at once (and refsnyder???)
I’d have to assume a trade is coming but I would take meh defense at 2nd so that there’s room in the outfield
I can assure you that Red Sox management is trying to figure out a way to send Yoshida and his contract away before Spring Training begins. As the roster shapes up now he would be almost guaranteed to be confined to DH and that did not go over well last year. If they can find a taker, he’s gone.
mister – Yoshida just had surgery, who the hell is gonna acquire him without knowing if he’s even going to be able to play at the start of the season?
Fever, shoulder surgery is not as debilitating (comparison only) to back surgery. That said, the issue is not Yoshida as if it makes the team better, the Sox have eaten money before. The issues to me remains Abreu and Anthony who we could have seen his best offense already. He was never expected to be a top bat. Can Anthony play RF in Boston as Abreu’s most important component of 24 was his glove. Spring training may be needed for all three issues to get resolved.
dewey – I generally agree with all that, but when was the last time the Red Sox ate over $56M??? Remember, this is not the Larry or Dave Red Sox anymore. They have become extremely cheap. If they were to eat $56M and then watch Yoshida hit over .300 with some other team, Henry would probably have a stroke!
I’m already expecting Abreu to be traded, and yeah I think Roman will do okay in RF. Not a big deal that he won’t be as good defensively as Abreu.
Did you see Cotillo’s predictions for 2025? He expects Rafaela to be demoted at some point, especially if Campbell and Anthony are promoted.
masslive.com/redsox/2025/01/25-red-sox-predictions…
how do you know???????
Sent him to Canada.
It’s best to keep him in CF. His defense suffered a little moving back and forth. The stability for a young guy is a good idea.
Expecting Story is what expectations are for SS. 2B not so much, more likely to be a camp battle. I think it is safe to assume they won’t rush Anthony. Abreu, Rafaela and Duran is the outfield, with Refsnyder platooning vsLHP for Abreu. Yoshida will DH again.
Unless a fantasy deal falls into their lap, they’ll run back a lot of what they have.
Cleveland – Rafaela’s defense suffered because at times he’s lazy and doesn’t focus on the game.
youtube.com/watch?v=gSN6COlmfAg
nesn.com/2023/09/red-soxs-ceddanne-rafaela-makes-n…
And his baserunning has suffered, not just because of all the Caught Stealing but because he’s got his head up his butt half the time.
mlb.com/video/yankees-pull-off-heads-up-play-again…
He needs to do a LOT of maturing, he needs to take the game seriously and focus when he’s on the field. He’s a great athlete, it’s a shame he has yet to live up to his potential.
Fever Pitch Guy – WHAT A BUNCH OF HORSE CRAP!!!!
Fever Pitch Guy – You embarrassed yourself and justified all the hate responses you get with this pile of crap you composed.
You call a player lazy because he doesn’t focus. Those two things aren’t related. Lazy is not putting in an effort and not focused is related to a players attention span not laziness.
The horse crap aspect of your comment is one of your clips is for a play where a 22 year old is up in September and his 3rd base coach starts distracting him with a conversation and he chooses to pay attention to the coach and gets picked off. The person responsible is the 3B coach for an unforgivable error in doing his job. The young player is just trying to please the coach.
The next horse crap comment about him misjudging the line drive hit by Varsho is pure ignorance on your part. A young outfielder who may not be used to a field and must make a first read on a line drive and it’s wrong allowing the ball to go over his head and then he steps up and takes full responsibility for the error is a class move. Your take on that as being lazy is a classless move on your part.
That’s consistent with what EVERYONE says about you on this website and I usually don’t get into your errant perceptions much since they are commonplace and really irrelevant to most things I care about.
Trashing an outstanding young player for the fun of it with unsubstantiated BS is a claim I hear far too frequently about you. This is inexcusable.
Are you aware that many outfielders including Trout and many other HOFers and future HOFers have done exactly the same thing that Rafaela did when he caught the ball on the edge of his glove and then it fell out as he went to throw it. Clearly, if you had ever played the game you would know that an outfielder’s glove is bigger with the outermost portion being less sensitive to the fingers inside the glove due to its size. A snow cone often happens when catching a fly and sometimes it can’t be felt as being different than a normal catch so the act of throwing doesn’t not change and the ball can fall from the glove without recognizing the issue until it’s too late. This is NOT an act of laziness except on your part for assuming you know something about the game of baseball!!!
Why choose this poor kid to make fun of him for a common error that happens to most outfielders at least once in their career? Its BS on your part.
Next time you go after Rafaela with unsubstantiated comments I will ream you another new one like I just did. It’s not cool to make up crap about a young player and pretend you are in his head knowing his habits. You simply can’t judge others by yourself!!!!!
KD – Actually, I changed my mind. You’ve had enough warnings. You’re muted, create another account if you want to trick me again for a while.
And if you followed the Red Sox at all you’d know that humiliating pickoff at 3B happened in 2024, not in 2023.
But you’re a diehard Texas Rangers fan, not a Red Sox fan. So not surprising.
Hall of Fame FPG smackdown!
All: it’s always funny when FPG spends all that time back slapping and praising all of KD’s new accounts only to have KD turn on him and then ends up muting KD anyway when he incurs his wrath.
Although I think FPG would look less ridiculous if just admitted he knew it was KD up until they got into a fight instead of pretending to get tricked.
Sagacity just got humbled holy
Whatever name you want to call me by, it’s wrong. I’ve already explained it and if you don’t understand technology, that’s not my problem.
Wow because I flipped the timing of the bull crap incidents that you used I’m not a Red Sox fan? hahaha that’s so lame.
You picked on his misread and apology in Center Field as a 23 years old not the Coach’s error. Wow yep that makes me not a Red Sox fan. I’m not ashamed of being a Ranger fan too. I’ve lived in many places in my lifetime and I’ve played fantasy baseball since 1984. My association with Boston and my family’s is over 100 years long. 80 years ago a family member went to Spring Training with the Boston Braves. So, sure I’m not a Red Sox fan because I confused your two abusive comments. This is why guys like Acell10 and All in the suit that you wear can’t stand you. You don’t have to be petty but you do it anyway.
Acell10, I explained the way my fantasy deals with all this and if you choose to not believe it that’s fine with me. If the technology of remoting into a common computer is over your head, that’s ok. Call me whichever name you choose. They are all real people and they all have commented here for years and years. It’s when specific people have forced them off the website because they complained that a new person joined and used the set-up to allow us all to contribute. But who cares. That’s all meaningless except that it gives you something non-baseball to talk about since you tend to lose every argument when it’s baseball related. I feel sorry for you because it’s got to be hard not really understanding the game but wanting you 15 minutes of fame writing comments on a website like this.
I wonder if energet is acell10? Since he’s got the situation backward it seems likely.
All in the suit that you wear – You were looking for support. I told you I would.
Its not that people don’t understand what you’re saying about the fantasy teams, it just what you’re saying isn’t plausible that ten different people would keep circulating through the same group account and have the exact same opinions on everything and remote into the same computer. Rather what makes more sense is that you keep making new accounts probably because you instead of talking about baseball you take things too far.
You don’t actually argue with people. When they disagree with you KD you insult and berate them for having a different opinion instead of defending your position.
I feel badly for you because you think people actually believe this nonsense. If you just learned how to disagree with people about baseball respectfully you wouldn’t have to keep creating new accounts.
They need to unload Duran while he still has any kind of value. If they can package him with Yoshida and a non-blue chip prospect like Blaze Jordan, then maybe we can free up some of the logjam and get a nice reliever in return.
This is the dumbest take I’ve read here in a long time
Duran has plenty of value. He is more valuable than any relief pitcher. If they’re trading him in a package for pitching they’d better be getting back a front-line starter back.
If Duran had as much value as you think, the Sox would have moved him for a starter already. Most every office knows his 2024 season was an aberration. An aging player whose whole profile is built on speed which is sure to decline isn’t an easy sell. He has no arm, his routes are bad, and his bat is below average without his wheels. The only upside he has is that he’s cheap and not hitting FA for a while. He’s a 2.5 WAR player, max.
His (Steamer/FGDC) projections, which are meant to be a median outcome, are in the low 3s, and you’re out here just spitballing that he’s a 2.5 WAR player max?
A 3+ WAR player with 4 cheap years of control has a ton of value and his ceiling is obviously elite given his 2024. He’s also only going to be 28 this year, so “aging” is a huge stretch. He’s in his prime.
Moving him would not be insane, but if you’re going to move him, you’re not going to do it without getting a player with a similar ceiling back. The Sox have plenty of average players. They specifically need to raise the team’s ceiling. Trading Duran without getting another boom candidate doesn’t make much sense to me.
Junkwax-Must be a Yankees fan lol!! Some of these takes are hilarious!
Hank, I am hoping junk has Breslow’s ear because the Padres would gladly send a really good reliever in Adam for those 3 he mentioned. Quick! Let’s get it done. LMFAO.
Durran was an 8 win player in 2024. To say he’s a 2.5 win player max is incredibly stupid.
Or Junk was offended by Duran’s ‘comment’ this past summer and wants him gone.
Maybe, some people can act so sensitive over nothing.
Enjoy your fantasy projections. In the real world, he relies on his legs for a lot of infield hits. Once he loses a step, which will be soon as that’s generally the first thing to go, his BA on balls in play will drop significantly. Add to that his terrible number of SO (which will likely go up once he starts to press from his average going down) and his fairly low exit velocities, his offense will take a tumble very soon. He had a nice start to last season and played way above his profile. He dropped in the 2nd half to a slightly below average hitter which is what he’s been for most of his career at the MLB level. There’s very little reason to believe he’ll even come close to his 2024 production ever again.
Okay…so you think he’s more valuable than a solid reliever? What’s the best player on the Padres you’d give up for Duran in a 1-1 scenario? Tatis? Merrill? Cease?
He had 83 XBH. Dropping 10 IFH in 4-5 years when his legs go would not be an issue. So PLEASE!!!! Convince Breslow to trade him, Yoshida, and a mid-level prospect to the Padres for a reliever.
Duran has 31 career infield hits, which shakes out to roughly 1 in every 50 PA. His legs are a big part of his game, yes, but he’s healthy and entering his age 28 season. I don’t want to *extend* him because I’m worried how his skill set will age, but he should continue to be effective for the next few years.
Nearly 10% of his hits were infield hits last season. You take that away and his average drops considerably. Regardless, I go back to my question , if you think trading him for a solid reliever is dumb, then who on the Padres would you part with on a 1-1 deal. Given that he’s so valuable.
Just Tatis, Merrill could be a conversation. That’s it
What the hell are you talking about? He had a higher batting average, slugging and OPS in the second half last season. Are you just making stuff up?
June: .360
July: .306
August: .299
Sept: .241
Looks like a steady drop from peak to me.
It’s not going to drop to 0 in one season. Devers’ career infield hit percentage is ~7%. Yoshida’s is also 7%. Casas’s is 5%. We’re talking a handful of hits a year between Duran and guys who are slow as molasses.
Agree that Tatis and Merrill are the only guys I’d move him for.
Duran is 28 years old.. That’s aging?
He’s also proven to be one of the most exciting players in baseball.
He stays, IMHO.
Duran’s comment was incredibly stupid and offensive and I happily trade him too but I sure as wouldn’t trade him for a reliever.
junk – With all due respect, you don’t even know what “aging” means.
Duran is only 28 years old, he started in all but 2 games (missed the 2 because of his mouth), and he ran the bases and played the field with max effort throughout the season.
“Aging” would be a player in at least his 30’s who has had many injuries and has slowed down in performance …. like Tyler O’Neill for instance who will be 30 this year.
You said he slipped to slightly below average in the second half. His second half slash was .286/.343/.506
You are wrong.
Junk you obviously havnt been paying attention duran started his breakout in 2023 prior to injury putting him on the shelf 2024 just confirmed what we all saw in 23..except you..and on what planet is 27 “aging” further believe he is still cost controlled for 3 or more years..hes arguably the best player on the team. You simply dont trade guys like that. I bet you loved the mookie deal based on this proposal
but you cant take that away becuase hes fast enough to get those base hits. a hit is a hit, either to the outfield, wall, a blooper, line drive, or a dribble, they all end up at first in the end.
a solid releiver in not even close to durans vaule, in fact, a solid releiver is not even say – a 3-4 war position player. Please sober up – for everyones sake
He’s Jacoby Ellsbury 2.0 & every GM & their grandma knows it. He’s never sniffing his 2024 production again.
Some times you sell high. How many times have I posted about Duran’s arm strength? He definitely has matured with the bat and was great in 24 in the field. Will he continue to improve? Who knows? That’s why you listen to offers but as another one said, pull the trigger only if you believe the return has more promise than you’re giving up (like all trades that are not financially motivated).
Junkwax – You obviously don’t watch a lot of Red Sox games and/or Jaren Duran at bats. Jaren Duran drives the ball on a line much more than him beating out IF hits for singles like you suggest. Nearly 50% of his 191 hits last year were for extra bases, including 48 doubles. His .OPS was nearly .900 as well. Singles hitters don’t come anywhere close to these numbers. Also, Duran just turned 28 in September, so he has at least 2 if not 3 more seasons of his prime left (he was a late bloomer like Judge). If they were to trade Duran now, they could get a ton for him, but the team knows how valuable he is to the offense and clubhouse as well, so they’d need to be blown away in order to trade him now.
Yeah Junk, that’s the ticket. Trade both of them and that prospect to the Padres for Adams
@junkwax, I might have agreed with much of what you wrote last year, but he made three significant improvements to his game in 2024.
First, his exit velocities jumped almost a full point to 90.8, with a max EV of 113.9. Those numbers are hardly elite, but they are similar to Teoscar Hernandez and Colton Cowser.
Second, he improved his BB% and K%. His K/BB fell from 3.8 to 3.0. His BABIP went from a flukish .381 in 2023 to a more realistic .345 in 2024 (still relies on his speed to keep it that high) yet his OBP and SLG *increased*.
Third, and perhaps the most significant of the three, he improved all aspects of his defense. His arm now rates above average. His range, whether measured by DRS or UZR or FRV improved. He went from being a passable defensive LF to being one of the better defensive CFs == and that alone is a +1 WAR improvement in his game.
Admittedly part of that defensive skill relies on his speed. (He always had the speed but he is now using it more effectively.) But if he maintains that improvement over the next few years he is a +4 WAR player, even if his offense takes a step back and he beats out fewer ground balls.
Taking the whole package, he is the best Red Sox outfielder. Rafaela has the defense but his offense is still MIA. Abreu is a good enough player but doesn’t have the defensive range or bat-to-ball skills of Duran. Anthony has a lot of talent, but you can’t expect too much from a rookie. Tough to improve a team by trading away one of your best players, so I doubt it will happen.
Yet as you point out he is a mid-career player and might not make sense to sign to a long-term deal. (The Red Sox have him under arbitration control for four more years.) I can live with that…
junkwax – “any kind of vaule” ????
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what the –
Not Duran. Hes actually a critical clubhouse piece.
Trade Casas and Yoshida for Vlady jr.! Then promote Anthony
I love Vlady, but there is NOOOOO way he’s not going to free agency
Now you are thinking.
The infield is decently well set with Casas, Campbell/Grissom, Story/Mayer, and Devers. While it would be nice to see Grissom establish himself, Campbell is the better talent and 2B is the position he knows best. Story belongs at shortstop if healthy, and Mayer is close to being ready if he isn’t. Hamilton is more a platoon player but also solidly competent at 2B/SS, and Sogard can fill in for a few games in a pinch. They have enough options there that they shouldn’t need to play Rafaela at a secondary position.
The outfield is definitely looking crowded, with Duran, Rafaela, Abreu/Refsnyder, and Anthony. While Refsnyder could potentially platoon with Yoshida instead of Abreu (they can’t really afford the roster spots to platoon both), Abreu hasn’t yet shown any ability to handle LHP. They could potentially trade Abreu and play Anthony full time. Duran, Rafaela, Abreu, and Anthony are all strong defenders who would lose value if playing DH, even if Yoshida were traded. (Refsnyder is a weaker defender.)
I’m okay with a crowded outfield, as it means they can cover for injuries as needed. If they trade Abreu, then Campbell becomes part of the OF depth. Less than ideal if he is starting at 2B.
So many moving parts, but Rafaela in CF is logical and they should have enough depth elsewhere that he doesn’t need to move again.
Nice read
Excellent read. My only addition would be that I now strongly doubt that Bregman or Arenado is coming. I think the plan is to trade Yoshida and cash for 2 or 3 midgrade prospects to restock the farm, and bring up both Campbell (2B) and Anthony (platoon with Abreu) to open the year. DH slot gets used to give guys rest. Any remaining cash would be spent on the bullpen. And frankly, that’s not a terrible plan.
If they’re moving Yoshida, no meaningful prospects are coming back unless they eat the entire contract. I think they’re just going to keep and play Yoshida.
I agree it seems unlikely that any major IF/OF addition is coming. The only position that seems straightforward to upgrade at this point is catcher.
Entirely possible they play Yoshida until July and hope he (re)builds value. Maybe they hold off on Anthony until then. But I’d unload Yoshida if I could bring back two or three mid-grade prospects, even if I had to pay all of the salary. It’s a sunk cost anyway at this point. Cubs or Angels are maybe the best option for that.
I agree about the backup catching situation, which is pretty abysmal. Unfortunately, the best they’re going to do is reuniting with Reese (very unlikely) or bringing in McCann for a cheap, one-year deal, maybe with a mutual option for a second year. All of the other available veterans at this point are useless, unless they want to dive further into the minor league free agent pool and hope to get lucky.
Why overpay Bregman? Arenado is not worth the risk, even with the money from Rox & STL being factored in. His back injury has been hampering him, but he’s getting to a point where he might just be blocking Mayer from a spot.
No, of course not. But they can’t go out in the media and say “we view X as expendable” or “we’re banking on Y.” That would remove all of their leverage and limit their ability to make a move to offload any of these guys.
And they really might not know who they’re going to trade or bump yet. I had never even thought about the possibility due to him already having a contract extension, but maybe part of the answer to clearing the logjam is just Rafaela becomes a super utility player. Maybe they are going to see how each looks this year before deciding on whether to trade away Wilyer or Yoshida. Maybe they are already doing all they can to offload Yoshida and haven’t found a deal yet. If they don’t view him as an asset worth keeping around it behooves them not to show their hand before making a trade.
Dirty – They pretty much DID say “we view X as expendable” when they lowballed him with that $90M offer and signed Story to replace him.
Ha, touche. I meant X as a variable/placeholder but can’t believe I didn’t even realize the double meaning to what I’d typed!
Still sore about that one, but yeah. They sure did.
The answer is that outfield isn’t a log jam yet. Anthony may not break camp with the team and if he does, abreu is not an ever day guy right now. 2b can be covered by Grissom, Hamilton or even Campbell if he’s ready. Yoshida is the odd man out. He’s the one they need to find a solution for.
They won’t need to find a solution for Yoshida, he’s their only DH. Ever since the team stop going for a righty DH like Teoscar or T.O, dumping Yoshida became futile.
Anthony is going to have to wait on Duran or Abreu before he gets a shot. As the Sox don’t have a reason to promote him so early. Other than the comp picks, it’s unclear why they’d try to force a 21 yo onto the field when they don’t need to. If they really hold him back, they could preserve his eligibility for a comp pick for ’26, which would be somewhat of a shame if he is truly good enough.
What do you mean “only DH”? Any player can be a DH.
They’re not going to dump Yoshida because there’s more value in keeping him than having to give up prospects or pay down a significant portion of his deal to move him. Might as well hope he rebounds with a healthy season.
They won’t be forcing a player like Anthony onto the field. Anthony will be forcing them to play him by being really good.
notstarboard — yeah I meant and should have been more clear that he’s their only guy who is only DH.
Agree he has more value keeping him. And hoping he plays well.
I hope anthony can do so, but he’ll need to at least outperform Abreu.
Anthony isn’t the type of talent you hold back for any reason. He just got better and better all season long. He’s an absolute elite talent with his only real shortcoming is he hits a lot ground balls strike that a lot of really hard ground balls which portends to a pretty high batting average since they can’t shift anymore. He has a great eye didn’t chase much and he’s a way better athlete than he is given credit for. He is very aggressive out of the box tuning singles into doubles and he plays a fine defensive outfield with good routes and instincts and an above average arm. In short he’s a five tool athlete and if he earns the starting job in spring training you give it to him and you never look back.
Cleveland, dumping Yoshida is not a futile idea quite yet.
For one, Devers badly needs to be moved off third into DH. They can still go get Bregman or Arenado and make this happen.
Even if they remain committed to the failed Devers experiment at third, they could also acknowledge that the lineup could use some right handed thump and seek to upgrade their DH with Pete Alonso, too.
It will require opening up the wallet and spending some money, which FSG has been mostly allergic to in recent years, but could very much be done.
Look at what the Brewers did with Chourio (slightly different situation with the extension) but they let him develop at the big leagues. Had a monster second half and postseason. Anthony making the roster might be a good solution for his development.
Totally. Anthony’s an elite prospect, I’m all for giving him every chance in spring training to win the job from Abreu. Or having him takeover somewhere midway through the season when his play demands it, if he’s not quite ready from the jump. Whether he does is up to him. Even if he isn’t amazing right out of the gate I do believe he’s going to be a very good player. Just trying to temper my expectations for now, especially since I want to see the roster augmented with more than just hopes and dreams. I think we are close to once again being a decent playoff team, but not quite there yet. Need to see our front office do more to seize the opportunity instead of just talk about it.
Bruin – I totally agree! Actually, they already held him back because they didn’t want to start the service time clock.
Anthony has already played 35 games in AAA.
You know how many AAA games Devers played before being called up midseason? NINE!!
SAL – I totally agree! And if Anthony’s promotion results in Rafaela riding the bench more, that’s an added bonus.
DirtyWater04 — They’ve said they aren’t moving Devers off 3B. Breslow is against adding Bregman and it’s clear it isn’t likely to move forward. Yoshida’s career numbers rates him 12% above league replacement. It’s nothing special but the management isn’t throwing it away.
I think down the line a bunch of it will change. But at the moment, it isn’t convenient enough. They aren’t ideal but they’ll say their in it to win in, just like they always do despite not really meaning it. And hey maybe it doesn’t matter and they play great!
Bruin1012 — It’s hard to argue when you put big labels on like this. Then again, I’d like to see what he needs to figure out and whether he addresses it in ST before I throw my hands up and say “let the kid play!”
Bruin1012 – While we don’t agree on some topics but you get that a guy like Anthony is special. What I don’t get is why with Anthony and Campbell going head to head, Campbell wins the Minor League Player of the Year award and he’s not the top prospect? He’s far more versatile, he is an excellent hitter, he’s faster, his glove is better in the infield and the outfield. Why isn’t the front office and fans giving Campbell the respect he EARNED in 2024? It makes no sense.
What is your perspective?
And look how that turned out. He sucked in 2018 because he didn’t have enough AAA games plus Anthony and Devers are miles apart in talent. Anthony dwarfs Devers talent just like Campbell. and Rafaela.
Saga my perspective is they are both excellent prospects. I watched quite a bit of Kristian Campbell in 2023 and honestly I didn’t see the rise that he ultimately showed in 2024. There are two reasons I don’t think he’s the prospect that Roman Anthony is the first we really don’t know what position he’s a Jack of all trades but master of none. The second the pitchers in AAA were able to exploit a weakness after the first week in AAA. He quietly really didn’t hit that well in AAA after the first week when pitchers started to buzz him up and in and put him away with sliders away. He’s kind of unconventional so there’s always the thought in the back of your mind when will he be exposed he has happy feet he moves around a lot reminds you a bit of Hunter Pence. He’s a good athlete but his athleticism might be best suited for the outfield or 2nd base. I really don’t think he’s a long term solution at short. My opinion is he will start at AAA and see how he adjusts to first adversity he has faced. I also believe that Breslow is intent on giving Grissom a chance at 2nd. I believe that Campbell earned the minor league player of the year honor he skyrocketed from outside the top 30 prospects in the Red Sox organization to top 10 in baseball.
Roman Anthony otoh didn’t have the meteoric rise of Campbell he had that the year before when he went from single A to AA as a 19 year old. He started a little slow in the cold of AA Portland but he improved every month. Roman Anthony is an excellent hitter as well and when he got to AAA they couldn’t get him out. He terrorized the AAA pitchers to the tune of .344/.463/.519. I think Campbell might be faster than Anthony but he’s not a better base runner. Anthony is very aggressive at taking the extra base stretching singles into doubles ala Duran he’s an excellent base runner. Anthony is certainly the better outfield defender than Campbell. He takes clean routes to the ball he gets good jumps his arm is above average for most teams he would be starting center fielder. He’s true five tool player but he also has what I like to call the 6th tool he’s a very intelligent player. He makes adjustments from at bat to at bat you can’t keep going to the well against this guy.
We are splitting hairs when we are talking about what I think are two future all stars and they are both excellent prospects who I think do really well at the next level. I just think if one of them hits for a .300/.400./.550 line with 35 homers at the next level out of the two of them it’s going to be Roman Anthony. That’s my perspective.
Bruin – Minor League Player of the Year has NOTHING to do with top prospect.
It has to do with the player that performed the best and improved the most.
Simple as that.
Bruin1012 – Interesting perspective. I get that you have watched both of them a lot I just don’t understand why such a huge honor in a head to head competition goes to one player and NOBODY seems to care. Boston has all kinds of prejudice built into the ownership and front office but it’s like Mookie all over again. Swihart over Mookie? Granted Anthony isn’t Swihart but then again Mookie didn’t win the Minor League Player of the Year award.
I guess things always come back to perception not performance and that’s a shame. When I see people mistreated like Sale was, like Benny was, like Duran was and like Rafaela is I feel like they all would be better off elsewhere so the Dominican bias isn’t swaying opinions and the crazy where did he go in the draft bias isn’t swaying opinions.
You said one thing I can’t ever remember hearing before. HIS ATHLETICISM MIGHT BE BEST SUITED FOR THE OUTFIELD OR 2B.
I can’t picture a scenario where a guy would be a great athlete and be better suited for 2B than SS. The best athletes are always SSs. I also can’t comprehend why he would be better suited for the outfield than SS or 3B.
The two best players on the field are usually the SS and 3B since there are more right handed hitters in the game and they tend to pull the ball more than hit to all fields. The infield takes far more skill than the outfield so the best athletes have always been placed at SS first and 3B second since the 1960s and before.
I get that you want Mayer to play SS and that’s what drove your comment but like Abreu making 7 errors to Duran and Rafaela’s 1 and 3 Mayer is not in the same league fielding with Campbell, Rafaela or Story. If the prejudice holds up like it has in recent years, I’m sure he’ll unfairly get the job at SS but like Devers he will be sub-standard and prevent Boston from ever returning to the World Series during his era.
I’m was a bit surprised at your suggestion that Anthony is more of a 5 tool player or even 6 tool player than Campbell. I don’t see it in the numbers and you are what you produced for the team. I hope he is as good as you think because that will mean Boston may have 5 legitimate all-stars by 2027 and Devers won’t be one of them because he’ll be a DH by then if he hasn’t fallen off too dramatically by then as a hitter too. Pujols and Cabrera fell off dramatically at 32 and 33 and they were far better hitters who started at about the same age.
Sagacity — The reason why Campbell is better suited as 2B or CF is because his arm grades below the necessary strength to be a SS.
The arm plays a big part of projecting whether prospects up the middle athleticism remain at shortstop.
Cleveland he’s choppy at short he just doesn’t look like big league shortstop to me. He’s said he will play any position they want him too but his words he’s most comfortable at 2nd. I also look at him as a super utility guy defensively. I’m just calling it how I see it. Your also right about Campbell’s arm it’s not as good as Mayer’s who also has plenty of arm for third which could be the position read somewhere that they were planning on playing Mayer quite a bit at third when he got to Worcester so I expect we will see some of that this summer at Worcester.
I agree, Anthony is young enough I am operating under the assumption his ascent will be something like Jacoby Ellsbury’s – we will probably start to see him here and there around July, and he will probably play his way into the lineup in September. It’s nice to know he’s on the horizon but they don’t have to do anything to clear a spot for him right this second for opening day. That gives them flexibility to wait and see who they decide isn’t going to be part of the outfield mix long term. Yoshida with a strong season probably becomes not so difficult to trade. If Abreu can’t make any progress against lefties maybe he plays his way from promising young trade chip to merely being a platoon/bench bat.
For the infield, similar story. Maybe Campbell puts on such an impressive show in spring training that he breaks camp as the second baseman, but no need to force it. If he needs some seasoning, let him go get it and Grissom and/or Hamilton should be acceptable in the interim. The question mark is what to do with Story, but my preference would be to treat him as a sunk cost. The moment they are sure beyond a doubt that Mayer is ready, I’m prepared to give Story the Rusney Castillo treatment if need be.
I like this plan. Gives Grissom & Hamilton a shot at reps out the gate, gives Campbell more time to revvv the engine.
i could see Campbell platooning Abreu in right field and grissom at second to get more right in the lineup.
Campbell needs 500+ PA, not the 150 PA from the short side of a platoon.
They could use him like Rafaela where he plays everyday but moves around.
Tang – Most times, a guy who is good enough to win the award he won is an exceptional player. Gunner Henderson more recently and Trout 10 years ago. Henderson was a 3B but he was so good he pushed out the following year stud SS over to 2B (Holliday) because he was a great athlete and the best player on the team. Campbell earned an award that suggests the same thing about the Boston Red Sox and who their best player is. He should have first shot at SS and if he proves to be as good as he was last year, a good program would keep him there for close to a decade. Mayer’s bad fielding makes it hard to find a place for him in the infield. They could try to convert him to an outfield spot but Boston has a loaded outfield already so Boston will do everything possible to preserve Mayer as the SS of the future even if it kills them like it did with Devers at 3B.
If Campbell gets pigeon=holed like they did to Chavis, Dalbec and so many other better 3Bs than Devers, Mayer will end up there and Campbell the superstar will end up in a crap spot like 2B where he’ll be a complete waste of talent. Personally, with the lack of respect given both Rafaela and Campbell and Cora as manager, I hope they both get traded to a team that would appreciate them. Maybe we could get a pitcher that Cora could screw up. Should be fun to see if he impacts Crochet’s and Buehler’s success as he did Sale and Price.
FYI… that clown Fever Pitch Guy just wrote Minor League Player of the Year has NOTHING to do with top prospects? hahahaha what a moron. Our man just outperformed EVERY prospect in baseball in 2024 and gee I wonder how they rank prospects? Could it be by how well they do? hahaha It’s amazing how little some people know about the game.
First I ever heard of this guy.
First I ever heard of you.
You must not watch much baseball.
I probably watched 120+ reds games last year, doesn’t mean I know every defense only player in the league…
So why comment on a Red Sox post? I mean, I know that Elly is an exciting player. McClain is, too when he’s not injured. Encarnacion-Strand didn’t quite measure up last year but there’s still room for growth. Marte has promise, but got popped for banned substances. Benson is a fun player. Lowder is an arm to watch…I think if I were to go comment on a Reds post, I’d make sure I had more to offer than an egotistical, “never heard of him.”
I didn’t say never heard of him, but I hadn’t. I know plenty of Red Sox players as well. I was only saying that you can watch baseball without knowing every player on every team.
you just lost all your CRED !
He is well known by Red Sox fans, both for his defense and potential to be successful offensively. I certainly don’t know the names of all the players on teams I don’t follow, nor would I read articles about them. Granted after reading the article now you do know who Rafaela is, unless you commented without even reading it. Hopefully he will have enough success in the coming years to become better known by non-Sox fans.
Uncle – Even if he doesn’t have success, he could still become famous for his futility.
I run an MLB forum and we have a contest to name the date when Rafaela gets his next walk. Why? Because he’s gone 142 PA’s without a walk, and the record is held by Mariano Duncan who went 323 PA’s without a walk in 1994-1995.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I picked April 11th because they will be playing the ChiSox whose pitching is so bad that they will likely end up walking even Rafaela.
Best news of the off season
Having a true second baseman who be better, but this is good news
Sad – I really respect your posts, but considering Red Sox management’s history ….. do you really put that much stock in “as much as possible”? They didn’t even give a projected number of games, or state which situations he would do so. It’s a pretty meaningless statement, just like when they said they will “raise the ceiling” and “willing to go over the CBT threshold”. …. all totally meaningless.
That phrase is so commonly used to deceive. If he plays 5 games in CF all year, they could say “it wasn’t possible to have him play more there”.
I mean, I want to lose as much weight as possible. Might be as little as 2 pounds though. Haha!
They have 4 people masquerading as SS without a true SS.
Trevor Story is a 9 year veteran at SS, you might not like him, but he’s not masquerading…..
His arm is a 2B arm now. He has the range for SS still, but he’s better suited to 2B…especially given his lack of offense. Your SS shouldn’t be such a hole in the lineup, either.
The Red Sox offense got practically zero production from SS position last year, both offensively and defensively. What they get from 145 games of a healthy Story would be a great improvement.
Zero is equal to zero, not greater than.
His arm is below average for SS but still good enough. He’s been an above average defensive SS for the Sox while healthy.
He’s been slightly below average with the bat in Boston, but far from a “hole in the lineup”. His cumulative numbers are harmed by coming back late in 2023 and 2024 after missing most of the year with injury. There’s plenty of reason for optimism if he can stay healthy, and given the freak nature of his injury last year, there’s no real reason to expect him to get injured again.
His career OPS+ at home is 125 and away is 75. Considering a majority of his games were with Colorado, there’s no reason to think he’s even an average offensive player away from Coors. He’s a hole in the lineup with a ton of strikeouts and not much upside.
It is pretty well established that the “Coors Effect” does not persist once players are no longer on the Rockies. Pitches move less at altitude, so of course Rockies players are going to be at an advantage at home (easier pitches to hit, and they’re more used to it than their opponents), and at a disadvantage on the road (harder pitches to hit, and they aren’t as used to it as their opponents).
I don’t think this is particularly relevant given the sample sizes, his streakiness, and his injury history, but FWIW he still has a 40 point spread between his home and away wRC+ as a Red Sox (110 vs 70).
That 1 at the beginning of that number of games Story will play is funny.
I really hope Story can find his swing again. He was not showing much offensive potential with what we saw of him after he came back last year, but that may just have been getting the rust off and being able to consistently play. The Sox have so much money invested it is time to get something out of that contract.
I have to say Uncle Pedro, that is one of the best names anyone has ever come up with on this website.
I loved and hated Story when he was a Rockie and was hoping for the best for him when went to the Red Sox because he plays the game in a hard-nosed manner that I enjoy watching. I hope he can stay healthy too.
Uncle – I have gone on record as saying Story will have a rebound season. Sure he will probably never again approach his bloated numbers in Colorado, but I think he will stay healthy and provide 150 games of solid defense with around a .240 BA, 23 homers and a .747 OPS.
It Trevor stays healthy, a big if, but if he does he locks down short for sure. He’s excellent and athletic defensively at short. When healthy his bat should play against lefties. One would have to assume that Rafaela is the backup for short since the other potential guys would just be stopgaps. Let’s hope for a finally healthy Story to lock down shirt and let Rafaela play his best position defensively center field.
You could potentially see Hamilton play short if that happened. They may want to keep Rafaela where his defense is an asset. Neither are great defensively at short, but that happens when you lose your starter usually. Let’s hope story shows what he’s capable of this year.
Hamilton is likely to play off the bench, but if Story goes down with an injury, I would expect Mayer to get the call. He is close to being ML-ready.
Didn’t Hamilton make a significant number of errors last year? Would prefer some solid defense up the middle this year. I can’t remember how Mayer is defensively, but I assume if he is not traded he will be an option at some point this season.
Hamilton settled down after the first few weeks, but he is better at 2B than SS. Weak arm.
Valdez was the greater disaster defensively at 2B last year.
Buy a tv
lol.
Red Sox will easily finish ahead of the spankees this year
This should have been the plan last year. Once Story went down either transition Rafaela to full-time SS or keep him in CF. He struggled flipping between the positions because they’re both difficult to play. He would settle in after a little bit but why make it tougher on the kid.
The Sox should open the year with an absolute logjam in the OF and no real path to improve it. Duran, Rafaela, Abreu on the major league roster and Anthony is knocking on the door. Refsnyder is currently the fourth outielder, but he talked about retiring.
This is strangely a good problem to have. Oh no there’s too many good outfielders that are controlled for many years!
The best way to fix this problem? Free up the DH spot from Yoshida. Then you can keep getting consistent ABs to the young OF as they develop.
I agree it’s a good problem to have. I don’t think freeing up the DH for these guys to get at-bats is the best way to improve. Yoshida is likely better hitter this year than Anthony, at least definitely in the first half. You also want Anthony to earn the at-bats to some degree. Plus, we want those guys in the field as much as possible, a lot of their value is out there.
The DH is better for spelling our worse defenders. In the future, when it Yoshida isn’t an improvement over these hitters does it really become necessary to change it.
If Yoshida isnt gone by opening day then it may be best for Anthony to start in the minors, unless he absolutely kicks the door in…….I’d rather him get 100 at bats to start the season in the minors than play sporadically with Boston
Cleveland – I think that if Anthony has a decent spring (doesn’t go 0 for whatever) he’s the better option over Yoshida. Hitting in the majors is tough and most young players struggle with adjustments. So I would be fully on board with an early promotion for Anthony fully expecting him to get demoted if he struggles. This way they can see how pitchers attack him and what he will need to work on.
I feel Anthony, with his current skill set, brings more to the lineup than Yoshida. Yoshida doesn’t strike out, great. But he doesn’t really drive the ball either and he’s a horrible defender.
And I agree, don’t just give the position to Anthony but I feel he will easily show that he deserves that roster spot come ST.
—
Sad – agree 100%. If he is not going to get consistent ABs on the major league team, no need for him to eat up a roster spot. If Anthony was a RHB I’d say bring him up either way, but hopefully Campbell forces his way on at 2B.
Joemo — Regardless of a good spring, Anthony probably will be held back until warm weather. I think you’d be hard pressed to play Anthony over Yoshida unless he breaks out like Julio Rodriguez did in ’22 (even his first month was trouble). Putting Anthony in Yoshida’s spot would also mean the team has to get him OF reps because they won’t give him the DH. It also means someone else has to go to DH. I don’t think Duran, Rafaela or Abreu will move there. This is why I don’t think they touch Anthony/Yoshida until there is a forceful reason to address it, such as an injury or bad performance or a trade.
Yoshida does have bad performance though, his offensive numbers are nowhere close to what a full-time DH should put up and his defensive issues have been known since he was in Japan.
Him and Story are dragging the roster down. The moves were bad when they were signed and somehow looks worse now.
Saw the WooSox at the end of their season last yesr and Anthony looked ready for the show.
If he has a decent ST, what does he have to gain by being in the minors? Nothing. If he’s in the majors and struggle, then you will know exactly what he needs to work on and he can do that in the minors. No big deal.
We’re coming off a year where tow top prospects (Merrill, Chourio) essentially skipped AAA and produced in the majors. That very well can be Anthony to start 2025.
Joemo — Definitely not a traditional DH, but a lot of teams aren’t using the DH traditionally for a slugger anymore. There has been a focus on getting rest days for guys. It remains to be seen whether this is how they’ll use it.
Anthony’s AAA was very good. Well above his AA performance. However this is slightly worrying. It was a smaller sample with a big BABIP (over .400). Against worn out starters who don’t have a detailed scouting report on him, there should be some worry on where the regression falls.
If he does have a good ST, what does he gain for being in the minors? Well, a good spring training doesn’t mean he succeeded against big leaguers going 100%. It’s usually mostly low leverage situations. Last year plenty of young guys did really well in ST and then struggle in the minors (think DeLauter, Spence Jones, etc). Succeeding in ST doesn’t mean there aren’t things to work on. Being ready for the bigs is a whole lot more than ST.
If the Red Sox staff thinks he’s ready, sure him breaking out could happen. I just don’t think the Red Sox are going to take that risk that the Padres and Brewers did because they don’t have to fill an OF spot. Padres and Brewers had a need to give it over to those guys early.
The Red Sox are currently carrying a full-time DH whose bat does not justify being a full-time DH. Yoshida clogging up a roster spot should not prevent Anthony from reaching the majors.
Find a way to free up that spot on the roster.
Anthony was mashing in AAA. If he isn’t overmatched in ST, he gains literally nothing by starting in AAA. It would just be more incompetence by the front office.
Roman Anthony has only played 35 games at AAA. I think he will likely be there another month or two at least.
Joemo — “If he isn’t overmatched in ST, he gains literally nothing by starting in AAA” is just not true.
There is far more to succeeding in the bigs than hitting well in ST.
You are 100% corrert, there is far more to succeeding in the bigs than hitting well in ST. But Anthony hit very well in AAA. If he shows he can hit in ST, what does he gain by starting in AAA? The most likely outcome is he mashes in AAA and his holes aren’t exposed until he gets called up later. So call him up early and expose those issues earlier.
Anthony really doesn’t have much to gain by being in AAA until we know what he needs to work on.
Excellent post – the team could even improve at this point if Story and Yoshida were removed from the picture, neither adds much. Certainly would improve if their salaries could somehow be invested in better players.
Joemo — If there wasn’t a logjam, I think being generous with his talent to make mistakes isn’t a terrible idea. It doesn’t always work out, think Jackson Holliday, but after adjustments it can be great (the other two Jacksons). I tend to think he gains playing time in AAA and I think the Red Sox gain from holding him back. I think the later of this plays a lot more into what actually happens. They can slow play this justifiably because he’s young and play the game that he has to play so well they have to play him. Because at the end of the day, a big league guy loses out when Anthony comes up.
Have you paid attention to how rookies have performed in recent years? Especially those with, what, 35 AAA games of experience?
Chicken In Philly? — Yes, some top prospects have had fairly strong success without needing a lot of time in AAA.
Julio Rodriguez did so. Carroll had a stunning rookie year. And Merrill and Chourio this year. These four are the most notable that skipped a lot of AAA.
I’ve counted at least four, there may have been others but I don’t recall. Witt played half year in AAA, and Rutschman got delayed for injury. Those four are really talented. They had quite the buzz.
Carroll debut was late ’22 and they traded Varsho and moved Marte to 2B to get him the spot. Padres needed a cost controlled OF after trading Soto moved Merrill up. Brewers needed a center instead of Wiemer and Frelick patchwork and moved Chourio up.
Roman Anthony is talented. I hesitate to put him on the same level as those guys. However, he’s so close and his future is bright enough that could make this silly to discuss.
Their teams had job openings and went with them. Roman Anthony doesn’t have this mandate from the Sox. I think a big reason why he doesn’t have this mandate is because Abreu and Duran proved they deserved to stick around.
A big difference from those successful guys for Anthony, which may trip him up, is he’s not a free-swinger. His Zone swing is under 60% (55.9%in AAA) league average is about 70%. Zone-swing% is about swinging at strikes. Anthony’s rate would be about the bottom of league. These are backwards SO with a walk to the dugout. Could be an area of struggle to find his way at the plate.
The bigger problem with being too patient is that the pitchers quickly get you in an unfavorable count, and nobody in the majors hits well with two strikes.
I expect Anthony will make the adjustments, but that is one of the many reasons why rookies NEED to make adjustments in the majors.
Well it’s hard to find someone with exactly 35 AAA games but:
2024: Chourio had 6 games of AAA experience and had a 3.8 bWAR season. Jackson Merrill had 0 games of AAA experience and had a 3.4 bWAR season. Paul Skenes (yes a pitcher, but still) had 7 starts or roughly 35 games (1 start every 5 games) of AAA experience. Austin Wells had 33 games of AAA experience and had a 2.5 bWAR season. All of these players were rookies in 2024.
But 2024 also had the cautionary take of Jackson Holliday who came up and looked over matched. After a minor league stint, he did look better.
In previous years, Gunnar Henderson only had 65 games of AAA experience. Rutchsman had 55 games at AAA.
I could keep going but that seems like enough.
Roman Anthony looks like the consensus number 1 prospect (baseball America, MLB pipeline) which I know Merrill/Chourio were not as Skenes held that title. This doesn’t guarantee success, just showing that across the industry people regard him as a very good prospect.
If he’s ready he’s ready. Unless he struggles in ST, he doesn’t have anything else to prove in AAA. If he isn’t struggling in ST, they should call him up and see how he does. If he is overmatched, like Jackson Holliday earlier this year, they will then know what to improve upon and can send him back down to work specifically on those things.
Saw him play in person at the end of the year and he looked ready. He had great command of the strike zone and had easy power to all fields. He played a smooth OF as well.
Yoshida’s contract is basically not movable right now; the best thing to do is keep him and hope he can recoup some value in a healthy year. And, even if he doesn’t on a rate basis, two years of a deal will be easier to move than three.
The easiest route from my perspective, other than waiting for injuries or under-performance to solve the logjam organically, is to move a guy like Abreu in a deal for a young, controllable catcher. Take Arizona as a trading partner, for example: their starting catcher Gabriel Moreno is a solid all-around 25 y/o RHH with 4 years of control and their #2 prospect (per Fangraphs) Adrian del Castillo is a 25 y/o 50 FV catcher who put up 0.7 fWAR in a 25 G cup of coffee last year (albeit with some luck in a small sample). If AZ believes in del Castillo they could promote him, trade Moreno, move Gurriel to DH, and add Abreu to the OF.
That would open up RF for Anthony, improve the lineup’s R/L balance by upgrading the RHH bat at C & moving a LHH platoon bat, solve the team’s shallow catching depth, and improve defense at C.
If they can get a decent return for another player then it makes sense to trade them. That would be a great trade, but I’m not sure AZ would do it. But hey, if so great.
This is all dependent on Anthony showing he’s ready.
And hey, there is always deals to be made. Worse contracts have been moved. But I’d even be on board for DFAing Yoshida if Anthony is ready and they can’t trade him. Don’t hold onto him just because. His roster spot (and Story’s) are more valuable than the production they bring with guys like Anthony, Campbell, and Mayer waiting for their shot.
I agree with the first part, but I think you’re underselling Yoshida a bit. He’s been battling injuries for large stretches of his Red Sox tenure and of course had to adjust to MLB, and he still has a career 112 wRC+. Steamer projects a 117 wRC+ for 2025, which I think is completely realistic. Only Devers and Casas have a better wRC+ projection for the Sox this year.
That’s a bat that is too good to DFA. He does have some value to the team; he’s just overpaid and a poor roster fit. If Anthony’s absolutely beating down the door and there’s no trade to be found, I still think the best fallback option would be to push Ceddanne to super utility until someone gets hurt, even though he really does belong in CF whenever possible.
A wrc+ of 117 would be a career high for Yoshida. His bat has value, but it’s not with the Sox as it’s a bad fit (as you mentioned).
So if his bat has value, it’s up to ownership to move him because other players (Campbell, Anthony) will bring much more value to the team than a soft hitting left handed DH only on a lineup full of lefties.
He’s a horrible fit on the roster and there are much better alternatives.
I mean, he had a 115 last year while playing through a bad shoulder the entire season.
I disagree that other players will bring more value to the team than Yoshida right now. If you dump him, you are eating $54 million. If you keep him and he actually has a healthy year, he can probably just about earn his paycheck and you can then probably move him without eating too much of his deal. Say a negative value of $15 million on the aggregate. That ~$40 million delta is close to what your typical 60 FV hitting prospect (e.g. Marcelo Mayer) is worth (Fangraphs says $46 million). Whichever guy you call up is not going to provide enough value to outweigh that, especially when you account for starting the service time clock early.
Campbell should already start the year on the team. As for Anthony, Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu would be the best defensive outfield in baseball, so DHing one of them to get Anthony (also a good defender) ABs would be an inefficient use of their skill sets.
It makes a lot more sense to either move an outfielder to get value at a position of greater need or to just live with a bit of a logjam until injuries sort it out than it does to DFA Yoshida.
I mentioned DFAing as a last resort. They should trade Yoshida. They shouldn’t attach a good prospect in order to dump his salary. They should eat some money and take minimal return. If Yoshida’s bat is as good as you think it is, it shouldn’t be that hard.
Most teams these days use the DH as a way to get players ABs while giving them a rest from the field. The whole point would be to rotate players through that spot, not just have one player move to a full-time DH.
Not many teams are jumping to trade for Yoshida, so it will be better to bite the bullet and trade him early before he has a chance to lower his value even more. There are reports that Seattle walked away from a potential Casas-Castillo trade when Yoshida was added.
The Red Sox don’t need a soft hitting left handed DH who can’t play the field. They need either a good LH hitter (this would be Anthony) or a good RHB (this could be Campbell).
Continuing to roster and play Yoshida is a classic sunk cost fallacy.
notstarboard: Agreed. You don’t DFA Yoshida at this point. He had the 7th highest OPS on the Red Sox last year. He was one of their better hitters.
Devers .871 OPS
O’Niell .847 OPS
Duran .834 OPS
Refsnyder .830 OPS
Casas .800 OPS
Abreu .781 OPS
Yoshida .765 OPS
A trade is not crazy, but if you’re not giving up prospects, you’re paying the majority of his contract for him to play somewhere else. Given that he’s been injured most of his time with the Sox, why not at least give him a few (finally healthy) months to show if he has another gear? We’ve certainly seen it in spurts. Teams are always looking for bats at the deadline too; if the kids are up and raking they can dump him then.
Yoshida’s low water mark for value is very likely to be right now; he would have to be remarkably bad in 2025 to drop value with 2 or 2+ years remaining compared to 3. So, there’s really no need to force a trade at the moment.
People make a big deal about Yoshida not hitting for enough power, but OBP is also a valuable skill. Last year there were only 47 qualified batters league-wide with better than Yoshida’s projected 117 wRC+. Anthony and Campbell both project to have worse bats than Yoshida this year. So, getting rid of Yoshida to DH one of the kids instead would just be wasting money and hurting depth in order to make the team worse. If they wanted to get better in 2025 by getting rid of Yoshida, they’d likely have to bring in someone from outside the organization. For example, they could sign Alonso to DH or sign Bregman to play 3B while DHing Devers. That is a plausible path, but it’s very “win now” because Bregman and Alonso are 30+ and will require probably 5-6 year deals with brutal back-ends to land. That makes little sense given the timing of the Sox core.
Something that would make a lot of sense is signing Vlad Jr., but that’s a task for next offseason. All the more reason to just roll with Yoshida for now.
For what it’s worth, I do really like the rotating DH approach unless you have an elite bat there. However, Yoshida is already on the roster, and there’s of course no incentive to play him in the field when he’s the worst defensive outfielder on the team. So, oh well, you live with a 1-2 WAR 117 wRC+ guy in your DH slot for a bit until you can plausibly upgrade. That’s really not the end of the world, especially with a roster this young.
You’re hung up on this projection of Yoshida.
Last season, ZIPS projected him at 119 OPS+ and reality was 112.
The kids won’t be able to be up and raking by the deadline because there’s roster spots wasted on Yoshida and Story, that’s the whole point. If there was extra roster spots to throw around, then this wouldn’t be an issue. But Yoshida has a very limited skill set, and his skill set isn’t that valuable to the Red Sox.
Yoshida is great at soft contact and was a GIDP machine his first season. He would be fine as a DH only if he had any pop in his bat.
Yes, getting on base is great. If Yoshida could play a lick of defense, he’d be perfectly fine. But he can’t.
Compare his production as a DH to others that played the position and it’s not good. fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?type=8&mon…
His bat is no where close to offsetting his lack of glove. Freeing the DH position from Yoshida is a great way to improve the roster for 2025.
Since OPS+ is a biased number lets take the second batting average out of the equation so you can actually measure the true value of his contribution with respect to average, walk rate and power.
Devers – AVG .272, Walk Rate .082 and ISO .244 = .598
O’Neill – AVG .241 Walk Rate .095 and ISO .270= .606
Duran – AVG 285 Walk Rate .057 and .ISO 207 = .549
Casas – AVG .241 Walk Rate .096 and ISO .221 = .558
Abreu – AVG .253 Walk Rate .069 and ISO .206 = 528
Rafaela – AVG .246 Walk Rate .028 and ISO .144 = .418
Yoshida – AVG .280 Walk Rate .069 and ISO .135 = .484
Refsnyder – AVG .283, Walk Rate .076 and ISO .188 = 547
Now measure productivity
Devers – R 87 RBI 83 HR 28 SB 3 = 201 so 1.46/G G = 138
O’Neill – R 74 RBI 61 HR 31 SB 4 = 170 so 1.50/G G = 113
Duran – R 111 RBI 75 HR 21 SB 34 = 241 so 1.51/G G = 160
Casas – R 28 RBI 32 HR 13 SB 0 = 71 so 1.13/G G = 63
Abreu – R 59 RBI 58 HR 15 SB 8 = 140 so 1.06/G G = 132
Rafaela – R 70 RBI 75 HR 15 SB 19 = 179 so 1.18/G G = 152
Yoshida – R 45 RBI 56 HR 10 SB 2 = 113 so 1.05/G G = 108
Refsnyder – R 32 RBI 40 HR 11 SB 2 = 85 so 0.91/G G = 93
Your evaluation of hitting is very limited because there are two ways a player contributes to winning. ONE – his performance stats with respect to him facing pitchers and TWO – His production stats showing how many ways he helped provide runs for winning. Some players have more success against pitchers but it’s not timely so their production is bad, others have relatively poor success compared versus pitchers but when they contribute they are clutch. Some guys are good at both and others are bad at both. Here are the key numbers for 2024 for most of the regulars: Please note that overall we had three standouts in Duran, O’Neill and Devers. O’Neill, however, lost 25% of his opportunities to provide the high production he managed due to injuries. Also, note that there were several players who batted too high in the order for their productivity. Abreu’s clutch factor is low along with Wong, Refsnyder and Yoshida. Rafaela had a very high clutch factor but his totals were suppressed by hitting last in the order. Maybe someone should take over setting the batting order for Cora, making the in game decisions and handling the pitching staff. He would look a lot better as a manager if his responsibilities were taken away from him so he could just talk to the media after the game!!!
Here are the two parts – Performance and Productivity
Duran – Vs Pitchers .549 Productivity 1.51 / Game 1st hitter
O’Neill – Vs Pitchers .606 Productivity 1.50 / Game 4th hitter
Devers – Vs Pitchers .598 Productivity 1.46 / Game 3rd hitter
Rafaela – Vs Pitchers .418 Productivity 1.18 / Game 9th hitter
Casas – Vs Pitchers .556 Productivity 1.13 / Game 5 hitter
Abreu – Vs Pitchers .526 Productivity .1.06 / Game 2 hitter
Yoshida – Vs Pitchers .484 Productivity 1.05 / Game 6 hitter
Refsnyder – Vs Pitchers .547 Productivity 0.91 / Game 8 hitter
All – I have nothing against Yoshida but the only way he should get a chance to play and the team benefits from it is if Devers is traded. If Devers play 3B the team is devastated. if he’s traded then Yoshida is the legitimate DH and I would bet his numbers would improve. He wouldn’t be a great DH but he could be adequate if the defense improved significantly by trading Devers for Arenado or for a top flight SP so they could sign Bregman or play Campbell there.
It’s important to realize where issues exist within this roster. Here are the issues that I see:
1. Devers playing defense = No winning until fixed
2 Cora as manager – Winning unlikely until fixed
3 Batting order fixed – many players are not clutch hitters and need to bat lower in the order so the more clutch hitters bat more in the middle of the order to increase run production
4 Starters need to pitch 6 innings and the number of starts need to be recalculated based on reasonable volumes of innings by pitcher. Houck, Crawford and Bello can go 200 innings if they can last that long in games. Buehler needs to throw around 150 innings so he gets around 25 starts. Crochet can pitch 200 innings if he doesn’t show any telltale signs of fatigue from throwing so many innings last year. Giolito will be lucky to get 25 starts. 20 seems more appropriate.
5 Bullpen needs a reliever who strands base runners and is used to bail out SPs when they get in trouble after the 3rd inning. Whitlock used to do that very well but Cora seems to reach in his hat and pick a number to decide who throws when the SP gets in trouble and he always does it too soon and picks the guy who allows the runs to score..
6 Campbell may be the best player on the team by 2026 so he should command a heart of the order spot and a critical defensive position like SS or 3B. Anthony should be shown comparable respect and start in right field. Mayer should spend at least another year in AAA and learn how to field and develop as a hitter. He needs to stay healthy too or his value will fall as it has already and eventually he’ll be a complete bust if he doesn’t turn things around. O’Neill’s value in 2024 was suppressed due to injuries and Mayer is heading in the same direction. Personally, I trade him before it becomes apparent to other teams and his value goes down to where it should be.
OBP times SLG is a more reasonable and accurate model of run scoring, but OBP plus SLG is easier to compute in your head. Your made-up number above doesn’t correlate well with anything and penalizes high-average hitters.
Productivity happens by the PA rather than by the game. As a platoon player, Abreu is often pulled or inserted mid-game, which biases that measure. Would be more reasonable to calculate productivity per 100 PA. Same goes for Refsnyder who is a much better hitter than your number suggests.
True or False: Getting rid of Yoshida without replacing his offensive production would hurt the Red Sox to some degree. Unless I am missing something, it looks true to me after looking at the numbers and seeing that Yoshida was one of the better hitters in the Red Sox last year and O’Niell’s offensive production has also not been replaced. Maybe Anthony, Campbell or someone else can step up offensively.
Getting rid of Yoshida REQUIRES another transaction. They aren’t going to go with a 25 man roster and stick a batting dummy at the plate, they’ll add somebody to the roster and apportion the PA among the rest on the team.
If you look at the Steamer projections, Yoshida projects to a .340 wOBA, but due to his poor baserunning it still comes to just +10 offensive runs above average per 600 PA. The Red Sox have nine hitters who project to produce at a positive rate: Devers, Casas, Campbell, Yoshida, Duran, Refsnyder, Abreu, Grissom, and Anthony. (Plus Wong, Story, and Rafaela who are not good hitters but play key defensive positions.)
With Yoshida, your lineup looks like Wong, Casas, Grissom, Story, Devers, Duran, Rafaela, Abreu/Refsnyder, Yoshida. In each case I went with the incumbent over the rookie alternative. No Campbell. No Anthony. It is possible that Campbell wins the 2B job over Grissom, but that is hardly a sure thing. Certainly easier for the team to give Grissom a solid chance to play well while Campbell cools his heels in the minors.
Dump Yoshida, and that brings either Campbell or Anthony onto the roster. Potentially both if Grissom flops or if there is an injury. And while there is no guarantee that Campbell or Anthony outhits Yoshida, they certainly have the potential to do so.
You can phrase that as a true or false question, but because the future is uncertain it really comes down to a matter of probability. There are scenarios in which Yoshida’s presence blocks Campbell and Anthony from the majors for half a year or longer. There are scenarios in which the two rookies make the roster out of spring training as others flop or are injured. I know that I *want* to see the kids get in a full season this year, and I believe that is key to their long term success, but I don’t *know* that it improves the 2025 team. It might or might not, depending on how other factors play out.
There is NO realistic scenario in which Story is a good hitter next year. He has hit just .232/296/.397 with the Red Sox, and at the age of 32 that’s more likely to fall further than it is to rebound. His bat speed has fallen off (comparable to Hamilton these days) and his weak contact rate has gotten worse. Nor does he have the speed these days to beat out ground balls.
They have more solid bats than they have places to play them. That’s why adding Bregman makes no sense unless Yoshida is dumped. The only below average bats in the lineup are Wong, Story, and Rafaela. All three are carried for their defense, not their bat.
If they add a bat without dumping Yoshida, then you can bury Campbell and Anthony now, because they’ll never see the light of day. That would be very upsetting to me.
I deleted my comment because I am not 100% sure they need to add a bat, but you were able to reply. I don’t have a great feeling about their offense, but I could be wrong. They haven’t replaced O’Neill’s production, but they have the potential to have a good offense.
I believe they have a bottom-ten offense, though hopefully this year they’ll at least field a league-average defense. Fenway will boost that a little, but their run scoring is still likely to end up in the #10-#15 range.
The problems with the offense:
(1) Wong had a flukish BABIP in the first half of the season last year, but his established rate of performance is pretty poor – maybe a .300 wOBA. He’s simply not a good hitter.
(2) I have no confidence that they will bring up Campbell and let him play. His projections are strong and his actual lines haven’t yet missed a beat. He has the potential to join Devers, Casas, and Duran as a premier offensive bat. But if he doesn’t get the chance to play then he won’t be able to contribute.
(3) Story’s offense has predictably collapsed with age. You still have to play him because of his contract (and because Mayer might not be any better yet), and his defense is still solid, but he is a black hole in a lineup that is already short on star talent.
Devers, Casas, Duran, and ???? We need Campbell and Anthony to establish themselves and extend that list.
Story’s offense has collapsed with injuries more than anything. Let’s wait for him to be healthy for more than a month at the end of the season before jumping to conclusions. For reasons for optimism see Sale, Chris.
Re: ????, Yoshida? The Abreu/Rob platoon? 2B should be much better this year even if Campbell takes a few months to get a promotion. Grissom still has a ceiling and a Hamilton/Romy platoon would likely give solid production. SS was Ceddanne last year who couldn’t hit *or* field there. Story should be able to improve on both sides of the ball vs. Ceddanne last year; it’s a low bar.
Pitchers and hitters age very differently. With hitters, when the bat speed goes the production drops off. With pitchers it is much more complicated, often involving health as much as velocity.
I hope you are right that Story will hit well, but I see him as a #8 hitter at best. Possibly the weakest hitting regular on the team, behind both Rafaela and Wong.
Wait – Interesting assumption.
lets break it down a bit so I can show you why I disagree with your suggested model.
OBP is actually Batting average PLUS walk rate
SLG is actually Batting average PLUS isolated power
Now lets multiply them:
(Batting Average times Batting Average + Batting Average times walk rate + Batting Average times Isolated Power)
That number is even more batting average biased than OPS.
Your comment that my “made up number”, which isn’t made up since it reflects the exact same things in OPS except it doesn’t double account for batting average so yes high average hitters don’t get double credit for that ONE aspect of their hitting contribution. You make that seem unfair that they don’t and I feel it’s unfair and biases the number by being double accounted since an at bat only gives you a chance to get a hit, walk or hit an extra base hit. Each should be weighted equally because they measure the positive outcomes from each plate appearance.
If you prefer to divide the Productivity by PA instead of Game I am all for it. I didn’t want to go into all the details my fantasy group has argued about since the 80s but PA may not be specific enough either. But for fun, lets see if it changes the rankings. (I really like the way you are thinking on this one!!)
So the new ranking is:
O’Neill – 170 so .359/PA with PA = 473
Devers – 201 so .334/PA with PA = 601
Duran – 241 so .323/PA with PA G = 745
Rafaela – 179 so .313/PA with PA = 571
Abreu – 140 so .313/PA with PA = 447
Casas – 71 so .292/PA with PA = 243
Refsnyder – 85 so .277/PA with PA = 307
Yoshida – 113 so .268/PA with PA = 421
Two things jump out from this more precise ranking:
1 – O’Neill was the most valuable player when he was healthy when it comes to producing runs that win the games.
2 – Rafaela matched Abreu’s productivity out of the 9th hole versus Abreu’s key slot in the order where more runs should have been produced. His spot in the batting order was completely inappropriate for his skill issue with hitting that led to his platooning.
What you might also find in you dig deep enough is that using Rafaela in the second spot in the order would have produced much more production because on the games Abreu didn’t play they needed to find someone who was more productive or as productive as Abreu to put in that slot and they didn’t use Rafaela who was the only guy who qualified. So the team was quite a bit worse off because the days Abreu wasn’t hitting two the production fell when it didn’t have to.
Someday you need to go into more detailed about your batting average biased squared formula and why it’s a good reflection of anything other than the best batting average players on the team. I’m not seeing the logic but I could be missing something. I’d like to hear more about it.
notstarboard. – So when you bash Rafaela’s defense as a 23 year old who had to play both CF and SS did you ever consider who plays next to him? Why focus on a kid being challenged more than one would expect to be going into the season when you have a butcher playing next to him that far exceeds him in bad play?
Rafaela’s fielding percentage was .968 with league average being .972. Guess how many times Devers has had a fielding percentage of .968 or HIGHER?
NEVER.
Devers career fielding percentage is .944 thanks to a lot of recent breaks from score keepers. League average is .961 which is 17 points higher after 8 seasons!!
Why does ANYONE take a shot at a great kid like Rafaela for being 4 points under league average for a partial season when he was supposed to be playing CF but backed up a constantly injured Story?
Just think if they gave Rafaela the job and told Story to back him up coming out of Spring Training so there would be room for Anthony in the outfield. No telling how much better he would be focusing on one position. He’s already light years ahead of Devers and if you look at what Mayer has done in the minors he’s closer to Devers than Rafaela.in fielding percentage at SS. So Rafaela is the best SS with a future in Boston unless you allow Campbell to play there. He’s by far the best SS but he played slightly more at 2B so they are trying to pigeon hole him at 2B rather than his rightful position at SS.
So take it easy on the young kid who was tremendous helps at age 23 in his first full year in the MLB. Story is past his prime and has no future with the team so why not pick between Campbell and Rafaela for the SS of the future since their defensive numbers are so far superior to Mayer?
Wait – Explain why Rafaela hit close to .300 all through the minors while batting in the middle of the order as the minor league teams best hitter and now he’s a horrible hitter?
Did you know he hit over .400 for several weeks when he first came up in 2023 while batting first? The 9 spot thing is a huge issue for a guy who has always been the star on the team. He has to adjust but that many years of being the star wasn’t a fluke. It’s a Coraism. Cora screws with non Dominican players all the time. Duran was fortunate and overcame it. I expect Rafaela to do the same.
Few players, especially younger ones, seem to adjust well to being bounced around from one position to another. I agree that was not affective with Rafaela. He needs to settle into a rhythm. Agree 100% that they need to figure out how to unload Yoshida’s contract as either a salary dump with a prospect attached or a trade for another bad contract that fits better with the Sox needs.
He only struck out 151 times.
I’m so happy to read this. I dislike Cora’s deployment of “multi-positional roles” for players.
The kid has great baseball instincts and a huge amount of natural ability. But, at 24yo, i’d rather him learn to perfect his trade at any one position, rather than be a jack of all trades, master of none. Plus, imho, the continuity makes it easier to endure the offensive ups and downs rather than worrying about both (potential) offensive struggles and also worrying about “what position am i playing today?”
From left to right Duran, Rafaele and Abreu (Anthony) would be a very good defensive outfield. Moreover, it takes the pressure off Anthony to be mlb ready on April 1st. If he needs more development, or if the Sox want to manipulate his service time, he can stay down for some extra seasoning.
In terms of the depth, I dont believe that Refsynder should play as much as he did last year, and can be a right side DH platoon, or only in the field vs a strong LHP.
I think the Sox are (hopefully) furiously trying to unload Yoshida’s contract and he may not be on the roster opening day.
Finally, I dont care who the second baseman is, whether that may be Campbell, Bregman (doubtful) or Grissom (please, no) but I need them to play 140 competent games there. I cant watch ELEVEN players (including Conner Wong) at 2B again, it makes me nuts.
Jackie Bradley III.
Which is not a bad thing at all, especially for $6.2mm/year.
With more pop and less of an arm. Can certainly cover ground like JBJ, though. Really he just needs to slow the game down for himself. Control the strike zone a bit better & get better reads on the base paths. He could easily be a .275/25hr guy. If he can learn to take the occasional walk, he’ll be a truly valuable player.
Not likely. Low walk guys don’t usually make big OBP turnarounds unless it’s with BABIP. It’s because of his approach and swing tendencies. Those are innate to him, he can’t shake those. It could get closer to 5% walk rate but it is very unlikely he gets it close to the leagues average during his career.
His home run like probably peak at 25 once like JBJ and hang around mid-teens.
Cleveland – OBP is a function of where you bat. He was third most productive on the team out of the nine hole. Let Abreu hit 9 and Rafaela hit 2 and you’ll see a guy far more comfortable with his role since he was the star of the team at every level of the minors.
Sagacity — horses go in front of the carriage. They don’t push from the back, they pull.
OBP is built by a player not given by a spot in order.
The best hitters earn those spots in the lineup because they can get on base better, whether through quality of contact or taking walks.
Those hitters aren’t good at both crushing hits and drawing walks get dropped for most teams down the lineup. Rafaela can crush hit now and then but boy can’t he take a walk. It is because he swings 61.5% of the time, second highest in the league. He’s bound to the bottom half of the card. He’s got his mold and he’ll need a miracle to break it. No doubting there will be a couple solid seasons, but he’s no star.
Cleveland – So explain how a guy who out performed Abreu all through the minors goes to a team with a Dominican biased manager and puts the Dominican player in the 2 hole and pushes the star player to the 9 hole after watching the same kid the year before hit over .400 out of the 1 hole?
Your assumptions on a 23 year old kid who thrived at every level of the minors and then got crapped on and shoved in it by his manager is that he’s suddenly no good? Wow. How open minded of you. Way to dig into why a player who has been a star got shoved in a crap spot in the batting order then asked to play two positions might struggle a bit because he’s so young.
You’ve pigeon holed an outstanding player who has always been better than Abreu as if he’s a slug because he’s an aggressive hitter. Who gets pitches to hit in the 9 hole? Switch them and you’ll see the Eddie Murphy movie “Trading Places” and the impact of how you treat individuals and how they respond to the negativity.
You clearly like Rafaela and good for you. But I’m not disillusioned about what he is. I’m not caught and hung up. What Rafaela has shown in the indicators, his success is not inherent, suggesting he overachieved the expected production. Why? Well, first his power is league average. Minor league from ’23 also had league average. Pretty good for his frame. His best bet to improve his power is to maximize his fly ball pull rate. This’ll be possible but will need a lot of experience or talent to get to this consistently, similar to how Betts reaches his power. Not many can do this. Second, which makes him far off from Betts is his contact rates. He swings and misses far too often. He has a high-zone swing rate but has a low zone-contact rate. This amounts to well-below average contact rates. This is an area he must fix, a prerequisite to remain on the roster. He needs to find at least 6% more but ideally get to 78%. Without this he’ll be relying too much on luck.
But the biggest hurdle to being a top half is his inability to draw walks. Being in the 2-spot means you need to get on base, so the 3 and 4 guys can drive them home. Rafaela’s hyper-aggressive plate approach doesn’t draw walks. This type of hitter can’t improve those rates. It’d require a completely new identity, so there the juror is out on this one. With all of these considerations, any of these qualify most hitters to the back half, but he has all of them.
He needs to address all of these to be qualified to be what you’re imagining. It’s possible but it’s like winning a lotto tickey.
This is very different than how Abreu profiles. Abreu has shown the patience to draw high walk rates so there is room as he matures for it to jump up. With his promising contact power, this combination is often used in the upper half of the batting order. I think it may’ve been early to put him into such a position, but it highlights how they view his upside. My doubts on Abreu are because his presence only works against RHP, but Devers struggled early in his career against LHP, too. Another concern is the strikeout rate. However, there is a track record to lower it down to 25%.
Feel free to disagree but no one says you have to face the Red Sox’s truth and like it.
I feel strongly that he can get there. Young still. Had a very good season to build off of. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Takes time, reps, and good coaching. Cedanne can get there. He is a hell of a player.
bcjd – JBJ never was one of the top run producers on the team like Rafaela. Move him out of the 9 hole like when he was the star on every minor league team he played on and you’ll see better at bats since the pitchers will have to pitch to him. JBJ was one dimensional like Devers, Rafaela is far from one dimensional given a fair chance to hit with the players with comparable hitting skills to him. Bat Devers 9th and see how long it takes for him to start swinging at all kinds of crap.
Casas. Abreu and Mike Romero to the Blue Jays for Vladdy Guerero Jr. with a 48 hour Window to sign him to a long term contract…. Trade is contingent on Him signing, otherwise the deal is voided.
Interesting deal, I could see how that might work for both sides.
Holy overpay, unless Vlad is going to agree to a below market extension, which he has little incentive to do. Otherwise you can keep Casas and Abreu and pursue him in free agency next winter.
Guerrero isn’t signing an extension unless it is an overpay.
Cooper – As much as every Boston fan would love this trade suggestion lets be honest, nobody but Bloom would do such a team deprecating trade for Toronto. The talent coming to Boston is what about 10 times as much? You give them a platoon outfielder, a tier 2 1B and a slug for a Tier 1 firstbaseman that is incredibly young still? As far as I know Guerrero is not from the Dominican Republic so there is no way they can extend him. That’s saved for DR players only. Devers, Bello and Soto? Nope can’t get the extension so can’t do the deal.
I mean, they’ll let him come inside at night, right?
Until Story gets injured in April. Then Rafaela will be back at SS.
This really is a non-story, no pun intended. If Story is healthy he is going to play SS. If Story gets injured or is so bad they sit him or cut him I can see them bringing up Marcelo Mayer. Unless Mayer completely falls on his face I can see him being in the SS mix as early as the break.
Kristian Campbell is another wild card. If they feel he can play 2B/SS he could be the next guy up at SS or Story is down and Mayer isn’t ready.
The Red Sox have REAL options beyond Story, Hamilton and Rafaela.
I would not be surprised if by July 1st the middle infield is Mayer at SS with Campbell or Hamilton at 2B. Something tells me Grissom and Story will both be injured or not hitting enough to keep them in starting roles.
Hi Goose, you’re right in that its really a non-story. However, if you’ve watched the Sox these last few seasons with Cora moving everyone around each day, stunting the development of young players and wrecking the overall defense of an already poor defensive team, then you get why Sox fans like this.
There is no reason to expect Story and Grissom to be injured this year. This is recency bias. A lot of their offensive struggles are attributable to their injuries as well.
I think positional stability could go a long way to helping Rafaela’s offense. Playing multiple positions is hard, playing them as a rookie at the MLB level is harder and can have adverse effects offensively
Rsox – Think about the fact that he was 23 and had always been the best player on his team while coming up through the farm system. He batted in the heart of the order and Cora teased him with that chance in 2023 when he came up late in the year. Accepting his role as the crap hitter on the team batting 9th had to be a hard pill to swallow because he’s better than more than half of the guys batting above him. Not getting anything to hit because he’s hitting 9th took it’s toll on him and he desperately wanted to win back the respect he had when he was in the minors. He pressed and his need to produce grew which forced his strike zone to grow.
Cora treated him like Duran when he first came up and he failed too. After being sent down, Duran bounced back and has become an all-star. Rafaela was a future all-star until he started playing for Cora. He needs to either move to a team where he can get his respect back or do what Duran and Mookie did and tell the organization to f off and go out and produce numbers that force them into respecting him. I hope that’s what happens. If it is, I’m sure he’ll take great satisfaction in knowing he overcame the front office bias and I wonder if he’ll carry those hard feelings forward like Mookie did and Duran might do. First we need him to adjust to the way he’s being treated and ignore the negativity provided by the front office and manager.
Saga that’s not exactly the true story of Cedanne Rafaela. Rafaela was signed as an international free agent for 10k bonus he wasn’t really a high profile international free agent. Until 2021 he was mostly looked at as a light hitting infield utility guy he almost always hit at the bottom of the lineup and he certainly wasn’t anywhere near the best hitter on the team. In fact he wasn’t really looked at much more than wild swinging little infield utility guy before 2021.
This all changed in 2021 when they played him in outfield and he was a natural his instincts his speed his knack to go get the ball he was outstanding. He still didn’t really hit but he raised his prospect status in 2021 due to his outstanding outfield defense. It wasn’t until 2022 his age 21 season that he really took off offensively. He still had that wild swinging but he managed to make contact against the inferior arms of High A but now he was on the radar as a potential sleeper prospect. He was promoted to AA later in that season. He really took off in 2023 and became a high end prospect especially after he got out of the difficult hitting environment in Portland and into AAA Worcester where he tore the cover off the ball. Even in AAA his chase rate was extremely high and there was always concern that he would struggle with big league pitching and the jury is still out on that one.
I’m no huge fan of Cora he can’t handle a bullpen don’t think he’s a good game manager but blaming Cora for Rafaela is a weak argument. Rafaela played a ton as a rookie and he showed his versatility defensively his floor is quite high because of that defensive utility however he was truly awful to end the season offensively and that’s not up for debate. In the minors he rarely hit in the middle of the lineup maybe in 2022 and 2023 before that he was a bottom of the order light hitting utility type a non prospect. He’s not a leadoff hitter because his obp doesn’t warrant a leadoff hitter. Roman Anthony is an excellent leadoff hitter because the guy gets on base Rafaela is not. In the big leagues he’s probably going to be a bottom third of the order outstanding defensive outfielder if he hits .250/.300/.450 that’s a good outcome and coupled with his defense is a Kevin Kiermair profile. That would be a great outcome for Rafaela.
In 2021 the Red Sox played Rafaela in CF because he was behind Lugo on the depth chart at SS and they had no one else to play in CF. It was necessity.
He played poorly in Cf that 1st year, but his bat began to wake up and he hit 10 HR and had an above league average OPS.
The next season was much the same as he was behind not only Lugo, but also Mayer on the depth chart at SS in Greenville. He hit exceptionally well and was moved up to AA where he was behind Hamilton and Koss on the depth chart at SS. In 2022 he started to get good jumps on the ball and run good routes in the OF. He let his speed guide him and played well, but it was still his bat that led the way hitting .299 with an .880 OPS with 21 HR between A= and AA ball.
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I’m just curious but did you watch Rafaela when played center in High A in 2021 he was good right away he just had a knack to run down the ball. The point I was making he wasn’t hitting in the middle of any order until maybe 2022. He just wasn’t a high end prospect he was a utility guy playing multiple infield positions until they tried him in Center.
Yes, I did. My sister in law works at the Salem VA and her husband owns a brew pub in Roanoke. They have season tickets and any time we go to visit, we go to games.
That is why I said he was not very good defensively that first year. He got bad jumps and took bad routes. He got to some balls he probably shouldn’t because of his speed and made plays he blew look good by laying out.
His defense at SS is a 60-70. Plus to plus, plus. but it has been his bat that carried him through the minors.
Nice I watched him too but it was on TV via Milb channel so a different perspective and I will say yours is better he looked better on TV but you could always see the incredible body control. He’s really good defensively now potential difference maker if he can adjust to big league pitching.
Bruin1012 – Please stop with the made up crap about Rafaela.
You false facts just infuriate me. Call it lying, call it exaggerating, call it making crap up, it’s all the same thing. This is my issue with you and always has been.
FACTS versus what you wrote:
OF/IF Ceddanne Rafaela was signed by the Boston Red Sox out of Curaçao as an international amateur free agent on July 2, 2017. He had played in the 2012 Little League World Series for the team representing his hometown of Willemstad. He began his professional career in 2018 with the DSL Red Sox 1, batting .271 in 54 games and being named to the Dominican Summer League’s mid-season All-Star team. In 2019, he moved over to the U.S., playing for both the GCL Red Sox and the Lowell Spinners of the New York-Penn League, hitting .244/.319/.409 in 44 games. During those first two seasons, he was exclusively an infielder, playing second base, shortstop and third base, but he would later be moved to center field as his primary position.
After sitting out the 2020 season when the minor leagues were shut down by the Coronavirus pandemic, he resumed his career in 2021 with the Salem Red Sox of the Low-A East, where his slash line was .251/.305/.424 in 102 games, with 20 doubles, 9 triples and 10 homers. he also showed good speed by scoring 73 runs and being successful on 23 of 26 stolen base attempts. In 2022, he was named the Red Sox’s Minor League Player of the year for a season that started with the Greenville Drive of the South Atlantic League and finished with the Portland Sea Dogs of the Eastern League.
In between, he appeared in the 2022 Futures Game and in 116 games, he batted .299/.342/.539, adding a solid batting average to his already-demonstrated power and speed. He scored 82 runs, drove in 86, hit 32 doubles, 10 triples and 21 RBIs, and stole another 28 bases. Only relatively low walk rate (28 against 113 Ks) was a negative. Following the season, he played against much older competition in the Puerto Rican League, appearing in 19 games for the Criollos de Caguas.
On May 13, 2023 he made national news by stealing six bases in a game for Portland in a 6-2 loss to the Somerset Patriots. He had originally been credited with 7 stolen bases, but the official scorer changed the ruling on his 9th-inning swipe of third base to defensive indifference, given the game was well out of reach by then; he said after the game that he would have wanted to steal home as well, but that manager Chad Epperson wouldn’t let him. To put this into perspective, only four major leaguers have stolen that many bases in a game since 1900, with Eddie Collins doing it twice, and the Portland team record for steals in a game was also six (there were three other stolen bases on the night, to increase the mark to 9). His night’s work gave him 16 steals through 27 games. Those were the most stolen bases in a minor league game since Rickey Henderson had swiped seven for the Modesto A’s in 1977. He was called up to Boston on August 28th. In the interim, he had been promoted to the AAA Worcester Red Sox and was batting .302 with 79 RBIs, 20 homers and 36 steals in 108 games between the two stops. He made his debut on the day of his call-up, being inserted as a defensive replacement in center field in a 13-5 loss to the Houston Astros. He singled off Jose Urquidy in his first big league at-bat. He hit his first career homer on August 12th, a long shot to left field at Fenway Park that easily cleared the Green Monster as he led off the second game of a doubleheader against Carlos Rodón of the New York Yankees.
This is straight out of Baseball Reference. Does it sound at all like the guy you described? NOPE because you tainted it with BS as always. Why can’t you just once try to be impartial? WOW.
So for those that read the long inaccurate summary of Rafaela, here is the DOCUMENTED success of the player being crapped on by Cora. It’s tall tales like that by Bruin1012 that besmirch the reputation of an outstanding player.
All I ask for is fair and unbiased OPINIONS on your part. Black balling a guy is not cool.
Nothing I said was lies he was signed for a 10k bonus. He wasn’t even a top 30 prospect in the Red Sox system until into the 2021 season and he wasn’t that good offensively until 2022 season when he really broke out when he found his position center field and put his face on the map. It was the 2022 season and 2023 season that changed everything for Rafaela. He was absolutely considered a utility type player before his bat took off.
Everything I say about him right now is true as well just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it so. He was one of the worse offensive players in baseball in the last month and a half it’s not even debatable. The dude didn’t walk once in that time, his quality of contact plummeted, and his k rate spiked over 30%. I know you think chasing is no big deal but it’s a real big deal when you do it more than anyone in baseball.
I simply told you the truth if you look at games started before they found a true home he started everywhere on the infield a utility guy. He just didn’t hit until 2022 not really and that’s when he took off. It’s just the way it is he knocked around a lot. I’m not arguing about his 2022 and 2023 seasons I’m saying before that he wasn’t considered anything more than a light hitting glove first utility prospect. You said nothing about his pre 2021 season because you know I’m right. Reading comprehension is important KD.
Pads by the way my memory was that Mayer and Rafaela never played on the same team. A quick check shows that they did not. In 2021 Mayer played in the complex maybe the had some very short time they were on Greenville together but I don’t think so. Rafaela was already promoted at the time that Mayer came to Greenville.
This is a big season for Rafaela he has to stop chasing he’s not going to survive as anything more than a defensive 4th outfielder. Big league pitchers just didn’t throw him strikes for the last month and a half and yes he can hammer mistake pitches but pitchers figured out they pitch a foot off the plate and this guy would. He chased at higher rate than anyone in baseball last by a long way. He is going to have to adjust because I don’t see big league pitchers coming close to throwing him strikes until he takes a walk. The dude didn’t walk one time in the last month and a half you can’t survive that way offensively.
This is 100% accurate. If he can put up the numbers he did while having such a bad chase rate, imagine what his offensive profile could be if pitchers have to throw him strikes. He seems like a smart kid with a drive to succeed. I imagine his whole winter training is focused on this.
Yea Junkwax I’m just concerned he was truly awful in the last month and a half of the season. He was chasing sliders that were missing by a foot and half off the plate. I hope he makes the adjustments but I guarantee you big league pitchers will start by throwing him pitches far off the plate and make him walk. My guess is he looks good in spring training where pitchers are just trying to get their mechanics down but once the season starts they aren’t going to throw a strike to this guy and why would you.
The heavy heavy bias against Rafaela is obvious. He out produced your man Abreu and he did it from the 9th spot in the order where pitchers didn’t have to throw strikes to him and he didn’t want to take walks because he had been a huge run producer at every level of the minors.
You have absolutely no comprehension of what this 23 year old kid had to deal with. A complete lack of respect by the front office and manager. Playing behind lesser players like Abreu who never was as good as him in the minors but because he’s not from the Dominican Republic he’s treated like a second class citizen.
You completely miss the human side of the game. He hit in the heart of the order and got relegated to the 9th hole where the worst hitter bats after being the star on every team he played for. He needs a very strong mentor to deal with the crap that has been shovel on him by Cora, the front office and clowns like you and Fever Pitch Guy.
Wake up and show some humanity.
I like Rafaela always have when most people didn’t even know he existed. I think he will adjust but it doesn’t change the fact that big league pitchers know he will chase incessantly. Do I think he will adjust I do I think he will be better then he was at the end of the season. This doesn’t change the fact that for the last month and a half of the season he was one of the worst hitters in baseball. He didn’t walk once in that time. If he doesn’t stop chasing he will become a 4th outfielder and defensive utility replacement. I think and hope he will adjust but big league pitchers know definitively about this guy now he must adjust or else.
Another issue is Wilyer Abreu wasn’t much better in the last month and a half as well. He of course walked more but he seemed to abandon that plate discipline he had in the minors with some wild swings and chases as well. The Roman Era is coming soon though.
Bruin1012 – Abreu did this in the 2 hole where he had Devers behind him and Duran ahead of him. He should have had huge numbers but he didn’t hit when they did. His chase rate might have come from his lack of productivity. Maybe he was trying harder when runners were on base because he couldn’t seem to align his hot streaks with Duran or Devers.
You can’t just tell a hitter not to chase. The only way for him to cut down on the strikeouts is to shorten his swing but that will cut down on his power as well. Just like Jackie Bradley I don’t see him willing to do it.
rmullig2 – He is a good bad ball hitter as he proved that at all levels of the minor leagues. The difference was on those teams he was respected and batting in the heart of the order. Cora showed him absolutely no respect respect because of his Dominican bias. He loved Abreu not Rafaela yet Rafaela was the top player from each of his minor league teams.
He will always chase to some degree because it’s a lifelong habit that he’s been successful at but if he bats in the middle of the order like he did in the minors pitchers can’t pitch around him. They have Devers and Duran to contend with not Hamilton and Refsnyder. The amount of chase is directly related to the pitchers need to throw strikes and at the 9 spot there is absolutely no need to throw the hitter good pitches. In the two hole, a walk leads to Devers and a ball on the first pitch leads to Duran stealing a base.
You know he hit .312 in AAA and .294 in AA during 2023. He produced the 3rd most R and RBIs out of the 9th hole. What if he hit 2 and Abreu hit 9th. You think it might have an impact on both players like in the movie Trading Places?
I could see Krall being stupid enough to do a Casas/Rafaela/Yoshida for Elly deal. Especially if Boston throws in their most mediocre starting pitcher. Sox should give him a call.
There is no way some other team wouldn’t blow that offer out of the water if Elly was dangled.
The Red Sox could put together a great trade package for Elly but it wouldn’t be with that lot.
You’re wasting quality dream time if you think the Reds will deal Elly De La Cruz. Speer? possibly. McLain, sure. But no way can you dump Yoshida into a discussion and think you’re getting a MLB cornerstone.
Nice problems to have. Love how to had come together and whomever wants Casas to be traded needs to see a neurologist
Did they really commit $50m and 8 years to Rafaela just to turn him into a backup? I don’t see how his struggles on offence — which still don’t take into account his surprising success rate with runners in scoring position, delivering 75 RBI & lead-off speed despite hitting eighth and ninth all year — will result in him losing time over Grissom/Story/Abreu ? There’s someway to get him in as a regular, because his bat has a lot of potential, Mookie-esque potential IMO. Story is one grounder away from the DL, Abreu or Duran are pieces worth pitching when it comes to SP trade proposals, and Anthony is still just a MILB star.
Battling for 5th in the division again
A rightnhanded bat and maybe some catching depth and they are ready for spring training. Obviously a lot riding on the health and stamina of Crochet and Buehler but even if they are average, they pick up 10W’s and get the Sox to 90 wins. Don’t know if that will be enough, but a very solid offseason for Breslow IMO.
make a plan and god laughs. red sox sign yoshida and extend rafaela just to have durran and abreu exceed all expectations. they’d be crazy not to clear space for anthony. abreu would be my guess to get moved but who knows may depend on how they internally project duran. question for red sox fans: is mayer an option for 2025? does he project to stick as shortstop? could he or story move to 2B if need be? very intriguing season in boston with a wide range of outcomes depending on rotation health/performance. could see them winning the division by 8 games or missing the playoffs
Duran – 8.7 WAR
Abreu – 3.4 WAR
Not difficult to see who the Red Sox will keep if one is being traded.
If you’ve watched either play, you know one is on the rise while the other is sure to decline. Keeping Abreu over Duran makes the most sense.
Why is Duran to decline? Could you thresh out this opinion that he’s sure to decline?
Abreu is a platoon player that can’t hit LHP and Duran led baseball in XBH and is 27 so not going to start declining for the rest of his team control at a minimum. .
junkwax – Abreu sucks in comparison to Duran. He’s got the yips playing defense. He sidesaddles balls against the fence in fear of getting hurt. He’s the worst defensive outfielder on the team by far. He can’t hit righties.
Do you even watch Red Sox games?
If Abreu wasn’t Dominican he wouldn’t be in the majors.
depends on the return. duran is the one who could bring back a top-of-the-rotation arm
That is true. You get more value from moving Duran, but also lose an important cog in the lineup and clubhouse. Is Duran a part of the next great Sox team? A lot to weigh out.
Moving Abreu – what is the market for a platoon OF? Bullpen Arm? Depth SP?
yeah i don’t think duran is going anywhere but everything i’ve read says anthony could be an immediate impact player so something has to give. could see a late trade of abreu if spring training injuries create a need for another team. maybe a young catcher to replace teel (although i think narvaez could surprise)? if i were the red sox i think i would prioritize an impact reliever. imho the worst mistake they could make is assuming a future multi-year window and playing it safe. they have buehler for 1 year (unless he stinks) and crochet is a total wild card. if both of them click the team should go all in and the bullpen would be the remaining achilles heel
Abreu isn’t your average “platoon OF”. He was a ~3 WAR guy. A player with 5 years of team control, ~110 wRC+ (114 last year, 108 Steamer projection), and gold glove defense in RF has a good amount of value. Of course, his wRC+ is of course somewhat inflated somewhat by mostly playing against RHP, but he’s also likely to improve a bit over time given his age.
Overall he’s quite a bit more valuable than a bullpen arm or Depth SP, Baseball Trade Values has *very* rough estimates in my experience, but they rate 5 years of Abreu as having about as much surplus value as 1 year of Dylan Cease, 3 years of Brent Rooker, 4 years of Triston Casas, or 4 years of Kutter Crawford. I’m a little lower on him than that, but I don’t think this is ridiculous either.
Remember, while he’s basically a platoon OF, he plays the strong side of the platoon. If I recall correctly, a bit under 3/4 of innings league-wide are thrown by RHP. That means he could still get close to 500 PA while only starting against RHP, and he’s shown he can really produce in that role.
I agree that I’d like to see them get a reliever, but they should probably just sign one. Chris Martin would sign a one-year deal and apparently has interest in coming back. Guys like Yates and Robertson would probably also sign one-year deals.
I would prefer to pick up an upgrade at catcher if they move Abreu. With that said, if they move Abreu for Helsley + prospects, say, I could dig that. That would give them a monster closer for ’25 and convert some value back into prospects while clearing the logjam.
don’t know the cardinal roster and whether abreu fills a need but helsey is a great target
Salotelli9 = Great points.
1 – Duran is the all-star
2 – Duran is the missing lead off man since Mookie
3 – Duran is the far superior fielder
4 – Duran is the great clubhouse guy
5 – Duran dealt with Cora adversity early in his career and like Mookie over came it.
6 – Abreu is a league average player and Duran is an all-star
7 – Abreu isn’t in the majors if he’s not Dominican since Cora is incredibly biased as is the front office.
8 – Abreu was about as unproductive as you can be batting between Duran and Devers.
9 – Abreu is a prototypical 6 or 7 hitter batting in the 2 hole.
Abreu’s ceiling is so low, your point about what you can get for him is so true. Not much. Might as well do it now because his value will drop going forward.
Duran is just starting his ascent so trading him now is giving away his best years like we did with Mookie.
dasit – You do know Campbell won Minor League Player of the Year OVER Anthony? The prospect rating should be Campbell 1, Anthony 2, Teel in Chicago 3, Meidroth in Chicago 4, Montgomery in Chicago 5 and Arias 6.
Think about the fact that Anthony is the logical Right Fielder going forward while Campbell has the skills to be the future SS or future 3B while batting in the 2 hole behind Duran and infront of Devers and Anthony and Casas.
The catcher suggestion by you is smart. We blew it trading Teel not Mayer.
notstarboard – Sorry but your version of Abreu is fiction.
The guy batted 2nd and should have had a WAR at least 2 points higher batting between Duran and Devers. He has no clutch gene and is a prototypical 6 or 7 hitter.
His 7 errors in the outfield places him dead last in defensive skills in the outfield. He can’t hit lefties. Most importantly with respect to Abreu, most teams don’t have the Domican Republic bias that Boston has so they won’t play favorites with him they will evaluate him fairly and he’s not even close in skills to Rafaela but you would never know that Rafaela completely out performed him in the minors and drew the 9 hole while Abreu batted 2nd. What horse crap. Abreu’s value anywhere else would be half that of the front office and Cora’s opinion.
meyer looks like a starter but anthony and campbell look like perennial all-stars. the red sox are going to be fun to watch and no fun to play against
Abreu hit .180 with a 51 OPS+ against LHP. Its why he didn’t start or was taken out of games against tough lefties. He did play exceptional defense in RF. He is a platoon bat and defensive replacement.
If you visit BTV at all, you need to have your head examined. They said that Trent Grisham had more surplus value than Aaron Judge prior to the trade that sent Soto to the Yankees.
Updated prospect ratings are coming out soon for MLB Pipeline and you can already see some on Baseball America.
Samuel, if you are using errors to try to describe defensive performance, you are absolutely going to miss the mark.
Abreu was a 17 DRS and 90th percentile in Fielding Run Value (FRV) and Range (OAA). He is an exceptionally good defensive RF.
He was worth 3.1 fWAR last year, fourth on the team behind Duran, Devers, and Houck.
Very few players consistently replicate clutch numbers over a large sample; when talking about a rookie-sized track record there is no “clutch gene”, only small sample sizes. And in that small sample he wasn’t that bad either.
Errors are a small piece of the puzzle when evaluating OF defense. He put up +17 DRS and +7 OAA and was well deserving of the gold glove he won.
Rafaela hit in the 9 hole because he had a wRC+ in the 70s last year. Abreu’s was 114. Rafaela can slide up in the order when he figures out how to hit at the major league level.
Abreu is from Venezuela and Rafaela is from Curacao -_-
He’s not likely to be good against LHP, but he also only had 67 PA. He didn’t have too much of a chance. If he could merely be below average against LHP instead of unplayable that would already be a huge boost to his profile. I think the jury’s out on that.
Aaron Judge was coming off a 4.7 WAR age 31 season with more nagging injuries. It’s not shocking that a projection system would be wary of 8/320 for his age 32-39 seasons. 11.2 WAR this year in his age 32 season was all-time levels of ridiculous. Of course with hindsight his valuation looks ridiculous but it wasn’t as ridiculous at the time.
BTV is more for fun than anything scientific. It allows you to throw out comparisons for evaluation. In the case of Abreu I don’t think any of those players with comparable value are ridiculous even if Abreu is only ever a platoon bat. 3.1 fWAR over 447 PA as a rookie is pretty excellent. There’s plenty of value in 5 cheap years of a guy like that.
dasit – Just curious what makes Mayer a starter. His fielding is nearly as bad as Devers and he has been in the system for years and finally had a decent season in 2024 but again got hurt. How does that qualify him as a starter. Since Campbell plays SS too, it sure seems logical to play the best guy at SS not the most popular.
If they move Devers to DH the Red Sox will be a lot of fun to watch with Campbell, Anthony, Duran, Rafaela, Casas and Grissom. Lots of youth in the field and two new SPs that need to hold up the top of the rotation so Houck, Crawford and Bello can continue to develop.
Pads – WITH THE YIPS and 7 errors the most of all the outfielders. Kinda hard to take all the fabricated estimates over the facts, isn’t it?
notstarboard – Isn’t he from Houston where Cora was bench coach?
Cora was a coach with Houston for just one year, 2017. Abreu wasn’t even in a stateside league at the time.
Cora did a good job of batting Rafaela in a spot where he was constantly coming up with men on base, almost as many baserunners as Devers saw batting cleanup!
Was watching some Campbell highlights the other day. He looks a lot like Xander when swings. Really handsy, quick on inside pitches. It’s uncanny how similar the swings are.
Truly a meteoric breakout from Campbell. Red Sox have something brewing in the farm system. Has positional flexibility too.
red sox have a good history with toolsy players from tennessee
I will just say it up front, no they won’t. Story will be hurt by May at the latest and Rafaela will be back at shortstop unless the Red Sox punt on the season and call up prospects. .
I would argue that running out Story every day is punting on the season. Running out the prospects is showing they’re looking to deliver on a promise they’ve been making since they traded Mookie.
Ahhhh, no.
ahhhh yes
Not clear that Mayer is any better than Story — but if Story is as bad as you expect, I imagine they’ll give Mayer a try.
Wait – God lets hope not!! Campbell is the answer to all infield questions!!!
1 – Who should play 3B instead of Devers?
2 – Who should play SS instead of Story?
3 – Who should play 2B instead of Grissom?
Minor League Player of the Year is a very, very big deal. Usually it goes to the top prospect in baseball. Look at the history of the players going back to Mike Trout.
I could live with Campbell at 3B or SS for the next decade. But then we’ll need to fill the other position with someone of comparable upside. Unfortunately Anthony doesn’t play either so Boston should keep Campbell at SS and trade for Arenado or contract Bregman if they want a great team for years to come. Devers has to be DH for success to happen.
Campbell is another in a line of great hitting, poor fielding players for the Red Sox. The last thing they need at SS or 3B. Maybe 2B.
Campbell went from A+ ball to AAA last season and only played 19 games in Worcester. He will go back there in 2025.
Mayer is at least an above average defensive player with a plus arm. If he can stay healthy, a big if after injuries 2 straight seasons, he is the long term answer at SS.
Pads Fans – Talking out of the wrong hole about Mayer.
He sucks on defense. His fielding percentage rivals Devers in the minors. Need to start using stats not fabricated estimates that have no basis in reality.
Campbell is BY FAR the best prospect SS in the program. Heck Mayer wasn’t even in the top four before they traded Meidroth. Arias is better than him.
Mayer hasn’t played at AAA yet. Story is almost certainly a better option than him there right now.
People love to act like Story’s been terrible in Boston but he’s put up around 3 WAR / 600 PA while battling a ton of adversity in the form of injuries.
Story’s exit velocities have fallen off sharply, and he is at the age where most hitters see their performance fall off the table. I’m not at all certain that Story is better, though I agree that Mayer isn’t likely to be especially good this year. Hamilton might be their best SS?
Notstarboard – RIght Story with OPS+ of 89!!! hahahahaha
Stellar!!! If we could just fill the team with 89s we’d probably make the playoffs and win it all!!!! hahahaha
You got to stop using the completely inaccurate measurements that amount to bad guessed by uneducated baseball nerds that don’t get the game and why fabricating data is NOT more accurate than stats.
Maybe the Sox could get a decent starting pitcher in return for Vaughn Grissom via trade.
They might get a little payroll relief. Not much else.
I heard one team traded Vaughn for a pretty decent starting pitcher a year ago
That negative WAR and 31 OPS+ before getting demoted for nearly 4 months doesn’t spell decent starting pitcher in return now.
The Red Sox need to trade a lefty hitting outfielder. Abreu is the guy that makes sense to deal. The team is talented and they still have a good farm system but a trade needs to happen.
That is the piece would lean into, but they have to assess present and future value. Abreu would be more valuable if he continues on his breakout from last season. Not sure there is a heavy market for his services yet – at least one that intrigues Boston enough to move him. Injuries will inevitably occur, which changes the market
How does Abreu continue his breakout with all the other outfielders who need playing time?
salotelli9 = Break out? Seriously. He was the worse defensive outfielder yet won a gold glove because he played right field which was the weakest outfield position in 2024. Anthony replaces him in a heartbeat and probably wins the GG in 2025 if he’s up long enough.
Abreu missed so many opportunities to drive in runs batting in the prime spot of 2nd in the order between Duran and Devers. Any schmuck could have done what Abreu did and he can’t hit lefties.
You see a very different Abreu than most people, He did NOT have a break out season. He cost us lots of wins but that’s on Cora for batting him 2nd instead of 7th.
Abreu was actually a pretty good hitter with runners on base. Of the 261 baserunners he inherited, he scored them 45 times, a 17.0% conversion race. That was fourth on the team behind McGuire, Yoshida, and Gonzalez, and tops on the team for those with 250+ baserunners.
Rafaela inherited 374 baserunners, just six fewer than Devers. He was solid enough at driving them in, at a 16.6% rate, but that puts him behind both Abreu and Duran. You have badly underestimated how many runners-on situations Rafaela enjoyed at the bottom of the lineup.
Want a crap conversion rate? O’Neill had 262 baserunners and managed to score just 31 of them (11.8%). Thats a similar conversion rate to Pablo Reyes, David Hamilton, and Bobby Dalbec. It is unbelievable how poorly he performed with runners on base.
League average is 14.0%, so Abreu, Duran, and Rafaela are all above average at driving in runners from base. That could be your starting outfield next year, strong both offensively and defensively.
Another factor to look at is the “Productive Out” as defined by Elias and reported by B-R. Yoshida was the best of the Red Sox regulars, with productive outs in 42.9% of the opportunities. Abreu was right around league average with 28.3% productive outs. Rafaela was a bit below average with just 21.7% productive outs. That stat tends to favor LHH, though, since they can hit behind the runner more easily. O’Neill managed just 13.7% productive outs — yet another way that his production underperformed his line.
I don’t want to talk down Rafaela, because there’s a lot of talent there. If he can manage just a LITTLE plate discipline, he will be a spectacular player. But you’ve been unfairly hammering Abreu due to your misunderstanding of his opportunities. I don’t see Rafaela and Abreu as being in competition with each other, it is best for the Red Sox if both succeed.
Wait – The reality is there are 3 spots in the outfield. Rafeala is a great fielder and Abreu has the YIPs and made a lot more errors considering the Total Chances. From a hitting perspective, Abreu is a prototypical 6 or 7 hitter who can’t hit lefties. Rafaela is a prototypical leadoff or #2 hitter with speed. His K’s are primarily a function of frustration. Pitchers don’t pitch to the 9th hitter. They pitch around him and he’s too impatient to hit that spot but Cora can’t find his rear end most days so figuring out how to build an effective line-up is beyond him.
Rafaela is getting better every year. Put him in CF & watch him flourish in a full-season of reps. Development in this spot is key. Give him the runway. I can envision him as a core player of this emerging Red Sox team
Isn’t Durran already a core player coming off a great year?
Yes he is and not a Sox commenter but why would the Sox move a GG like Duran, over to LF and negate his great defense and make him move of a “wall guy” given the monster…..this kid Rafeala doesn’t seem to have the offense to force this kind of move and again, give then over exaggeration of defensive runs saved as a metric, moving a budding star both offensively and defensively out of position seems silly.
Rafaela is electric, quick wrists with power and speed. I think he’s going to turn into a really good hitter, already led the team in RBIs most of last season. And you don’t put a glove like that anywhere but CF.
He could easily win a Gold Glove if he plays the entire year in CF.
Imagine if all 3 Sox OF’s won a GG!? Has it ever haappened??
Now lets address the infield defense!!
fenway – The only way that happens is if Rafaela, Anthony and Duran are the three outfielders. The Abreu GG wasn’t earned, it was a gift based on a faulty measurement system. Both Duran and Rafaela out performed him but they played tougher outfielder positions because 2024 saw a very weak collection of defenders in right field.
SIGN BREGMAN HES A HUGE DEFENSIVE UPGRADE AT 2B AND INSURANCE FOR 3B WHEN DEVERS HEADS TO THE DH POSITION OR HIS SHOULDER GIVES OUT. YOSHIDA NEEDS TO GO. BREGMANS RH BAT IS PERFECT FOR FENWAY AND HES A GAMER. HIS STUGGLES IN 24 ARE LINEUP RELATED. WITH MORE PROTECTIONS IN BOSTON HE’LL RAKE! A 5 or 6 yr deal of 160 to 180 is absolutely 100% a fit for putting the Redsox over the top as World Series Contenders while the Big 3 and Grissom season in AAA.
Bregman hasn’t played the middle infield since 2019, when he was younger and more mobile, and he wasn’t very good at it then. It is unlikely that he would be any better than “passable” at this point. He should stick to what he knows.
Bregman’s been in decline for a few years now since he’s buddies stopped banging trash cans. His struggles were not lineup related.
I’m sure Cora can find some trash cans in Fenway…
at this point I’m not sure they’ll help him.
Bregman is still a top 3B defensively and how can any Red Sox fan talk down to Bregman when we have the worst 3B in history and don’t care how awful he is.
because Bergman both offensively and defensively has been declining the past several years. I’m not worried about Bregman next year I’m concerned about years 3-5 of a possible five year contract. you bash Cora constantly for cheating that Bregman was a major beneficiary of
If Roman Anthony can hit Lefty pitching better than he does righties, WHY ARE THE REDSOX talking about trading ANY OUTFIELDER of talent except Yoshida 1st & Refsnyder 2nd and SIGNING BREGMAN for 2b and later 3b as Devers goes to DH. Our outfield 5 Should be Duran in LF, Rafaela in CF, Anthony in RF, the have Abreu platoon with Rafaela until he learns plate discipline, Duran moves to CF and Abreu in RF and move Anthony to LF in that platoon. The last OF should be either of Garcia or Bleis whoever proves they deserve a roster spot. SIGN BREGMAN IS THE HUGE MOVE BOSTON ABSOLUTELY MUST DO! WE HAVE CASAS FORGET ANY VLAD JR. BS…BREGMAN IS THE KEY TO A RING! ALSO SCOTT would be fantastic for closer! LET’S GO FOR UT BRESLOW SPEND THE MONEY! You can adjust after Gio and Behuler leave at years end again to pair with Chrochet in 26 hopefully he’s extended along with CASAS.
Roman Anthony hit .316 against lefties last year he hangs in their good against lefties. The interesting thing the year before he had pretty big splits against lefties. The thing is this guy has shown the ability to make adjustments not just season to season but at bat to at bat. If you beat him with a fastball up one at bat you better not try next at bat he will hammer it. He’s a quick study which is why he could debut in the big leagues as a 20 year old if he wins the job out of spring training and I wouldn’t bet him against him doing that.
Saga – Unlike you I’ve supported my stance, as I always do.
You were warned already. No more good will gestures from me. I don’t give a crap how much you hate on Devers. Yoshida, Abreu etc.
But one more threat or insult directed at me and you’re muted. And you can tell that to your imaginary people that you claim share your sccount.
This Leo guy is not very good at writing. “Either” shouldn’t have a comma before it. And in “giving them, perhaps, the best defensive outfield in the sport” there are incorrectly commas around “perhaps.” Hire a better editor.
Fever – Please mute me. I am great with you not seeing my comments but I’m still going roast you every time you take cheap shots at players. No spinning a positive for you on this one. Your stance was horse crap as I specifically pointed out. You took mean spirited shots at a prospect that was 22 and 23 years old because your just a very mean spirited person like everyone says you are. There are hundreds of examples of this and you just spent several days being blasted by All and Acell10. The weeks before that it was others.
The problem is your BS does not stand up to the facts I bury you with. You should know better but I guess you are like Timex, you take a licking, over and over.
Rafael ced should stay in CF but his versatility is a great thing for Boston. Durran should be kept in RF so you have your best speedy combo to cover that cf/RF gaps. Boston left field is one of the shortest throw to the infield which doesn’t take a big arm to field out there.
They can play the platoons stats whoever starts in the infield. But story money was the worst to give. Devers is one of the worst fielding 3rd basemen since his debut only J-ram from Cleveland is right behind him.