With Alex Bregman Gone, More Pressure Will Be Thrust Onto Marcelo Mayer

[Nick John]

With Alex Bregman signing a five-year, $175 million contract with the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Red Sox are now in an unenviable situation. The third base position is completely unsettled, just one year after it appeared the team had two franchise-caliber options (Bregman and Rafael Devers) at the position. Now, they'll likely have to entrust the future to an unproven youngster. That latter qualification is especially applicable when it comes to their former top prospect, Marcelo Mayer.

Mayer, who was originally drafted as a shortstop and viewed as the heir apparent to the position, has been blocked there due to a combination of Trevor Story along with his own health issues. Making his major-league debut in 2025, Mayer played the majority of his games at third base when Bregman was out with a quad injury.

In total, Mayer appeared in 44 games with the Boston Red Sox in his rookie season, 39 of them involving an appearance at third base. And despite playing the position just six times prior to the promotion, Mayer played well enough defensively to hold down the position until Bregman’s eventual return from the injured list — he made only made one error in 68 opportunities. Add to it that his fielding run value was 2.0 while his total defensive run value was 3.0, and you have some concrete proof that Mayer took to the position rather well.

There is no denying that losing Bregman will be a big blow to the team, from both a leadership standpoint along with his bat. However, Mayer should be able to handle picking up the slack on the defensive end. He had always been viewed as an above-average defender and that much was shown in 2025. Where the team will be asking for Mayer to truly step up will be on the offensive end.

The infielder will be entering his age-23 season and what will likely be his first full season in the majors. What will be a detriment for Mayer will be his injury history that limited his development in the minors. Since being drafted in 2021, Mayer appeared in 315 games across five minor league seasons, including a career-high 91 games in 2022. Besides a rough stretch in 2023 with Portland where he slashed .189/.254/.355, which was due in part to trying to play through an injury, Mayer has looked good at the plate. However, his missed development time was on display while facing major-league pitching while with Boston.

In his time with the Red Sox last season, Mayer slashed .228/.272/.402 with eight doubles, a triple, four home runs and 10 RBIs. He also struck out 41 times while walking just eight times; overall Mayer walked at a 5.9% rate while striking out in 30.1% of his plate appearances. Taking his age into consideration, Mayer has plenty of room to improve upon those numbers. And for the Red Sox to play well, he’ll have to. Of course, it could be argued that once Mayer was finally getting used to the quality of pitching in the majors, his injury occurred. In the month of July, he was beginning to heat up, as he slashed .244/.277/.333 with four doubles and three RBIs.

The Red Sox will need Mayer to step up into a prominent role this year, perhaps more than anyone thought at the onset of the offseason. But after losing Bregman, the team may look to hand the long-term keys to the hot corner to their budding young star.

Mayer, who has performed well at every stop in his minor-league career and has rebounded from struggles, will need to build off of his shortened rookie season and make a leap at the plate. Defensively, he has shown he is more than capable, but now it’s time for his offensive potential to be consistent. It's a lot to ask of a player with such limited time in the pros, but losing two franchise superstars at one position in such a short time is almost impossible to recover from. Mayer is the Red Sox's best chance at somehow escaping that debacle unscathed.

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[harmony]

FanGraphs projects Marcelo Mayer with 1.8 WAR and a wRC+ of 96 in 122 games this year after Mayer posted 0.4 WAR and a wRC+ of 80 in 44 games last year.

Mayer is projected to walk in 7.3 percent and strike out in 22.7 percent of 525 plate appearances this year after walking in 5.9 percent and striking out in 30.7 percent of 136 plate appearances last year.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/marcelo-mayer/29668/stats/batting

 

[TedYazPapiMookie]

For me, we still have a monster hole at 3B because Mayer isn't the answer now or long-term! Look at the fielding percentages of each season in the minors you see a weak to average fielder at SS.  Yes, he did well in a very, very small sample in the majors and while the vast majority of baseball neophytes on this website think small samples are very telling, they are simply wrong based on over 100 years of baseball history.  You guys loved Will Middlebrooks and hated Bogaerts when he struggled his rookie year playing 3B.  The history of predicting defensive skills by Red Sox fans is atrocious.  You are the same fools who kept talking about Devers getting better.  

So, lets deal in reality.  Below average defense for several years and then a small sample of good defense DOES NOT project to a good defender let alone an excellent defender, it points to a sketchy fielder with a consistent history of getting hurt and a known injury he is healing from that reduces one's offensive skills and is highly susceptible to recurring issues with the wrist.  Nope Mayer is not the 3B solution.  Boston needs to get the other Suarez (Eugenio) for 3B.  His fielding would be comparable to Mayer but he won't get hurt as much and he's a better hitter.

Those facts push Mayer to 2B where once again he had success in a very, very small sample in 2025 at the MLB level but his history of average defense from the minors still looms large in predicting his future at 2B.  The addition of Suarez (Ranger) the pitcher makes Boston close to a contender so the additions of both Suarez the 3B and Marte at 2B would be a power move to overtake the Yankees, Toronto and Baltimore.  It's something the Dodgers would do and in fact just did when they acquired Bellinger and Tucker.  Can ownership afford both Suarez and Marte?  Absolutely!!  Will they spend the money to go for it?  Absolutely NOT.  Do they have a manager that can be smart and overcome the disadvantages?  NOPE.  They have one of the dumbest managers in baseball who also lacks integrity so unless he figures a new way to cheat, he's only going to hurt the Red Sox chances of winning anything.

In summary, Mayer isn't the answer but Suarez is and he is theoretically within the budget.  Marte is outside the budget but would be a piece that would give them a chance of winning the division but it's not going to happen.  The Mayer situation is what happens when a daft GM drafts the wrong guy at the 4th spot in a draft and must over-hype him to not look foolish.  

Just as a reminder here are the top picks in the draft Bloom completely blew:

1 - PIT - Henry Davis - A bust

2- TX - Jack Leiter - Slow start but bright future

3 - DET - Jackson Jobe - Slow start but bright future

4 - BOS - Marcelo Mayer - Incredibly slow start and injury prone

5 - BAL - Colton Cowser - Great pick doing very well with bright future

6 - ARI - Jordan Lawler - Very slow start but showing signs of reaching his potential

7 - KC - Frank Mozzicato - BUST

8 - COL - Benny Montgomery - BUST

9 - LAA - Sam Bachman - BUST

10 - NYM - Kumar Rocker - Slow start but bright future

11 - WAS - Brady House - Slow start but bright future

12 - SEA - Harry Ford - BUST

13 - PHI - Andrew Painter - Slow start with injuries but huge upside

14 - SF - Wil Bednar - Already an excellent closer

15 - MIL - Sal Frelick - Moments of greatness already but not consistent yet

16 - MIA - Khalil Watson - Ahead of all SSs taken ahead of him.  Excellent choice.

17 - CIN - Matt McLain - Another SS better than Mayer who is an establish MLB talent

Clearly, Bloom blew it and I haven't showed you others he missed on not just in this round but in later rounds!!!

Round 1 - Jackson Merrill pick 27th to SD

Round 2 - Connor Norby pick 41 right after Boston, Andrew Abbott CIN pick 53 Spencer Swellenbach ATL pick 59 Zack Gelop OAK pick 60 JAMES WOOD SD pick 62 and finally Kyle Manzardo TB pick 63.

Round 3 - Mason Miller

Round 4 - Hunter Goodman

Round 5 - Tanner Bibbee

Round 6 - Bryan Woo

This draft was loaded with talent and we got:

Mayer - Borderline Bust

Jud Fabian - Bust

Then nothing until Hunter Dobbins in the 8th round and he pitched well before being traded for an aging catcher turned 1B in his fourth year of decline and 34 years old!!

These facts establish many of the reasons this team is still shaky after 5 years to recover from firing Dombrowski and watching Cora screw-up the daily line-up, the morale of the team, the pitching rotation and the in-game pitching substitutions.  All the screw-ups and yet some fans remain loyal to the biggest cheater in baseball history based on him cheating more than his two cohorts in Houston when he came to Boston and installed the media room cheating that never got fully investigated thanks to the commissioner and the Player Union. 

Boston needs to clean its house of Cora and give Breslow the freedom of payroll to get the skills needed to WIN the division.  

[harmony]

On 1/16/2026 at 3:42 PM, TedYazPapiMookie said:

12 - SEA - Harry Ford - BUST

Harry Ford is the 42nd-ranked prospect at MLB.com after posting a .283/.408/.460/.868 line as a 22-year-old catcher last year at Triple A (4.8 years younger than the league's average age).

 

[mvp 78]

On 1/16/2026 at 6:42 PM, TedYazPapiMookie said:

4 - BOS - Marcelo Mayer - Incredibly slow start and injury prone

6 - ARI - Jordan Lawler - Very slow start but showing signs of reaching his potential

Mayer 359 professional games

Lawlar 335 professional games

Mayer 674 OPS MLB '25

Lawlar 545 OPS MLB '25

Mayer above average defensive player on the left side of the IF

Lawlar needs to be moved out of the IF because of his defense

[drewski6]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Mayer 359 professional games

Lawlar 335 professional games

Mayer 674 OPS MLB '25

Lawlar 545 OPS MLB '25

Mayer above average defensive player on the left side of the IF

Lawlar needs to be moved out of the IF because of his defense

Jerry the King, Jordan is not

[TedYazPapiMookie]

15 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Mayer 359 professional games

Lawlar 335 professional games

Mayer 674 OPS MLB '25

Lawlar 545 OPS MLB '25

Mayer above average defensive player on the left side of the IF

Lawlar needs to be moved out of the IF because of his defense

Your games total doesn't reflect the time Lawlar played in the winter leagues.  Mayer is a pompous ass who thinks he's above working out in the winter leagues to improve his game.  That's a character issue in my book.  Some call it silver spoon syndrome.

They have played 44 vs 42 MLB games.  Hardly enough to evaluate them.  Lawlar played well enough in the minors to play at the MLB level in 2023.  Another sign of a guy progressing faster in the minors.  

Neither player is a good defender.  Lawler had a .944 FPCT at SS in the minors and a .957 FPCT in 10 starts at SS in the MLB.  Mayer had a .953 FPCT at SS in the minors and NO STARTS at SS in the MLB but got in 2 games with two plays and he errored on 1 of them.  For me, that's too little to draw conclusions at the MLB level.

My review of these two players you chose to point out was spot on as always.

4 - BOS - Marcelo Mayer - Incredibly slow start and injury prone.  100% accurate

6 - ARI - Jordan Lawler - Very slow start but showing signs of reaching his potential.

 

Since you chose OPS, let's compare the two with that stat in the minors:

Lawler at RK - .901, A - 1.051, Hi-A - .862, AA - .798 and AAA - .990

Mayer at RK - .817, A - .910, Hi-A - .865, AA - .763 and AAA - .818 

I'm not terribly impressed by either since they were top 6 picks in the draft.  Mayer went earlier and did less but not a lot less so he got labeled with "incredibly slow start" and Lawler got "very slow start" for being slightly better but not good.  Lawler also came up 2 years earlier to the MLB then got sent down and came back and raised his OPS significantly the second time around but it's still too small of a sample.  I didn't say he was going to reach his potential I simply pointed out he was showing signs of reaching it by improving from one appearance at the MLB level to his second appearance at the MLB level. 

As usual, I was spot on and you failed to make a valid point.  The bigger question is the same as always: 

Why try to point out a small insignificant number as if you are some sort of expert.  You aren't.  You may be a Mayer fan, but I didn't say anything that wasn't true to argue about.  Your comments were an unsolicited inaccurate critique because it came from me.  And once again, you look like a fool for making it.  There is no virtue in trying to pick apart minute details in a comment.  Most people find it offensive.