The Red Sox Infield Defense Is About To Get Much Better

I should mention up front that I’m writing this on Thursday morning. I have no idea how this afternoon’s game will have gone by the time you’re reading this on Friday. This article could look embarrassing if the infield makes nine errors today. That said, we’ve known for some time now what the Opening Day Red Sox lineup would look like. And even if we weren’t sure, manager Alex Cora spelled it out earlier this week during an interview on WEEI. “Alex is going to play third,” he said. “Raffy’s going to DH. We are in the winning business. He understands that.” What business does that put Masataka Yoshida in? The answer is very unclear, as Alex Mayes will explain later this morning. However, aside from that question, we now have have a bunch of information about what the team will look like this season. I'll break down the offense on Monday, but today I’m going to break down what the now settled lineup means on defense. Here's your headline:

The Infield Defense Will Be Much Better
I think we should expect Kristian Campbell to have some growing pains at the major league level, especially on defense. He hasn’t played that many minor league games, and bounced around the diamond during spring training. It will take a while for him to get his feet under him, and in the meantime, we should be prepared for some ugly defensive plays. That seemed to be the case during Thursday's season opener, when he made a couple routine plays, but also got eaten up by a dying line drive. That said, it’s hard to imagine that his glove will be worse than what the Red Sox ran out at second base last season. According to Statcast’s Fielding Run Value, David Hamilton was the only Red Sox defender actually saved the team runs in 2024. Enmanuel Valdez spent the most time at second, and Vaughn Grissom spent the third-most, and both put up terrible numbers miserable. In all, the Red Sox graded out at -7 runs, second-worst among all teams. Even if Campbell is just a bit below average at second, that will constitute a big improvement.

Obviously the really big improvement will come at third base, where the team has swapped in Alex Bregman’s Gold Glove for Rafael Devers’ cement one. Last year, Bregman put up 5 FRV, while Devers put up -5. In other words, the Red Sox just saved themselves 10 runs at third base, which equates to roughly one win. Even if Bregman’s defense comes back down to earth a bit, we’re talking about a huge gain. If you look at Defensive Runs Saved, another leading metric, the gap is even bigger.

Lastly, the team should have Trevor Story around all season (barring yet another injury). Story’s defense has graded out as excellent over the last two seasons, but he racked up all that value over a short sample size. I don’t think we can bank on his continued excellence at the position, but I do think we can feel confident that he’ll be solid, maybe even solidly above average out there. The Red Sox ranked 28th with -6 FRV at shortstop last season. Even if he’s just a league-average shortstop, Story just saved the team a bit more than half a win.

If we put all that together, I think we can conservatively estimate that the Red Sox will be saving roughly five runs at all three infield spots, which translates to a win and a half. There’s even more upside too. If Campbell acclimates quickly, if Story stays healthy and productive, if Devers shows that last season wasn’t a fluke, and if Triston Casas stabilizes a first base situation that ranked 20th last year, we could be talking about an even bigger improvement, and every run will count in a division as competitive as the AL East.