The Red Sox will be without Triston Casas for a while after a rib issue sent him to the injured list. Boston hasn’t revealed a timeline beyond comments from manager Alex Cora that the young slugger is in for an extended absence.
Casas spoke with reporters yesterday, saying that there’s wide variance in the recovery timetable. “(Doctors) said anywhere from three weeks to six weeks to nine weeks,” the first baseman told the Boston beat (link via MLB.com’s Ian Browne). “They don’t know. It’s just depending on how my body is feeling. But for right now, I’m still in pain to breathe.”
While the Sox announced the injury as a rib fracture, Casas clarified that the problem is a tear in the cartilage in his midsection. That may not be particularly consequential in terms of his recovery, since “the way that the doctors kind of explained it to me is that one isn’t better than the other. [Whether the injury] was a muscle or a bone or cartilage, they’re all similarly timetabled schedules.” Despite the uncertainty about the specific timeline, Casas said he’s confident he’ll be able to play “a good amount of the season.”
Bobby Dalbec has taken over at first base. With Dalbec out to an .093/.152/.116 start as his longstanding strikeout issues continue, the Sox could look outside the organization. They’ve reportedly considered bringing back C.J. Cron, who was in camp this spring but opted out of a minor league deal after he didn’t make the Opening Day roster. Jared Walsh returned to free agency after being waived by the Rangers, while Garrett Cooper remains in limbo since being designated for assignment by the Cubs.
The Sox will need to piece things together at first base for some time. They’ve gotten better news on the injury front with a few other players, though. Vaughn Grissom is expected to wrap up a rehab assignment with Triple-A Worcester this weekend, tweets Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. Their biggest offseason trade pickup has been out all year after straining a hamstring in Spring Training. Grissom could make his Red Sox debut on Tuesday when they open a series against the Giants.
Starter Nick Pivetta isn’t much further behind, as Cora indicated the righty could make a rehab start next week. Pivetta went on the shelf after two starts with the ominous designation of a flexor strain. The team downplayed any long-term concern, however, and it seems he’s on track to return around a month after the injury.
Pivetta was brilliant over his first two appearances, tossing 11 innings of one-run ball with 13 strikeouts and one walk. He’ll be a free agent for the first time at the end of the season, making this a pivotal year for him personally. Depending on his health and the team’s competitive outlook, Pivetta could be one of the top rental starters available around the trade deadline.
Corn over Brandon Belt?
I prefer peas and carrots… but corns ok.
If I were Boston, I’d take Belt over any of them
If you dont eat your Cron, you’re gonna get the Belt.
I appreciate a corny joke with the best of them, but I’d wager it was an autocorrect of Cron…
To which I’d reply, better off without either. Both cron and belt would need several weeks in the minors to ramp up, and, neither is particularly good with the glove.
So, ignoring the fact payroll is a problem with Henry, they could be an unnecessary expense – by the time they’re even ready Casas may have returned.
GASox – I think the others are humorously pointing out yet another example of someone rushing so much to get first post that they couldn’t even write a 4-word post without effing it up. Sure it may have been autocorrect, but there’s no excuse for not taking the two seconds required to read what was there before clicking “Post Comment”. Rushing to get first post is not a valid excuse.
With that said, I totally agree with your comment! Honestly at this point, every addition would be an unnecessary expense. Ownership decided long ago to punt on this season, why spend any more money on a season in which winning is not a priority.
Fever – if Henry will spend, I’m OK with it *IF* it:
A) doesn’t displace a youngster;
B) doesn’t tie up money long term; and
C) gives some measurably better chance at pulling out a wild card.
Why? Well, while it’s true this team wouldn’t likely have what it takes to advance in the postseason, there is something to be said for getting the youngsters a taste of being there, get out the jitters so to speak, on a trip that doesn’t matter since you aren’t expected to advance.
That would be valuable experience, and, might make them want to get back all the more in future years as well.
I understand the doom and gloom from Sox fans, but I think they have an honest shot at the playoffs. The Yanks and O’s are likely long gone, but Toronto is an absolute mess and The Rays aren’t really much better. 3rd in the east is there for the taking and that is often good enough for a wildcard.
The central will come back to earth once they face tougher opponents and the west also seems to be in disarray. A handful of games over 500 is probably good enough for the playoffs this year.
Totally agree about playoff experience for the young guys. Boston should be looking at whatever moves they can to bolster their roster.
Management may not have intended to compete, but it’s happening. Why not take advantage of an opportunity when it’s handed to you?
Canuck – They are 4-11 against teams that currently have a winning record. In no way, shape or form does that make them a playoff contender.
When the schedule gets harder in May, most likely they will crash well behind the competition. Just like 2022 and 2023.
There are currently only 4 teams in the AL with a winning record against teams >.500. Only 4 in the NL too.
In Boston it’s all about the baked beans
Jimmy Carck
We can hope dalbec is picking up a bit with the bat after notching hits in his last three games, good for a .273 ba in that timespan.
Really it’s just nice to see a competent infielder for once, saving errors and picking bad throws while not committing errors.
One can only hope Casas watches and tries to learn a thing or two to do upon his return, although, I fear he’s of the ‘I’m gonna be like Devers, as long as I can swing a bat pay me, it doesn’t matter how much I hurt the team with my glove….’ mindset to things.
In a perfect world dalbec will start to really contribute with the bat before Casas is ready, then we can move one of the two corner IF fielding-challenged hitters to DH where they belong.
GASox – I’m really thinking Dalbec’s vision is a big factor in his crappy hitting, switching back and forth between glasses and no glasses seems to be a good indicator. I agree Casas needs to move to permanent DH, but Dalbec isn’t the answer at 1B …. Devers is.
Regarding the injury, first I’d like to point out that once again the Red Sox front office has proven to be idiots. Publicly stating it’s a rib fracture when it actually isn’t? Total incompetence.
Second, I don’t care how hard he swings …. a guy that young (just turned 24) sustaining that kind of injury without any type of collision (confirmed by him) is abnormal. There’s an excellent chance his unique workout regime was a contributing factor. At the very least he needs to start doing traditional workouts such as strength training so he can strengthen his intercostal muscles. The team cannot continue to allow him to do whatever the hell he wants, they need to TELL him what to do.
When you talk of his unique trading regimen-are you referring to yoga?
If Casas hits well he’ll slot in just fine at first base. He’s too young to be labeled as a DH.
Casas’ poor defense and lack of glovework doesn’t fit well when the rest of your infield has issues with clean throws.
Just look at how many balls dalbec has gotten to that Casas regularly doesn’t.
You can’t go all the way around the diamond saying ‘well, if his bat is good we can hide him at xyz slot’… that’s how the team wound up with the atrocious unearned run total it has. No glove at 3b, no glove at 2b, no glove at 1b, you can’t run that out there as an infield and expect good results.
They’ve said that for Devers, Casas, grissom, and, previously, Yoshida as well as various players no longer with the team.
Just like you can’t hide piles of guys who are all glove, no bat, you can’t hide piles guys who are all bat, no glove. It doesn’t work as were seeing.
Age has nothing to do with being labelled DH or not. Lack of improvement picking throws or moving around off the bag does, as does making errors of your own
Haven’t seen his defense but people truly underestimate the importance of defense at first base. I think much of that has to do with it being hard to judge whether throwing errors and even problems at second base are a result of the first baseman or not, however indirectly seeming. It’s a balance between getting off the bag to cover the hole and getting back in time to set a good throwing target. Metrics do not take these into account well. Added is the fact that balls get on you very quickly (like 3rd) but you also have to worry about the runner; and the corner spots get odd slicing action and wicked hops. Almost cost ATL a game the other day. Also scoops are often only necessary because of a lack of ability to stretch and that looks the the other fielders when it’s largely the 1B often.
This is also why most good fielding 1b have no defensive WAR (even negative) because almost all the stats see is range which most 1B have little of. Everything else they do is only obvious to metrics when they are absolutely awful.
Someone Just call Joey Votto
A) Currently recovering from an ankle injury
B) Currently under contract with the Blue Jays.
C) Likes Canada.
D) Stinks
Dalbec is 3 for is last 13, starting to do better. Solid defense, see if the bat comes around.
C) He likes phone calls from random strangers
Cubs letting Cooper go is a solid move by the org. He deserves more playing time and they are letting him go to get it. Hopefully, the Red Sox aren’t compete idiots and pick him up.
I still don’t get how Belt isn’t signed.
Only the NYM offered him a guaranteed contract with heavy incentives. Belt probably doesn’t want a prove-it deal justifiably so.
Yeah that’s what I don’t understand. He doesn’t need to prove himself, even if he’s limited health wise he still produces more than enough to get a guaranteed deal. Give him DH duties for some rest and he can probably stay off the shelf longer.
He’s streets ahead of Cron. And not even in the same conversation as Dalbec (who shouldn’t even be in the majors right now)
Belt is lucky had the good fortune to play in a period where mediocre players were paid multi millillions, yet still expects millions more. better players, such as Mike greenwell were shown the door at several years younger and could no longer find any mlb job, despite superior numbers with not so good glove.
Guys such as Belt, Cron just sit at home and pout, counting past millions earned while guys, like Mike Easler, Mike greenwell were shown the door eventually.
Never have sympathy for these guys now who refuse to earn a job, tho do for the Pillar types who continue to try and make a way back.
I don’t have sympathy for any MLB player. Why would I have sympathy for Pillar types? Players that excelled in some areas then lost that skill as they aged so now they are hanging on. Why would I be sympathetic to that?
At least Belt makes a team better. That’s all
I’m saying. If the redsox want to win they could drop Bobby Dalbec like the garbage he is and get a player that will help them win.
What left out was if Belt and Cron expect a job at this point? They had better head to some minor league team for an extended period. Cron already has proven that, he looked totally lost his 1wk plus, before unwisely opting out of the milb deal, then sitting out once again looking for some team to give him a mlb deal.
does he (and Belt) just expect an Omar Minaya type GM to throw 5-6m at them, then they put on a mlb uniform? Is this them being this dense, or is this some agent as well giving ill informed advice?
I can see it if they have saved up enough cash from previous earnings, as in the possible case of Belt, but cron hasn’t earned close to what Belt has.
At this point, it’s maybe a milb deal or bust with % mlb deal on what remains of the season AFTER getting into shape or nothing at all.
Votto, Joey
For Yoshida?? I think the Blue Jays could use a Yoshida. Manoah & Votto for Yoshida???
Jays have Turner for DH who is considerably better then Yoshida and they don’t want poor defending outfielders who aren’t hitting. They already have good defending outfielders who aren’t hitting (plus Varsho).
And Votto is still injured and won’t be ready to play for weeks.
Yikes Vogalbach Yikes!!!!
Nobody wants to take on the overpaid Yoshida.
Hopefully Grissom starts off well and stays healthy the rest of the season because for the Braves so far Sale has done quite well.
Is it possible to play Yoshida at first base?? I mean, the guy has some baseball acumen, you would think he could get by. (Possibly too short though.)
Not only is he a small target, he’s right-handed so runners would also have a field day with him at first baseman since he wouldn’t be effective with pickoff moves due to his short arm length.
they might have thought they could hide him in fenway’s short left field but IMO a blind spot of moneyball strategy is undervaluing defense. you don’t need gold glovers at every position but a truly incompetent fielder takes a toll
Forget belt and cron either would be stop gaps till casas returns..then what dfa them and eat the money since its obvious no mlb team thinks they are worth a 40 man spot. Might as well see what you really have in house i say
I keep hoping that Yoshida contacts his old WBC-winning teammates Ohtani and Yamamoto and tells them how much he’d love to join them in L.A., then maybe the two of them lobby the Dodgers FO to bring their old friend over–maybe the Dodgers could even use the DH/LF backup that Yoshi would provide. I’m sure the Sox would chip in some decent money to be rid of him and get a decent prospect back. I know–it’s just a pipe dream.–but it’s hard to come up with mechanisms for shedding Bloom’s biggest errors.
There’s two problems facing Yoshida right now – roster construction, and, Cora.
In the offseason I delved into Yoshida splits batting as a DH vs as an everyday outfielder. Guess what? He’s been just about what the numbers showed he would be expected to be, as he didn’t bat as well from the dh/ph role.
Problem is, that’s being exacerbated by Cora benching him. Not saying there aren’t better bats to stick in DH and better OFers to play defense, but, if he’s not getting regular ABs and seeing different pitches, working on altering his timing and all the rest that comes from competitive ABs against live pitchers… things BP doesn’t really get you all the way there with.
The fact Yoshida largely…. sat, idle, for game after game lately doesn’t do him favors. Like so much else there’s a point where you just needs to get a guy into games if he’s going to improve. There’s only one way to rebuild trade value or try to get his bat hotter, and, sitting him long stretches isn’t it.
Horace – give me a 2012 salary dump to the dodgers. They might need a shortstop too, so let’s bundle Story and Yoshida, throw in someone with actual value (O’Neill?) and free up the roster spots.
The Sox currently have a surplus of people who can actually field and have a comparable bat to Yoshida, so it’s going to be tough for him to get the ABs necessary to build up any value. Looking at the 2023 Sox statcast numbers, he hits he ball pretty weak (l2nd lowest average exit velo behind Duvall) and has a low barrel percentage. If he could play defense, he could be a good 6-7 hitter, but his bat (to me) doesn’t have the upside needed for a full-time DH. His defense, even at Fenway, was very poor. I hope he figures it out, but I’m not optimistic.
In 600 at bats Yoshida is hitting 282 with 17 home runs and a .768 OPS.
dude is a good baseball player, just overpaid.
Breslow would be smart to pick up Walsh. I’ve watched him for the last month and he’s performed much better than any alternative. I was shocked when they released him. Good glove, good bat and some power as a fill-in until Casas is back and then he could take over Dalbec’s role.
If he was released, they should be able to get him for league minimum salary.
Walsh’s numbers are skewed by a hot first week of the season. Since then he’s gone 2 for 28, with 11Ks. Sure small-ish sample size, but, I think that’s part of why he was let go.
GA = With Nate Lowe back you have to ask where to keep the depth. Since Jung is out they have another corner infielder playing third base right now and Foscue another versatile infielder is also hurt.
Walsh was 7th in ROY in 2020 and an all-star in 2021 (3 years ago). He had a bad year in 2022 and LAA dropped him as the starting 1B in 2023 and was released at end of season and picked up by Texas for his high upside. Too much talent in Texas made him expendable so he was released.
He started fast in 2024 against CUB pitching, HOU pitching and OAK pitching. It sure seems odd to see a guy hit .306 through 11 games and then go hitless for just 6 games and be cut.
It comes down to too much depth or Bloom called the move in.
Too much depth is a great reason to pick up the guy considering he had just 6 bad games.
So maybe the ROY voting and AS selection should be considered along with the 6 game cold streak.
TF – unfortunately that 7th place in ROY happened in 2020… the year that needs to be thrown out the window as a predictive tool for obvious reasons. Plenty of guys have a good year and wind up selected as an AS, and, then never go on to replicate that production.
But it’s not just 6 bad games. Actually, it was just 7 hot games to start the year followed by poor results.
Mar 30 – Apr 6: 10 for 30, 2 doubles, a HR, and 10 Ks.
Apr 7 – Present: 2 for 23, both singles, and 11Ks.
Also keep in mind he’s about to turn 31 in about 2 months. And in 2023 when he was in the Angel’s PCL (hitter friendly) AAA team he also struggled to a .217 ba over a couple hundred plate appearances.
Youth isn’t on his side, if anything his skills should be expected to be diminishing at this point going forwards.
I’m not going to say he’s completely washed up, but, I wouldnt give him a roster spot with the other talent Boston has around.
Small samples are small samples. But so far this year, babip looks reasonable on him @
.297; he’s squaring up balls showing some statcast barrels, his soft contact rate is actually lowest of his mlb career, having instead translated into increased medium and hard contact. His launch angle is slightly up, and he’s pulling the ball less while not increasing opposite field contact. Line drives are up at the expense of grounders.
That all tells me he’s squaring things up pretty well, and, again, not getting hurt on the babip side either. I don’t know that I chalk it all up to just bad luck though, remember, besides the covid 2020 issues you follow that up with it having been the juiced ball era. As that was dialed back some, it’s possible it made just enough difference combined with age starting to set in to reduce the outputs.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see him hit for slightly better average than he has thus far, but I’m not sure what he would do differently to jump to another level
GA – I watched him play all the Ranger games and he’s better than the alternatives. I wouldn’t be looking to replace Casas, Walsh is a cheap back-up with more upside than Dalbec. He came out of nowhere in 2020 and was an extremely hot commodity and did well in 2021. I have no idea why he suddenly fell apart but I thought he played well in 2024 even when he went cold for 6 games.
Your standards for his performance match your prejudice. I like him and that is what matters to me. I’m not about to list off a series of ridiculous inaccurate metric estimates and point out why each one is meaningless.
You don’t like him. I do. Enough said.
Blobby gotta go!!
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