The Red Sox Are Already Facing a 40-man Roster Crunch

On 11/8/2025 at 10:18 AM, notin said:

Based on what?  Other than a desire to promote Sogard baselessly?  

StatCast had Hamilton in the 73rd percentile for range.  Sogard didn’t have enough data for a ranking, but reports on him indicate his arm and range are average and he is playable at SS short term.  Now an average arm is better than Hamilton (37th percentile) has, but that might be Sogard’s only defensive advantage.  I’m not quite ready to compare Sogard to Ripken after 56 innings at SS over a two year period, including all of 5 innings last year.

Offensively, MLB playing time is heavily skewed towards Hamilton.  But both players’ career minor league OPS’s were exactly .770, and nearly identical OPS and OPS+ in MLB. Switch hitter or not, offense is probably where these two are closer to equal…

Based on personal observations. Like most of us, I've watched Hamilton's shaky defense for two years in Boston.

Like only a few of us, though, I've seen Sogard in person in Worcester play solid D at second base, shortstop and third base.

Sogard's a good baseball player -- and the org obviously agrees, since he started in two of this year's playoff games. Hamilton didn't even pinch-run in the postseason. Was he injured?

1 minute ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Based on personal observations. Like most of us, I've watched Hamilton's shaky defense for two years in Boston.

Like only a few of us, though, I've seen Sogard in person in Worcester play solid D at second base, shortstop and third base.

Sogard's a good baseball player -- and the org obviously agrees, since he started in two of this year's playoff games. Hamilton didn't even pinch-run in the postseason. Was he injured?

Yes, Hamilton was injured.  He had a chronic cases of BatsLefthandeditis, which gets particularly inflamed against lefty starters like Fried and Rodon.
 

 Abreu suffers from the same ailment, which is why Eaton got the starts.  
 

No one is saying Sogard is worthless.  But even the Sox clearly think Hamilton is better.  Both players had options, but Hamilton got much more PT.  And even when Sogard saw action, they put him at 1b more than anywhere else, and when Cora needed an emergency shortstop, neither of these two were nigh on Cora’s radar.  But Sogard was even further, playing the position for only 5 innings to Hamilton’s 70.

I don’t think they go all Sox themselves are as on board with this evaluation as you are.  But hopefully the goal is to push both of them out of the lineup…

3 minutes ago, notin said:

Yes, Hamilton was injured.  He had a chronic cases of BatsLefthandeditis, which gets particularly inflamed against lefty starters like Fried and Rodon.
 

 Abreu suffers from the same ailment, which is why Eaton got the starts.  
 

No one is saying Sogard is worthless.  But even the Sox clearly think Hamilton is better.  Both players had options, but Hamilton got much more PT.  And even when Sogard saw action, they put him at 1b more than anywhere else, and when Cora needed an emergency shortstop, neither of these two were nigh on Cora’s radar.  But Sogard was even further, playing the position for only 5 innings to Hamilton’s 70.

I don’t think they go all Sox themselves are as on board with this evaluation as you are.  But hopefully the goal is to push both of them out of the lineup…

What we really need is for Brez to ignite some action this offseason, filling out his starting nine so we can all forget about the last spots on 26, and the 40. 

6 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

What we really need is for Brez to ignite some action this offseason, filling out his starting nine so we can all forget about the last spots on 26, and the 40. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if we had just spent more time on Hamilton vs Sogard than Breslow spends all off-season.

As for igniting the off-season, the real fun doesn’t even get going for a month and doesn’t peak for another month.  And with free agents, the onus is on the player in many (most?) cases, so it’s harder to control the outcome…

1 hour ago, notin said:

Yes, Hamilton was injured.  He had a chronic cases of BatsLefthandeditis, which gets particularly inflamed against lefty starters like Fried and Rodon.

.618 vs RHPs is not too healthy.

1 hour ago, notin said:

 Abreu suffers from the same ailment, which is why Eaton got the starts.  

Abreu is now better vs LHPs than Duran. Let's see how that pans out.

If we don't bring Ref back, maybe Abreu plays FT. (I doubt we use Garcia or Campbell as strict short side platoon players.)

IMO, Duran will be traded and Abreu becomes a FT player. If Ref comes back, he may share platoon with Masa at DH and Abreu or  Duran (or both).

1 hour ago, notin said:

No one is saying Sogard is worthless.  But even the Sox clearly think Hamilton is better.  Both players had options, but Hamilton got much more PT.  And even when Sogard saw action, they put him at 1b more than anywhere else, and when Cora needed an emergency shortstop, neither of these two were nigh on Cora’s radar.  But Sogard was even further, playing the position for only 5 innings to Hamilton’s 70.

I think Cora likes DHam more than Sogard, and that may matter more than anything. Story's improved health probably kept of from seeing who Cora prefers at SS as the back-up, and since DHam was on the 26 man roster more than others, of course he played more innings at certain positions than Sogard and Eaton.

The wildcard is now Romy. He advanced himself mightily in 2025 and has to be viewed as the first back-up at several positions, even if he's not as good on D at most. The first base play may have warped the numbers at 2B, SS and 3B, which could change in 2026, if we have an actually FT 1Bman. Romy started 41 games at 1B and was second in innings (368) to Toro. Sogard had 94 innings at 1B, and it's not clear he'd have played somewhere else in those games, if he was not needed at 1B. With Romy, I think he'd have played 2B, DH or somewhere else, if he wasn't at 1B.

1B: 509 Toro, 368 Romy, 241 Lowe, 235 Casas, 94 Sogard (ZERO from Devers)

2B: 472 Campbell, 402 DHam, 288 Romy, 165 Rafaela, 65 Sogard, 57 Mayer

Since Romy bats RH'd, he would not have played 2B much vs RHPs, because Cora likes DHam vs RHPs, despite his poor 2025 numbers vs righties (.618,) but he may have played more innings at 2B, if not needed at 1B.

It's interesting that Romy only started 1 game at 3B, despite Bregman's injury. DHam played 1 inning at 3B.

3B: 972 Bregman, 249 Mayer, 102 Toro (Romy played 1B when Toro was at 3B many times) 73 Eaton (same 10 GS as Toro) 39 Sogard, 12 Romy, 1 DHam

Cora seems to be okay playing DHam at SS, while many of us cringe at the idea. He blew other back-ups away in innings at SS in 2025 and previous years, too- except for Kike & Rafaela in specific seasons, for obvious reasons.

SS: 1371 Story, 69 DHam, 5 Sogard, 3 Mayer

I think it safe to say that Romy will be the primary infield utility player in 2026, and he will almost certainly have a platoon role at DH, 1B or 2B, depending on who we add, next year. The second guy will likely be DHam, but I'd be fine with the switch hitting Sogard over the LHB DHam. Since Eaton can play OF, and we will likely not have Campbell or Garcia on the 26 to platoon rather than play FT in AAA, maybe he beats out  Sogard. (If Ref comes back, I think we take Sogard over Eaton, but still DHam is #2.)

9 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

Hamilton is due a bounce back year! Maybe we hang onto him in 2026 and hope for that bounce back year! Of course, hope is never a good strategy 
 

sogard has that underdog mentality and clutch hit gene! Everybody likes a good underdog! 
 

conclusion: I think Hamilton is perfect for the Atlanta braves as part of a trade package for chris frail sale!!!  

DHam had a half a season of good play. I'm not sure we say he's "due"...

I do think other teams might see him as a starter, but they are the cellar dwellers and low budget teams. They won't give up much to get him.