“It will be a while” before Triston Casas is ready for a minor league rehab assignment, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told the Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams and other reporters on Friday. Casas hasn’t played since April 20 due to a rib fracture and torn rib cartilage, and he is already well beyond even the broad 3-to-9 week timeframe Casas initially floated three months ago, though the first baseman noted that the nature of the injury led to a lot of fluidity.
In yesterday’s update, Cora said Casas was taking soft toss swings and is hitting off a tee, but is still dealing with some nagging discomfort in his side. Until that discomfort entirely subsides, Casas and the Sox can’t really move forward with any kind of concrete plan for even a steadier ramp-up, let alone any minor league rehab work. Cora did say that Casas would play again in 2024, but “we don’t know yet” when a return was feasible.
Casas finished third in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023, and was off to a hot start (.244/.344/.513 with six home runs) in his first 90 plate appearances this season. Dominic Smith and several other players have gotten time at first base in Casas’ absence, but since nobody has been producing, it stands to reason that the Red Sox could target a first base-capable player at the deadline if Casas is still several weeks away from factoring into the club’s plans.
Some more unexpected later-season reinforcements could come from Trevor Story, who told reporters (including MassLive.com’s Sean McAdam) on Friday that he and the Red Sox were “having conversations about” Story getting back onto the field before the 2024 campaign is over. Both Story and Cora stopped short of saying that a return was in the cards, yet it is notable that Story has made such quality progress rehabbing what was thought to be a season-ending shoulder surgery in April.
“Just getting the strength back and getting the motion back…I’ve made a lot of really good strides there,” Story said. “It’s close, man. It’s close. Especially from how it was early on. It was not in good shape. It’s been a crazy turnaround the last month and a half and we’re riding that momentum.”
Story injured his shoulder while diving for a grounder in just his eighth game of the season, continuing what has been an injury-plagued tenure in Boston for the former All-Star. Since inking a six-year, $140MM free agent deal in March 2022, Story has played in only 145 games — UCL surgery cost him all but 43 games of the 2023 season, and wrist and heel injuries limited him to 94 appearances in 2022. Unsurprisingly, these health woes have led to subpar performance when Story has been able to play, as he has a modest .227/.288/.394 slash line in 598 PA in a Red Sox uniform.
Bryan Mata is also no stranger to injuries, as Tommy John surgery and a teres major strain sidelined him for most of the 2021-23 seasons. This year, hamstring and lat problems emerged to keep Mata again spending most of the year rehabbing, and now his latest rehab assignment has been halted due to right elbow inflammation. Mata was right at the end of the 30-day window for that assignment, though his latest injury now resets the clock and Mata will be able to start another 30-day rehab assignment when he is able to get back onto the mound.
Though he has yet to make his MLB debut, Mata is out of minor league options, leaving Boston in a bit of a quandary when it comes to his future. The Red Sox can’t assign him to the minors without first designating the right-hander for assignment and exposing him to waivers, so when Mata is finally ready to play, the Red Sox will have to put him on the active roster or go the DFA route.
While getting healthy has obviously been more important than the on-field results during Mata’s rehab work, he has a 4.50 ERA over 22 total innings for four different Red Sox minor league affiliates this season, with a 19.15% strikeout rate. It isn’t nearly the form that Mata showed in his past days as one of Boston’s top pitching prospects, and with another setback again stopping his progress, it is still a question about when or even if Mata might eventually surface as part of the team’s big league staff.
In other Red Sox news, the team was known to have been interested in Teoscar Hernandez last offseason, and the slugger said this week in an appearance on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast (hat tip to WEEI’s Rob Bradford) that the Sox and Dodgers were the two finalists for his services. Hernandez said the Red Sox offered a two-year, $28MM contract, but he instead opted for a one-year, $23.5MM deal with Los Angeles.
“At the end, I thought [the Red Sox] were going to make it, but unfortunately they had to wait because they had to make some moves and other stuff,” Hernandez said. “I couldn’t wait any longer, so that’s why I decide at the moment to go to the Dodgers.”
Hernandez went into the winter seeking a three-year contract, but when neither Boston or any other suitor was willing to guarantee a third year, he instead opted for the one-year contract with the Dodgers, to allow for a chance at a rebound season and a quick return to free agency next winter. The strategy has worked out quite well, as Hernandez has hit 19 homers with a .261/.326/.476 slash in 406 PA for Los Angeles, and now has a much stronger case for a three-year pact as he enters his age-32 season.
Beyond the contractual logistics, Hernandez also admitted that the Dodgers’ win-now approach and track record of success further attracted him to the organization, though he was quick to note that “the Red Sox are really good right now and they have amazing players.” The Sox and newly-hired chief baseball officer Craig Breslow were often criticized for their relatively low-key offseason that didn’t see a lot of high-dollar splurges, yet Boston has a 53-43 record and is in possession of an AL wild card berth.
