DaveDee

Fantastic article, Maddy. The US-Japan cultural exchange of baseball is one of sports best endeavors. Its great to see something that started in the early 1900s, with baseball's barnstorming tours of Japan, leading up to the most significant one in 1934, continue to flourish. Also, during WW2 there was some backlash to Japanese baseball on both sides, with some Americans feeling that Japan shouldn't be playing "their game," and some Japanese feeling they should be repudiating the game of the enemy as well, but there was a formal reintroduction of the game post-war, which lead to the creation of the NPB. So much history tied up in the game. Great article, informative and fun to read! Thanks for writing it.

I agree that this is all just spring training drama for the writers to fill space with. We have a bunch of good players in the infield and things change, injuries happen (mostly to Trevor Story) and there will be room for everyone. Bregman is a better defensive 3B but it's not like Devers is a butcher over there (even though he has lead the league in errors for the past three years, d'oh)...

I'll take 2022 Bregman (alas, I think 2019 Bregman no longer exists.). Obviously Trout has been injured a ton but over the course of his contract, if you look their at bWAR/162 its: Trout - 7.7 / Bregman - 5.6 I'd be thrilled it Bregman put up at 5.6 bWAR this year, and it's entirely possible playing half his games at Fenway!

He's a solid player and I'm glad he is on the roster, buuuuut how is he making more than Mike Trout? If he plays 2B he's gotta put up Rogers Hornsby numbers to justify that contract. If the Sox had spent in previous seasons they wouldn't have to overpay like this...