The Red Sox announced this afternoon that they’ve optioned infielder Vaughn Grissom and pitchers Luis Guerrero and Josh Winckowski to minor league camp. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel first reported the Grissom move. Boston also reassigned non-roster invitees Nathan Hickey and Mark Kolozsvary.
Grissom entered spring in the mix for Boston’s Opening Day second base job. He and David Hamilton were trying to hold off top middle infield prospects Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer. The Alex Bregman signing muddled the picture, but it seems the Sox intend to keep the longtime third baseman at the hot corner.
Bregman hasn’t played any second base this spring. Manager Alex Cora told reporters (including Chad Jennings of The Athletic) that the Sox don’t intend to get Rafael Devers any third base reps in camp. With Masataka Yoshida expected to open the season on the injured list, Devers will probably start the year as a full-time designated hitter while Bregman handles third.
Acquired from the Braves for Chris Sale in the 2023-24 offseason, Grissom had a rough first year with the Sox. He missed time with strains in both hamstrings and didn’t hit when healthy. He managed a .190/.246/.219 slash without a home run in 114 MLB plate appearances. Hamilton jumped him for the majority of the second base playing time down the stretch. Grissom spent a good chunk of the year at Triple-A Worcester.
A healthy offseason provided some hope that the 24-year-old would recapture the promising offensive form he has shown in the minors. He didn’t show much in camp, though, as he hit .176 without a homer in 14 games. He’s no longer in the running for a spot on the Opening Day roster. He’ll begin the year back in Worcester. Grissom has an excellent .307/.408/.459 slash in nearly 700 Triple-A plate appearances over the last two seasons. His plate discipline still makes him an intriguing player, but he has dropped down the organization’s middle infield depth chart.
Hamilton, Campbell and Mayer remain on the major league side of camp. The lefty-swinging Hamilton is the only member of that trio who is on the 40-man roster or has MLB experience. He hit .248/.303/.395 with eight homers and 33 stolen bases over 98 games last season. He has swiped five more bases with a pair of homers while batting .239 over 18 games this spring.
Mayer and Campbell are generally ranked among the top prospects in the sport. Mayer, who hasn’t played in Triple-A, hit .307/.370/.480 over 335 Double-A plate appearances last season. He’s hitting .357/.438/.536 in an impressive spring showing. Mayer has never played second base in the minors — all but two of his appearances have come at shortstop — but he’s getting reps on the right side of the bag in camp. Trevor Story is locked in at shortstop, so it makes sense to get Mayer reps at other positions.
Campbell is primarily a second baseman who has experience in the outfield and at third base. He improved his stock more than any other minor leaguer last season. The 2023 fourth-rounder hit .330/.439/.558 to reach Triple-A in his first full professional season. He has had a tough Spring Training. Campbell has fanned in a third of his plate appearances while batting .158 in 45 plate appearances. While that doesn’t mean much for his prospect status, it’s something the Sox will need to weigh as they decide whether he should break camp.
Here comes the people going to start comparing the sale trade to the great bambino
Nobody has done that. Stop it.
Babe Sale
At the time, it made sense. Boston fans were crying because they wanted to get rid of an injured Sale. No one expected him to be what he was. I loved Sale, so I personally was indifferent, but I understood the move and don’t blame Breslow for taking a chance. If we had Sale last year, we still probably don’t make the postseason.
There were plenty of Red Sox fans not wanting to get rid of Sale. We did not have much of a pitching staff when they made that trade. Nobody could have expected that kind of year from Sale, but what they got for him was so minimal it was embarrassing. I am glad he had an amazing year. He certainly showed management what a terrible trade it was. I hope that Grissom finds success at the major league level at some point, not his fault he was all we got for Sale.
Some team will take a chance.
I was not for getting rid of Sale. He had a full healthy offseason and I expected him to pitch great but maybe not that great. Had they kept him they could’ve nabbed a wild card spot. That trade was totally embarrassing, they paid the Braves 18m to take a Cy Young winner lmao
Sounds pretty credible coming from a guy dubbed as the “ghost of Mookie Betts.” Sheesh.
You claim there were many fans not wanting to get rid of Sale. You’re right, I was one of them. But there were just as many complainers saying Sale was useless after an injury ridden year. Go back and look at the Grissom thread when the trade happened and I’m sure this will check out. So many fans can’t admit their change either.
Try looking at this thread: mlbtraderumors.com/2023/12/braves-red-sox-trade-ch…
It’s about half and half but certainly people thought the trade was pretty fair when it happened. Not so much now
I bet on Sale to win Cy Young. Didn’t expect it but thought it was possible obviously. He’s been a great pitcher when healthy. No reason to think he would never be healthy again.
A chance? On Who?… Grissom is going to AAA. He wasn’t released.
What I wrote at the time.
We needed starters with Sale in the rotation. We now need two more. Anything short of getting two more quality starters makes this move a head scratcher. I honestly only expected Sale this coming year to be the guy that gave us an all star caliber year out of our starters. He should be healed, and control was his issue coming off injuries, not stuff. I expect a major trade and signing to justify this. If Grissom pans out as a productive defensive and offensive starting second baseman over the next 5 years I can see this move with the additional two pitchers.
Plenty on both sides cheered and ridiculed this trade. Braves fans loved Grissom. Sale said he would have traded himself too. It is what it is. I like that they took a chance. Hopefully the Sox can make something of him.
“I’ll take worst baseball trade in modern history for $500, Alex.”
Wake me up when Sale hits a home run.
Blue – You beat me to it!
Lol
sad – Ruth was a sale, not a trade. And yes I see the irony of that sentence. LOL!!
And there’s zero chance of Sale becoming the game’s greatest hitter for 15 years.
Was it a horrific trade? It’s sure looking that way.
Tough break for Vaughn. Hopefully he can rebound
Ghost – Agreed! I called all this happening with Vaughn, Devers, Bregman and Yoshida … but so did many others. Red Sox are so predictable, they don’t even bother trying to mask their intentions.
Poor Devers won’t be able to keep up his leading the league in errors at 3rd base since 2018. How will he survive with Bergman at 3rd now?
I assume when he gets his infielder badge and gun, he will have to confront the fact he will need to shoot either Bregman or Bergman on opening day.
I trust him to make the right choice. Largely due to the fact I have never read any media reports addressing the fact he has dyslexia.
nailclippers: He would survive better with BERGMAN, whoever that is, than with BREGMAN.
Blue – Myself and longtime Tigers fans know who Dave Bergman is.
Unless nailclippers meant Ingrid, who was quite the vixen. She was back in the day way back in the day.
FPG: I remember Dave Bergman as well, but he had no connection to the Red Sox.
Blue – Okay I agree with you, let’s go with Ingrid then.
Wonder if we’ll ever see him again in the majors. Sometimes guys have a string of injuries and are gone from the game for too often in too short amount of time and that’s it.
SODOMOJO: It’s not as tragic as you make it sound. Often that happens because some guys are not meant to become stars.
I can’t respond to Fever because he’s blocked me but how do you know Rafaela hasn’t reached his potential yet? And how do you know Campbell is the real deal? Lots of assumptions made.
From your username I take it you never heard of an ad blocker.
Sodom – I think we will, but probably with another team.
Keep in mind if there’s an injury to an outfielder or to Story, Campbell could replace them with Grissom getting called up.
Campbell is what Rafaela was supposed to be.
Campbell flashes on the screen on defense, hits for contact, great plate discipline and will take a walk, plus speed, what’s not to love? He’s on my radar for sure I’ve been watching him all spring and I’m in man. He’s a bit lost looking at some of the stuff of the new pitchers but I think once he settles in you’ll see those offensive numbers creep up to his minor league comparisons. And man he’s just fun to watch play even when he’s not hitting
SODOM – I think his earlier hitting struggles was because they were shifting him around the field. Once they decided to use him exclusively at 2B his hitting improved.
There’s another reason why they are fast-tracking him … unlike Roman, Campbell is interested in an extension. So they probably want to see how he fares against MLB pitching.
I’m also high on Abreu and it’s ironic that Abreu and Campbell could end both end up being far more valuable than Cedanne. We’ll see how Abreu responds to his kid being born I think that stress and extra work helped kill JP Crawford’s season last year.
SODOM – Me too, I’m a huge Abreu fan.
I didn’t know he just had a kid, thanks! Yeah it definitely takes it toll, especially if the kid doesn’t sleep much at night.
How’s Roman Anthony looking ?
Cleopatra has been impressed.
Roman Anthony was as great a leader as American Washington
Bregman signing really hurt Grissom’s chances. He was quite a threat as a very young player, and seems to have been able to beat AAA, hope he gets a chance for regular playing time in the MLB sometime soon.
Bregman is playing 3B. Mayer, Campbell and Hamilton are hurting Grissom’s chances.
None of those guys hurt Grissom’s chances, he’s a utility guy. His chance was never realistic.
Joe – Exactly!!!
Just like last year with Rafaela, Sox management went into ST fixated on Campbell making the team as a starter. Nothing Grissom could have done would have prevented that.
Druuuuu – Agreed he had some offensive potential, but his defense has always been questioned.
The Braves tried him at shortstop, he failed there.
They tried him at second base, he failed there.
They were planning to try him in the outfield next.
And yet the Sox traded for him anyway, go figure.
Rookie mistake by a rookie HOBO who was being pressured by clowns.
I have said it before and I will say it again. From an overall perspective the best opening alignment for the Sox is Bregman 2B, Devers 3B, and Yoshida DH. The projected WAR numbers of all the alternatives make that clear. Cora stubbornly torpedoed that possibility by refusing to play Bregman at 2B even one inning this spring, which was sheer idiocy on his part. So now we are left with (1) Yoshida artificially on the IL even though per Cora himself he is one of our best bats and is proving that this spring; (2) Devers being hugely devalued from a market perspective and hugely pissed off from a personal perspective by being moved to DH; and (3) Erickson being awarded 2B based on 19 AAA games and an impotent spring performance. Brilliant! There is no possible way that the supposed 9 run annual defensive difference between Bregman and Devers at 3B possibly justifies the offensive loss of swapping Erickson in for Yoshida, even assuming that Erickson would equal Bregman defensively at 2B, which is highly questionable. Honestly this feels like a conclusion Breslow/Cora jumped to in February and are now wedded to no matter what. Ridiculous on the actual numbers and projections.
Ahh….
The opening of another MLB season is just around the corner!
We can tell because here come the comments from upset diehard Red Sox fans telling us how stupid their FO and manager are and how cheap their owner is.
It’s like Punxsutawney Phil emerging from his hole in the ground and seeing his shadow – which foretells the beginning of Spring.
Who is Erickson? Stop looking at WAR to evaluate a lineup. It’s just stupid. Anyone who has watched Devers knows he hurts the team big time at third. What about the pitching staff who gets tired by late July because of extra pitches caused by the worst infield defense? Injuries happen and this will play out. It has to though start with Devers off third.
WAR is what shows you the best why Devers was hurting the Red Sox by playing at 3B.
Out. in my opinion, WAR is subjective as our our eyes but for me, it just takes watching to understand Devers cannot continue at third.
who the h*ck is erickson?
So sorry must have had a senior moment in saying Erickson when I meant Campbell. Yikes that is scary for a lot of reasons please forgive me. In any event what is correct is that the numbers do not support the lore that swapping Bregman in for Devers at 3B is worth the offensive loss of replacing Yoshida with Campbell (or “Erickson” for that matter). You say don’t look at WAR — what else would a rational person look at? The Fangraphs projected WAR numbers very clearly prove up my point on this.
No worries, I’m just teasing!
I understand the point you’re making— I love Fangraph’s analytical breakdown of everything, but I’m not sure the WAR projections on their own make the case. That’s a weaker defensive team, with Devers at 3B. The team has been trending towards higher GB% from their pitchers, and their infield defense needs to be a strong for them to be their most effective.
Yoshida is a good, if streaky, hitter. But he’s about as redundant as a player can be on this team.
Doug – You shoulda just gone with the longtime Twins and Orioles pitcher Scott Erickson.
The Red Sox already have Dave (or Ingrid) Bergman on the team, so Scott Erickson would fit right in.
yeah – Last year when Yoshida was healthy from mid-April thru mid-August he put up an .866 OPS.
Without him in the lineup, Bregman needs to put up similar numbers to prevent the Sox from having an offensive decline.
Fever, you know this so it’s not for you. Baseball is a team sport and having Bregman next to Story should solidify that side of the infield and make both better defensively. If Yoshida stays and plays left, it will weaken the OF but the infield is more important in my view.. The team has sucked defensively in the IF under Cora and to an extent I’ve blamed him for the fundamental mistakes. With Bregman at third I’m expecting far less.
Devers to DH was the right move. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. So far, you and Devers are the only two people I’ve seen try to argue he is a Third baseman.
Here is what the Fangraphs projections show on this point, assuming 600 PA for each player at each position:
Devers 3B, Bregman 2B, Yoshida DH = 9.2 WAR combined
Devers DH, Bregman 3B, Campbell 2B = 9.1 WAR combined
So that is the reality of this situation, based on objective data not subjective lore. And the 9.1 number for the second scenario includes a projected 3.2 WAR for Campbell (based on 600 PA), which at the moment is looking quite ambitious. So the data shows, contrary to the lore, that moving Devers to DH is far from obviously the best move.
Doug, if you want to play a computer model, go ahead. How can it though consider a player that hasn’t played one inning in the majors? Too many variables for me to argue based on WAR. Play Strat-o-matic if you’d like.
Doug – The whole thing was one big con by Cora the Con.
First Cora insisted Raffy won’t be replaced at 3B.
Then Cora insisted there would be a “competition” for the position.
Neither were true.
I just hope whatever private conversations have now been going on with Devers and management are captured in writing by Raffy’s agent. Hopefully he learned you can NEVER trust Cora, Kennedy or Henry.
Fever, I basically agree but I also understand spin. Sometimes statements at the time don’t work out. Sometimes they do.
Grissom will be an all star one day, he has such a great bat. Obviously the injury aren’t doing him any favors. Once he gets healthy, the skies the limit
LFGMets: Sure he will. Unless, of course, he won’t.
LFGRS – What injury? Grissom has been healthy this year, he’s played in 13 games.
The real problem is he’s “competing” with a .535 OPS and poor defense. He wouldn’t win a job on ANY team by performing like that.
People say that, but I’ve yet to see Grissom perform even half way decent. I’m not sure what everyone else is looking at when they say “hes gonna be a star!” I just don’t see it.
If either Campbell and/or Meyer stay and one gets rookie of the year or some award – redsox in the last bargaining will get rewarded for not keeping them in minors til june
Data – Didn’t you ever see the commercial with the cute kid fishing?
“My Marcelo has a first name, it’s M-A-Y-E-R”.
I’m just happy Winki is gone n hopefully never to return!
What would it take to get Grissom on Yankees? Can he play 3B?
A bucket of balls and a bag of peanuts.
Gerrit Cole with the Yankees paying the Sox. Ownership likes to invest two years down the road with injured pitchers and a reverse Sales trade seems in order.
It all makes sense, now! With Grissom out of the way, Devers can finally play his true position: 2B! I knew Bregman at 3B had a reason
I wonder if either Campbell or Mayer breaks camp or if the Roman Empire rises to open the season. Trayce Thompson should break camp with Yoshida and Abreu on the shelf. One player not to overlook is Abraham Toro has had a really good spring as well. Still lots of competition for the Sox roster
Hamilton put up a 2.6 WAR in limited time last season. He had to be the favorite if Campbel didn’t wow in camp and win the job outright?
Well, I don’t know about favorite because I think Grissom was given every opportunity to win the job.
I think all he had to do was put out even a decent showing and the job was his. I would’ve said he was the favorite going into spring training. He just couldn’t get the job done and failed in a bad way.
As others have said, I hope he rebuilds his value at AAA.
Grissom’s days were numbered when Hamilton showed he could be a competent major leaguer and Mayer coming. I was expecting Mayer to come up to play second base and then move to short once the Story contract ended. Now Campbell has emerged as a legit prospect. Grissom’s problem has always been his defense. He is probably going to get traded or become a bench super sub.
The people complaining the Red Sox gave away sale for nothing seem to forget Sale pitched more innings last year then the previous three years combined.
baseball-reference.com/players/s/salech01.shtml
Wouldn’t be surprised if Campbell is next to go down. Needs more at bats in AAA. Of course one could say that for Mayer, but one has impressed this spring, the other not so much….yet.
The genius lies deeper. Boston’s infield is stacked—Story, Bregman, Devers, Hamilton, plus Mayer and Campbell looming—but Grissom’s skill set (plate discipline, contact) still has value. His .408 OBP in Triple-A screams trade bait, yet his MLB struggles (.219 SLG) suppress his cost (pre-arbitration, optionable). By sending him down, the Red Sox aren’t writing him off—they’re parking him in Worcester to rebuild his stock, betting that a hot April (.320/.410/.460, say) makes him a midseason trade chip for a contender needing infield depth
Please put Weissert on the next bus please. Dude is a gas can