Article: Nathaniel Lowe is the Exact Kind of Mess the Red Sox Can Afford to Fix

[Brandon Glick]

Nathaniel Lowe has arrived in Boston, and the Red Sox, despite completely ignoring the position at the trade deadline, have landed their first baseman for the postseason push.

Let's get the bad out of the way up top. Lowe, 30, is suffering through the worst season of his career by most notable metrics, hence why the Nationals released him via waivers after being unable to find a taker at the deadline. Lowe's 86 wRC+ is the worst he's ever produced by a country mile (he's never been below 100 in a season before), and the same is true of his .665 OPS and .293 wOBA. And, after winning a Gold Glove just two years ago, he's slipped back into being a poor defender (-5 Outs Above Average and -5 Defensive Runs Saved).

At this point you're probably wondering how exactly Lowe is an "upgrade" at first base. Sure, Abraham Toro has been his own brand of dumpster fire recently (.538 OPS, 43 wRC+ since the All-Star break), but replacing a train wreck with a car wreck does not a good team make. First base has been a sore spot all season—especially since Triston Casas went down for the count, but even he was struggling before his season-ending knee injury—and Lowe, despite his World Series and Silver Slugger credentials, hardly qualifies as the kind of "big swing" fans were hoping for leading up to July 31.

First, I need to give credit to our @Jordan Leandre who very accurately predicted a Sox-Lowe union once the Nationals officially made the cold corner slugger available. Jordan accurately pointed out that Lowe continues to hit right-handed pitching well (.732 OPS, 104 wRC+), and it just so happens that the Red Sox have two of the best southpaw-crushers in the business in Rob Refsnyder and Romy Gonzalez. Let Lowe wreak havoc in the strong side of a platoon while covering for his weakness against left-handed pitchers (.516 OPS, 45 wRC+) with one of those two, and you're golden. Simple, right?

Well, sort of. Lowe has only been league average against righties this year (101 sOPS+), and he's still striking out against them an uncomfortable amount of the time (24.6%) for someone whose sole job it will be to hit against them. Lowe's walk and strikeout rates are both down this year, brought on by a 3.6% jump in his whiff rate. He's swinging more often than he has in years past, despite the fact that his swing rate on first pitches (of a plate appearance) is down by 5.0% from last year.

So, what can the Red Sox do to sort him out? The obvious answer is to preach patience—Lowe's chase rate is up to 24.1%, a sizable jump from his career-best season in 2023 (20.8%). That alone could restore him to his former high-floor form, though it won't fix the biggest issue in his profile. The first baseman's bat speed is down a whole 1.4 mph from 2023, from 74.1 mph to 72.7. In other words, Lowe has gone from swinging as fast (on average) as 2025 Wilyer Abreu to 2025 Paul Goldschmidt.

Thus, you may not be surprised to learn that his performance against fastballs (.355 slugging percentage, .314 wOBA) is way down from his 2023 peak (.470 slug, .391 wOBA). He's whiffing on the pitch 5.4% more of the time over that span (and 6.5% more often than he did in 2024), and pitchers are peppering him with four-seamers as a result (38.1% usage). There's not much the team can do to literally propel his bat faster through space, but there are changes they can introduce to his approach to help offset this new weakness. Encouraging faster swing decisions could also solve a longstanding problem of Lowe's, that being his relative inability to pull the ball in the air. Yes, his all-fields approach should pay dividends in Fenway Park, but as he ages, he'll need to pull the ball more often in order to access his 25-homer power.

Given the brevity of time the Red Sox will have to work with Lowe—the six remaining weeks in the regular season, and then however long the team lasts in October—more major changes would have to wait for the offseason, and that's only if Boston enjoys its fling with him enough to re-sign him. As it stands now, Lowe is a solid platoon partner at first base for Romy Gonzalez and a certain upgrade over Abraham Toro. With a few tweaks, he could be the missing piece of the puzzle in the Red Sox's lineup.

View full article