The Red Sox are going to designate infielder Abraham Toro for assignment, reports Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. Fellow infielder David Hamilton will be recalled as the corresponding move. The Sox have not yet announced the moves.
Toro, 28, signed a minor league deal with the Sox in the offseason. He was selected to the big league roster in early May after first baseman Triston Casas suffered a season-ending knee injury. For a long time, the Sox replaced Casas with a platoon of Romy González and Toro. González, who swings right-handed, has more than held up his end of the bargain. He has a .340/.389/.641 line against lefties this year, which translates to a massive 176 wRC+.
For a while, the switch-hitting Toro was playing his part as well, but he couldn’t keep it going. He was able to put up a strong .296/.296/.537 line in May but that dropped to .279/.354/.407 in June, .221/.295/.279 in July and .137/.151/.255 in August. His wRC+ was 123 in May but then slid to 110, 56 and -1 in the subsequent months.
The Sox recently added the lefty-swinging Nathaniel Lowe to the roster after he was released by the Nationals, effectively replacing Toro in that first base platoon. They could have kept Toro around as a multi-positional bench bat but it seems they prefer to have Hamilton take that role, with González and Nate Eaton also able to bounce around a bit.
Toro is out of options, so removing him from the active roster meant having to remove him from the 40-man. Now that he’s been designated for assignment after the trade deadline, he’ll have to be placed on waivers.
He is making a $1MM salary this year, a bit above the $760K league minimum. His declining offense this year will likely scare off other teams from claiming him and taking on that contract, though he does at least provide some versatility. He has big league experience at all the non-shortstop infield positions as well as the outfield corners. His career .223/.285/.356 batting line translates to a wRC+ of 81, so his true offensive talent level likely lies somewhere between this year’s hot start and more recent cold stretch.
If he clears waivers, he will have the right to elect free agency but probably won’t exercise it. Players with at least three years of service can reject an outright assignment in favor of the open market but need at least five years of service to both head to free agency and keep their salary commitments intact. Toro is in that three-to-five window and is still owed about $200K of his $1MM salary. Assuming he wants that money, he would report to Worcester and give the Sox some non-roster depth.
Photo courtesy of Brian Fluharty, Imagn Images
About time!
One game too late!!! Goodbye and Good Riddance !!!
It had to happen, but dude, played well for a while, worked harrd, and seemed like he fit in well with clubhouse.
You guys are a couple of salty babys.
Someone had to tell you.
You have to give Toro some credit for how hot he started. He helped the team win multiple games in the Spring with both his bat and even his glove too. He has certainly faded since mid-June and deserves to be released now that Lowe is here, but his overall time in Boston was more positive than negative if you ask me.
Dotty – Well said! The guy had an .803 OPS in July, he played a key role in many wins during May and June.
The question is, how much is gained by replacing him with Hamilton? I guess they figured if Toro can’t hit any better than Hamilton, at least David can help with his blazing speed.
I’m sure Toro will report to Woosta.
The 2024 Dominic Smith of 2025 for Boston. Thank you for your service. We hardly knew ya.
He was born and raised not far from me. You don’t see many Canadians make the majors.
This has been coming
Needed to happen after grounding into yet another rally-killing double play. Toro was a rock when they needed it right after the Casas injury but its been a steady decline since. I do expect he’ll latch on somewhere though, even Dom Smith caught on with the Reds after being cut last season
My sentiments exactly. Wishing him well, but his time here was up a few weeks ago.
Boy is this a bad move, Lowe for Toro, guys been with the team all season.
Trying to win. Toto may find another job after clearing and if not, will likely agree to go to Worcester.
“Toto may find another job”
Won’t be in Kansas
Toro is slumping hard offensively for a while, and doesn’t play that great of defense to prop up the bat.
For a while Toro was crushing it, but it’s difficult to sustain success across the long season.
Thanks for holding down the fort Toro. He’s like Dom Smith from last year. Did better than expected, but if the team is to make the playoffs they need a better option at 1B.
Toro has been better than Lowe from both sides of the plate all season. Lowe plays everyday and hits like a dog and gets a spot on the team because he has a good historical reference.
Lowe:
RHP – .235/.314/.421
LHP – .174/.248/.268
Toro:
RHP – .239/.292/.386
LHP – .257/.299/.357
Toro has to stop and start all season in his platoon situation and still manages to put up the same numbers as Lowe who gets run everyday. It’s not easy to sit and cool off and swing the bat again. You think Lowe has more upside than Toro? Lowe was with the Nationals all season, comes into the locker room, replaces a guy that has been with the team all season. What a crock of rotten soup.
Lowe’s numbers against RHP are better than Toro’s and they can platoon with Romy who crushes LHP – which is what they have been doing.
I don’t love it, I would have preferred an actual trade, but Toro’s second half numbers are bad and he’s really been slumping for a while. It’s time for a change and Lowe was the best option available because they waited so long.
HAHA what a crock of rotten soup
Not sure how you’re calling that better numbers for Toro. He has a .678 OPS against RHP, the only playing time he’s likely to get going forward (Romy will get all the starts against LHP) compared to a .735 OPS for Lowe.
Lowe will play against righthanders.
Toro has a 678 OPS against righthanders.
Lowe has a 735 OPS against righthanders.
That does not mean Toro was better against righthanders, it means he is quite a bit worse.
What’s Devers hitting these days?
(sorry I’m a bad person)
.152/.202/.242
That is Toro’s slashline over his last 30 games. In that time he has walked a total of 4 times in 103 PA’s. Lots of soft contact and even defensively it seems the more First Base he playes the worse he gets.
I imagine Romy and Hamilton will be getting reps at 3B because Toro was the backup to Bregman but it’s unfortunately necessary to save Cora from himself because if Toro is on the roster he’ll keep penciling his name in the lineup
It is the wrong move to drop the statistically worst baseball player in MLB since early June? He cant hit and he’s fairly atrocious at 1B… he had a couple good weeks in May and that was it.
Needed to happen. Thank you for your service earlier in the year, his heater came at a time where it was sorely needed. But the regression to the mean has been far too painful to keep enduring. Best of luck to him wherever he winds up.
That’s a crock. Regression to the mean? You brought in a soggy dog turd to replace your bull.
Great, so then we agree that the .185/.237/.269 slash line he’s posted in July and August is a lot more representative of Toro’s true skill as a batter than the .286/.333/.457 slash line with 5 HR, 16 RBI, and 114 wRC+ he posted in May and June?
Congratulations, that is an exact representation of what regression to the mean is, you dope.
Baseball is a tough business.
The scene in moneyball sums it up best. “We all get told at some point we can’t play the children’s game, some of us get told at 18, some of us get told at 30, but we all get told at some point.” That might not be perfect, but close enough.
Toro has done a great job in the situation he was given.
Really appreciated his time here. Wouldn’t be surprised at this point if he accepts an assignment to Worcester and plays the season out down there, ready to go in the event of an injury.
Oh Toro!
Thanks for the fill-in, Toro. For Lowe though?
Highlights the lack of activity at the deadline. Let’s just bring up The Password at this point. Even Campbell…
Toro did a commendable job now back to the woodshed to cut some grass. Toro toro my friend
Let’s ***** Mow!
First of all, thanks for holding down 1B for a while Toro.
But it’s been a long time coming. Hopefully a platoon of Lowe and Romy can get the job done. They now need to DFA Campbell and hope there some internal options for BP help.
DFA Campbell? I’m confused.
Isiah Campbell.
But I missed that he is no longer on the 26 man roster. Fitts replaced him.
Ah, my bad…that makes way more sense. I’m tracking now.
If I’m not mistaken they have Slaten on the 60 day DL. Campbell should be a DFA for sure once he gets activated.
Looking at the active roster, I am less sure who goes to clear a spot for him. Would love for it to be Hicks but given the money he’s owed I am not so sure it will be.
Probably yoyo Fitts or Bernardino (who I’m a huge fan of out of the pen) until the roster expansion on 9/1 – unless Slatens rehab goes quicker than that. Sounded like he’s trying to get back asap, which makes sense lol.
You look at Gonzalez’s numbers it’s such a small difference between the RHP and LHP splits:
RHP — 118PA / 27H / 2HR / 2BB / 30K
LHP — 112PA / 35H / 6HR / 9BB / 30K
everybody wants to play the percentages and platoon a player and nobody believes that hitting against both righties and lefties and getting everyday at bats makes you a better hitter.
You pigeon hole players and create their inefficiencies when you don’t let them improve, when they could have developed into complete players, and you do so for players who aren’t any better.
Makes players feel like numbers instead of ballplayers. Destroys the team in a way when you cut a guy who has worked hard and been with the team all season for some sort of potential improvement in the statistics.
Boston sucks.
This isn’t a statistics issue. Tori was on the team to fill an injury-driven hole. He held his own for a while but has been a drag on the lineup for months. Whether is lost confidence or skill deficit, he is simply not providing any offense, which they sorely need from their first basemen. At least Hamilton can run, and Lowe looks like his stroke is back. He’s a vast upgrade. I’m sure Cora and Breslow would be happy to have Toro in Worcester, but would also be happy for him if he latches on with another team. Boston treats its players no worse than any other franchise. It’s not like Toro has built his career here.
I agree with your points about Gonzalez and not wanting to pigeon hole players or overemphasize the things they are less strong or well suited for – for a game where confidence is so critical to being able to compete against elite players all over the league, you’d think there would be more care taken to avoid shrinking a player down to one or two specific strengths.
I do want to mention that Romy’s vs RHP production is heavily skewed towards Fenway (.809 OPS home vR, .472 away vR). That said, especially as Toro’s slump carried on, it was absolutely time to start feeding Romy some vs RHP starts. I do think some of the reluctance to do that is based on Romy’s history with injuries. There’s a tricky balance between more regular playing time versus overexposing a player, whether in terms of durability or production, to the point that he may not be available at all. Complaints about Refsnyder’s light usage apply here. These players are so valuable that you need to keep them as available as possible as often as possible.
Romy showed some ability to hit righties well in the minors, and it does annoy me when he’s talked about as if it’s some sort of settled finality that he’s not capable of providing any value vs RHP in MLB. I wouldn’t want to count on him for 500-600+ PA coming out of spring training, but is he someone who I’d be comfortable as the first or second guy pushed into a mostly starting role when injuries occur? Yeah, absolutely, and it’s a big plus when you’re comfortable enough with your first couple of guys on the bench to do that, instead of viewing them as totally inept and incapable of handling a larger assignment in the short or medium term.
What are you talking about?
Romy’s splits:
Lefties: .340/.389/.641 WRC+ 179
Righties: .252/.279/.408 WRC+ 82
Basically he’s a superstar against lefties and he’s below league average hitter against righties.
Gonzalez has 10 XBH in 79 home PA vs RHP as part of a .301/.329/.479 line
It’s funny how you used the BA line to hide how Lowe has 9 more HR and an extra 44 RBI vsRHP (plus 108 wRC+ vs 76 wRC+) but now your trying to hide Romy’s .340/.389/.641 line vsLHP.
Players have to put up with crap if they want to stay in the game. Just ask Crash Davis.
Now stop cherry picking stats and show his OPS vs each one. He’s has a .664 OPS vs RHP, 1.040 vs LHP. That’s why he’s a platoon player.
Not too bright, are ya kid?
You called him a “soggy dog turd” in response to my comment a little bit further up the page. Now he’s indispensable to the team’s morale who was held back and pigeonholed by the Red Sox for using him as a platoon player?
So which is it? Can’t be both. Pick a side.
Dodgers should pick him up in the short term – he’s still better than some guy named Buddy Kennedy that the Dodgers signed with a like a .017 batting average – at least until the other 5 utility players they have on the IL get better
OMG, NO! Not Hamilton AGAIN! I’m going to throw myself in front of traffic in the Callahan Tunnel.
I was never a fan. He did yeoman’s work for a while, and for that i am grateful.
But, it proves a point. For all of you who said that the analytics show the platoon of Toro and Romy are better than having a “real” first baseman. Nonsense!!! its regression to the mean, and now, below the mean.
These two guys couldnt play for the Mariners and White Sox, and so filling in on a short term basis, we got lucky.
Lets stop with this pretending we’re the Rays and put together a major league roster before game one of the season.
Breslow has screwed this 10 ways to sunday, we should be running right there witht he Jays and perhaps ahead…..
Olé!
Should of given me a a call.I can’t hit or play defense but was a 1b in Slow pitch softball for years.I would only cost the minimum.Then people could gripe i sucked too.In the grand scheme of things.Toro is much better than me and he sucks.Unfortunately,most teams unlike the dodgers form a team with a potential all star at each position.Most have weak areas.
Hamilton is no better
All for this move, but crissakes… Hamilton again? Other than being fast, he brings no value.
I wish I knew what the deal is w Grissom. He’s not being Rusney-ed, he’s played pretty ok and I would think they’d try to salvage some value out of that dumb trade. Either way, I’d much rather him or even Campbell over Ham.
It’s so frustrating to see AC pinch run w Hamilton late in the game and then leave him in to play 2B. It’s a bizarro defensive replacement. Can’t understand the thinking there. And now he’s back for a make-or-break series.
Big series…
LFG!!!!!