TedYazPapiMookie

Great job Breslow!!!

Brandon, thanks for the background piece it goes a long way to explaining the perspectives of the very junior staff of writers. I've struggled to understand why so many articles are presented that don't really have a significant topic. As writers learning their art, these youngsters now make much more sense to me and as such I realized how much they don't yet know and why they get offended when someone points it out. Since the 90s I've dedicated much of my post playing time to teaching young players the game and for me I could tell which players took the game seriously and respected it and those who simply had talent and wanted recognition. I'm not sure this site is a good one for me because it's less about baseball and the history of the game and more like a fraternity with hazing, cyber bullying and alpha males who have no idea what they don't know about the game. I've enjoyed your articles, and I will keep an eye out for your articles to read. Good luck and congrats on the one year success.

Like metrics, your estimate of Cora's decision is pure speculation.

I agree being in the MLB would be good for him. Having played at many different levels I have some insight into what it's like when things are going well with a coach who supports you and when things don't go as well playing for a coach who doesn't support you. I believe Cora is a source of a lot of stress for several of the prospects and has been since he arrived. My earliest example dates back to when Mookie was his inherited superstar in 2018 and how he chose to rest him far more than he wanted to, just like JD Martinez. Cora took a very mediocre player who Dombrowski signed mid-season named Steve Pearce and injected him into JD's number 3 hole. It was obvious immediately that it impacted JD's rituals and confidence. There was no need for it but the first week he did it against the NYY Pearce came up in many situations that JD had been excelling in throughout the summer and got the glory for beating the Yankees during a single series. JD was hitting .330 with power and a ton of doubles and Pearce was no better than a journeyman with an unsensational career. Cora impacted a veteran's psyche with his move and Mookie pulled away and won the MVP. The following season BOS opened in Asia and then went on a long West Coast trip after they won the WS the previous year. Cora told the pitchers to show up 2 weeks later than usual for Spring Training because they pitched into November. It was a ridiculous idea but typical of an inexperienced manager. Then to add further stress in the ranks, for no logical reason, Cora started Benny as the leadoff hitter and moved Mookie to the 2-hole. As usual, it made no sense but Cora likes to experiment so he can take credit, and it backfired like most of his moves. After several games they switched back to try to stop the tremendous skid the team was going through. The SPs were all struggling, especially Sale and Price due to the short Spring Training. Eovaldi got hurt and the starters were NOT ready to go more than 5 innings, so the bullpen got worn out in April. You could see the pitcher's stress due to the lack of preparation, the star players stress from the lack of performance due to the Cora change and the fan frustration for all the managerial mistakes. Fast forward to Duran arriving in the MLB and being rewarded with hitting lead-off initially. He played really well and suddenly he got jerked from the lead-off spot for no apparent reason and Duran's psyche was impacted as he admitted in the Netflix story about the Red Sox. It took him over a year to return to the MLB after being completely deflated by Cora's actions. Enter Rafaela the next year. He goes down nearly an identical path to Duran's. He makes the MLB and bats lead-off and does well and out of the clear blue gets moved to 7th in the order and has NEVER been returned to where he was most comfortable hitting. Add to it the fact that Cora treated him more like a utility player like he did Duran rather than a top prospect. Once again there is failure prompted by the actions of the manager for a second year in a row. Rafaela is still waiting to be treated with respect from Cora but at least the fans are showing to him for the most part thanks to all his dramatic catches. Now it's Campbell's turn to receive the Cora three-peat. Campbell hit better than both Duran and Rafaela to begin his career after winning Minor League Player of the Year. He carried a .400 average for a couple of weeks and finished the first month over .300 and batting in the top of the order. Then, Cora pulls a Cora (synonymous with mistake in our house). He once again moves Campbell this time down to the bottom of the order and the wheels fall off with respect to his hitting and he's being pushed aside from his recently learned 2B position so he can learn 1B. (Utility player like the other two) So how much does the support of your manager matter? Anthony while batting below .100 hit in the third spot in the order, a massive sign of support from Cora. Even Mayer got to stay in a better part of the order while he was severely struggling. But Duran, Rafaela and now Chapman didn't have that support and went down almost identical trails. I fully expect Campbell to bounce back like Duran and have success and maybe make the all-star team in a year. Rafaela is all-ready an all-star who should be batting in the top of the order and be receiving the Anthony type team support that I'm sure he'll never receive until Cora is gone. The moral of the story is finding a manager who is unbiased in his treatment of prospects and players and having him provide support to all his players not just a select few needs to be the goal of the Red Sox, especially Breslow. Campbell can make it back just like Duran and Rafaela did, but wouldn't it be nice if he finally got the respect from his MLB manager for all he has accomplished in the Red Sox organization in just two short seasons?

Brandon, it will be fun to revisit this information at the end of the season. There are so many factors that go into the success of a player at the plate it's often hard to isolate one that is a guaranteed method for success. For first pitch success, one philosophy is to build a tunnel for where you are expecting to see the ball and decide which type of pitch you are going to hunt in that tunnel. When you see numbers like Anthony's it sure seems like he's using this fairly common approach during each at bat. So why did he fail so badly at the start of the season. I believe his timing was off and he had to make adjustments to slow the game down but to continue to stick to his approach in each count. Once the timing got corrected, he started contacting the first pitch like he did his whole career. Whoever worked with him to define a hitting philosophy created guidelines for what to do in each count and all he has to do is effectively execute it. Sometimes the pitcher makes an exceptional pitch, and you fail, sometimes he guesses correctly, and his athleticism launches a rocket shot and sometimes the philosophy allows him to adjust, make contacts and possibly get a hit despite being fooled. Once he establishes his pattern, the book on him will grow and he'll need to adjust to how the other teams plan on getting him out. We saw Campbell have great success like Anthony is having now and then we saw the book on him eat him up. Whatever his process is to make adjustments, the success of it will define the amount of continued success he'll have. Will he be a consistent hitter like Mookie, a streaky hitter like Devers, a process driven hitter like JD Martinez? Anthony hasn't played enough to know what his future holds but we all can see he's very talented like Campbell, Rafaela and Duran. Let's hope Campbell has gotten some help identifying what the opponents found in his hitting and has made the appropriate adjustments to correct the issue or issues. BOS could use his bat and defense as we approach Sept and the playoffs. Excellent article.

Anthony has a beautiful swing like Griffey did but now that he's gotten past his initial hitting failure, we need to see what happens the next time he struggles and has some adversity at hitting. That's when the coaches start tinkering and let's hope they don't with Anthony. Bregman's swing isn't as rounded Anthony's swing so any coincidental alignment in performance stats for a guy who has played 60 games isn't really relevant. The sample size is too small. The swing doesn't look similar. Not much to agree with in the article.

I've heard of teams who consider the third catcher to be what you described but I've not heard of any team using anything but a full-time catcher as the back-up. Since catchers usually get a game off each week the #2 catcher gets to play more than the other reserves usually do. Cora is the exception. He completely over plays the 4 players on the bench because he identifies with them since he was a bench guy during his career. Some teams have super utility guys that can play outfield and infield which allows them to keep a platoon hitter on the roster. TB always comes to mind when I think of a team with a philosophy of having lots of interchangeable players and that lends itself to a platoon guy as well. If you go into Abreu's stats on Baseball Reference and choose SPLITS CAREER you'll see how incredibly bad, he is against LH pitchers, how incredibly inconsistent his performance has been month by month during the six-month season. He gets hot and cold for long periods which is great when he's hot but kills the team when he goes into his prolonged slumps. Lastly with regard to Abreu he gets the YIPS when he runs toward the fence at full speed but none of that downside is taken into account by the modern defensive metrics. Harper as a young player had his hair on fire and crashed into the outfield fences all the time because he was an extremely competitive player like we have discussed. You won't catch Abreu putting that level of effort into a play, but you will see both Rafaela and Duran make that level of effort. So, for me, I will never accept modern defensive metrics because they don't reflect level of effort because they don't measure heart, just distance to the ball, route run and the appalling fact is that catching the ball is NOT the primary factor in the bogus DRS calculations. Until someone figures out how to properly evaluate defensive metrics, I'm sticking with the single most critical factor - Did they catch the ball. A player with the YIPS can win a gold glove and the player who NEVER misses a ball is passed over by a faulty measurement system. That's why I consider Abreu as the weakest defensive outfielder on the team. Nobody is giving great weight to HEART, just distance with the metrics and catching the ball isn't the highest priority. If you want to confirm my issues with Abreu, go to the video on balls hit over his head where he turns counterclockwise and runs fast toward the fence in right field. You'll notice he struggles to catch those balls because his technique is wrong when he reaches out to his left. He temporarily loses sight of the ball because his right arm passes between his eyes and the ball, so he loses sight of the ball as it approaches his glove causing him to reach to the wrong spot and miss the ball. Often, the catch is considered difficult so the score keeper chooses to not give him an error on a ball he should have caught. He still leads all outfielders in errors usually, but it would be worse if scorekeepers had a clue about WHY he's missing routine balls. If I had a choice among Rafaela, Duran, Anthony, Abreu, Refsnyder and Garcia, I would choose in order, Anthony for his hitting, Rafaela and Duran for their all around contributions, Refsnyder for his ability to hit RH and LH batters equally, Garcia because he doesn't have Abreu's weakness for a specific type of pitcher and then Abreu due to his inability to hit LH pitchers and his YIPS. I want a player with heart.

I love Duran's spirit too. I agree that a platoon can be effective but with Duran, Rafaela and Anthony all superior to the platoon there aren't enough spots to use a platoon, and the added power is being compared to several young players who will develop more power including Anthony, Rafaela and Campbell. If you can solve the issue with using 2 hitting spots for one position, then Abreu becomes more tolerable, but the 13 spots as a given the platoon option is not in the best interest of the team. The team needs a reserve catcher, CI, MI and OF. By changing that to a catcher, 2 OFers, and 1 IF your run a much higher in game risk for injuries. Again, love the high intensity of Duran and agree that we need that.

Agreed. There is no urgent need at this time to move Abreu because his price is low, and he should be providing depth not starting. The problem mounts if Garcia turns out to be better than expected because the 13-hitter portion of the 26-man roster leaves room for 3 outfielders starting and 1 in reserve. Abreu already creates an issue because he is no good versus LH pitchers so he's the equivalent of a half a player which means you need a Refsnyder to offset him pushing the outfield total to 5 which shortchanges your infield and catcher reserves. With only 4 total non-starters and one needing to be a catcher that leaves 1 spot for corner infield reserve, one spot for middle infield reserve and one spot for outfield reserve. With Abreu platooning forcing Refsnyder to couple with him that leaves just 2 spots to handle back-up catcher and back-up CI and MI. The team is forced to be exposed with Abreu on the roster because he can't hit lefties. This is why I have been harping on moving Abreu not the better player Duran, it allows for more depth in reserve in the infield where injuries tend to happen more often. These are all things the front office and Cora should be considering. Instead, like they did with Devers, they are focusing on what's good for just one guy, Abreu. The team defense improves with Rafaela in RF and Duran in CF and Anthony in LF AND they offense is better as well. This should be a no brainer. Platoon players have been parts of 13 hitter rosters in the past but teams like TB used coupled players that could bridge the gap between backing up the infield and outfield. That's why it worked for them but won't work for BOS. Abreu's qualified positions don't include the infield.

Brandon, entertaining article. It should be fun to see if the Password can start out on fire like Campbell did. Roman took quite a while to adjust so if the Password's path resembles his then the season will be over before things click. Let's hope he doesn't resemble Mayer who never clicked his season. I was surprised you put Duran behind the platoon hitting Abreu. All Cora has to do is put Rafaela in RF and Duran in CF and BOS would never have to worry about forcing a square peg in a round hole with Abreu. He can be trade bait; he can DH despite Yoshida being the better all-around hitter or he can be a late inning bat which best fits his skill set. There is a valid reason Duran would bring more in a trade; he's the far more complete player with many skills Abreu doesn't have. Abreu is a sold defender with a good arm that can't hit lefties. Duran is an exceptionally fast defender who can cover more ground than Abreu, bat leadoff to set the table for the offense and is a much better hitter that steals bases. It makes sense he would get more in a trade, but the important question is "Who in their right mind trades a top player to get better?" That's the type of logic that sent Mookie to LAD, Priester to MIL, Sale to ATL. Abreu needs to go to stop Cora from making daily mistakes with his line-up card.

Rooting for a .178 hitter to get the bat going again begs the question, when was it ever going? He plays thanks to Cora. He's never earned a minute of playing time. He's a base stealer who gets picked off due to a short attention span. He can't steal first base, so he belongs in the minors his whole career. Rafaela Duran and Anthony should be playing RF, CF and LF respectively. Cora needs to bring placeholders to the ballpark like he did in the old days when Devers. He basically set up human "orange cones" around 3B when Devers couldn't play so everyone knew it was his spot despite Devers' complete inability to play it. Dalbec wasn't allowed to play 3B despite being second on the depth chart, Cora used slugs so nobody would see what good baseball fans saw, Devers couldn't handle defense at 3B. Now Mayer has the same deal going with Cora, so he continues to put out his human "orange cones" in an attempt to reserve the injury prone Mayer a spot in the infield. Hamilton hitting .178, Toto hitting .171 in the second half, Gonzalez hitting .233 in the second half, they are all orange cones ensuring nobody better than Mayer plays 2B. Heck, I expect Cora to use Sogard who has played 8 games at 2B to be in the mix or Eaton who hasn't played there at all. This behavior perfectly mimics what he did for Devers. Think about how many wins that cost Boston over the years!!! Why would Cora do this? The answer is obvious. To keep Campbell from returning and getting hot like he was before Cora dropped him in the order. Cora would risk eliminating Mayer's current future spot in 2026 if Campbell flourishes like he did in 2024. Campbell has been a fly in the ointment for the Red Sox manager. Campbell came out of nowhere to be a better prospect than Mayer and now he has to deal with how he can treat him to create setbacks like he did for Duran and Rafaela in past years. Thus, Cora is setting up human orange cones at 2B with ridiculous alternatives like a .178 Hamilton when Campbell is available. If this sounds too devious consider a guy setting up fans in the outfield to relay signals to the dugout to bang a drum to cheat for the hitter. This is relatively simple divisive tactics in comparison. Abreu has a similar deal with Cora. It's obvious to even the lesser knowledgeable fans that Rafaela is by FAR the best RF on the roster and that makes Duran the best CF on the roster behind Rafaela and that leaves Anthony in LF. By NEVER using Rafaela in RF the obvious is never observed by the short-sighted fans that think CF should be Rafaela's position despite RF being the more difficult position in Fenway so Cora can orange cone RF for Abreu who as a platoon hitter should never have climbed above a 4th outfielder status. Now that Abreu is out, I am willing to bet Cora still won't go to the obvious configuration with Anthony in LF, Duran in CF and Rafaela in RF. It's too logical and it leaves no place for his favorite platoon hitting lefty that has yet to put back-to-back quality months of hitting together throughout his 3 seasons in the MLB. Inconsistency, a lack of ability at hitting LH pitchers and the guy still gets opportunities to be the starter in RF where Rafaela far exceeds him. The bias never ends with Cora. All we can do is root for his hap-hazard line-ups to do him in like in years past so Breslow has grounds to fire him and we can bring a REAL manager to BOS; one chosen by Breslow to lead the team in 2026.

When a player is evaluated, the team should look at all their attributes. Rafaela at 17 was added as an international player and played in the DOSL in his first season. His .271 average and .706 OPS was adequate for a 17 yr old player. His walk rate was .055 which is roughly average. He stole 19 bases in 26 attempts so he had good speed. He K'd 39 times in 203 at bats (19%). He played 44 games at 3B and 11 at SS in 2018 his first season. His fielding % at 3B was .957 and SS was .952 (very similar to Mayer when he broke in at an older age). Rafaela in 2018 was under the tutelage of the Red Sox organization. He is a product of THEIR development. He had tons of raw talent and what did Boston do to develop it? At age 18 he went to ROK ball and again split time at three positions 3B, SS and 2B. His 3B defense was bad 4 errors and low fielding % and his best position was 2B with a league average or better performance. He hit .248 at ROK with a .754 OPS and 9 of 11 SBs. This was a completely unimpressive year much like Mayer's early years except no injury. His 19 yr old season was lost to COVID. So in 2021 he returned at A ball at age 20 and put up more very average numbers .251/.305/.444/.729 with 23 out of 26 SBs in 102 games. Once again his walk rate was .054 nearly identical to what he did at age 17. His K rate was 21.1% (about 2 points higher than at 17). On defense we have to ask ourselves what the coaching staff was doing, and it shows how bad it was back in 2021 with Bloom as GM. Rafaela played 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF and RF during his 102 game season. Exactly how does a young foreign ball player get comfortable at a position when he plays 6 of them? What stunts development of players? Bad coaching and this coaching was pathetic. Is it surprising his hitting didn't come around much while playing a different position nearly every game? Fast forward to 2022 at age 21 he was promoted to Hi-A where he finally started to show his potential at hitting despite being asked to play 2B, SS and CF at Hi-A and SS and CF at AA. Ceddanne put up an excellent set of hitting numbers at Hi-A .330/.368/.594/.962 with 14 of 16 SBs. Then at AA he regressed a bit with a stat line of .278/.324/.500/.824 with 14 of 19 SBs. His K rate at Hi-A was 24.4% and at AA it was back down to 21.8%. His walk rate at Hi-A dropped to .038 and at AA it was back up to .046 (roughly average). In 2023 at age 22 Ceddanne started at AA for 60 games posting .294/.332/.441/.773 with 30 of 38 SBs and a K rate of 22.4% and walk rate of .038 like he had Hi-A showing the coaches were not hammering home the need to be selective at the plate. Rafaela played 48 games at AAA in 2023 posting .312/.370/.618/.988 with 6 out of 11 SBs and a K rate of 24.1% and walk rate of a career high of .058 (above average). The coaching staff for the second straight year had kept his defensive positions limited to SS and CF with 84 in CF and 15 at SS. Rafaela got called up with 22 games left in the 2023 season. On 8/28/23 he pinch hit for a struggling Devers and went 1 for 1 in his debut. The next game versus HOU Rafaela sat while Story played SS hitting .194 and Adam Duvall played CF. The following game Ceddanne started at SS and hit lead-off for Boston vs Houston facing Framber Valdez. He went 1 for 4 with a double, a run scored and an RBI. Boston lost 7-4 and flew to KC for their next series. In KC Cora sat Rafaela again and he got in midway through the game for Duvall and went 1 for 2 raising his average to .429. Then next game he sat again and PH for Yoshida and took CF. He K'd during his one at bat. Then next game he again was used as a defensive replacement for Yoshida and played CF with no at bats. Boston went to TB and again he was a late inning defensive replacement for Yoshida while Wilyer Abreu was put in the leadoff spot vs RH'd Civale. Typical squirrelly Cora move. Made no sense considering he was batting 71 points lower than Rafaela and was an inferior defender. The next day Cora started Rafaela at SS and batted him lead off, a long overlooked logical move. Ceddanne went 3 for 6 and scored two runs bringing his average up to .429. Naturally, Cora shook things up again the next game and started Abreu in the lead-off spot and he K'd 3 times before Rafaela replaced him and went 1 for 1 raising his average to .467 and lowering Abreu's to .250. This time Rafaela played 2B, another ridiculous choice by Cora considering he hadn't played there for years. Boston flew home to play BAL and Rafaela sat once again and came in late in the game and struck out in his 1 at bat while playing 2B again. BAL destroyed the makeshift line-up Cora used. The 2nd game vs BAL he sat again and pinch ran for J Turner. scoring a run and going 1 for 1 raising his average to .471. The following game BOS finally won and Rafaela hit lead-off and played CF. He scored a run and lowered his average to .381. The Yankees were next in town and Rafaela played SS this time and batted 7th not lead-off. This marked the end of the days when Cora considered Rafaela a lead-off hitter and he was relegated to the bottom three spots in the line-up ever since. It makes no sense that when he gets hot he never moves back up to the top of the order, it's just another bias of Cora's that Rafaela must live with. Rafaela is the best defender in the outfield on the team NOT A 2B. Rafaela had a walk rate of .051 in the minors and that has dropped to .038 in the MLB. The coaching staff should be all over him to return his walk rate to league average .050. Rafaela had a K rate of 21.6% in the minors and that has risen to 25.4% in the MLB BUT in 2025 he has worked hard to lower it to a very reasonable 20.7%. Batting out of the 9 hole he has produced the 4th most runs scored on the team in 2024 and the 3rd most runs scored in 2025 so far. He's also produced the 5th most RBIs out of the 9 hole in 2025 and in 2024 he produced the 2nd most RBIs!! BASHING Rafaela, Duran and Campbell has become common place these day. There is no valid justification for it other than haters will be haters. These three young ball players are legitimate MLB quality ball players with the potential to make the all-star team any year. Anthony has moved into the same group with his excellence in 2025. This group includes the top 3 outfielders in the organization and all we need is for fans to recognize the attributes of Rafaela are extremely similar to Mookie Betts our badly mistreated franchise player. He is fast, a great defender with an above average arm which makes him perfect for right field in Fenway where half his games are played. Duran with his speed, excellent glove but lesser arm is perfect for CF as he demonstrated in 2024. And last but not least is the young franchise player as of 2025 Roman Anthony who fits perfectly into the greatest legacy position in BOS history, Left Field where Ted, Yaz and Rice all excelled. All we need is a new manager with actual knowledge of the game including how to build a batting order, how to determine optimum defense and how to manage a pitching staff. Three critical skills that Cora lacks.

Yet another metric flaw. Game situations dictate the distance from the player to the ball and they are never repeated and completely unplanned so a fielder's distance to the ball is irrelevant because it will never happen again and is completely random. Whether he catches it is absolutely critical to the success of the team so having 0 errors means Refsnyder helped the team more because he didn't control where the balls were hit, he only controlled his ability to field the ones that were hit and he was perfect. And who is to say if Cora had played the better player, Refsnyder for the exact same innings that Abreu played that Refsnyder wouldn't have made as many or more catches and less errors? That's a hypothetical, just like all metrics. Actual results are all that matter. The hypothetical is just some party estimating what might have happened with absolutely no certainty or accuracy. This topic was a sidebar compared to the meat of the information presented that showed Abreu is a lesser player than Refsnyder, Rafaela and Duran because he provides less value per game played and he's only facing RH pitchers for the most part..

I say no don't move Duran because of his speed, defense and leadoff skills can't be easily replaced. Abreu has more hype than substance so he might go for far more than he is worth so it's a sell high situation.

Baseball Reference has Abreu's errors at 5 and Refsnyders at 0. Refsnyder can't improve on that, especially if Cora is playing the wrong guy who can't hit LH pitchers.

Nick, you did a nice job summarizing the problem. I am against a platoon player being a starter so I trade Abreu immediately and put the best possible defense out there with Anthony, Duran and Rafaela in RF the toughest outfield position for 81 games a year and with Rafaela's superior arm. Refsnyder is an outstanding 4th outfielder, but Garcia should get an opportunity to beat him out during spring training. Bregman won't opt out, Story is hard to predict after 3 bad seasons and 1 good one, Mayer is unreliable due to his wrist and other injuries, Campbell has been wrongfully forgotten as he makes adjustments to return to his superior numbers from the minors, Casas has been forgotten as well. He's an excellent player and if Nate Lowe is kept he's a playoff experienced 1B who did well with the Rangers. The biggest problem on offense is CATCHER. Narvaez had ONE good month. He hit .218 in April, .356 in May, .254 in June, .197 in July and in August he is hitting .115. The Yankees parted with him for good reasons. Wong failed from the time he arrived in BOS and then became a ONE YEAR WONDER in 2024 as his numbers returned to below average in 2025. (.180 average). FYI, Kyle Teel is hitting .270 and Marcelo Mayer is out for the season hitting .228. Sure wish Chicago would have asked for him instead because the future of the Red Sox would be much rosier with Teel over Mayer. Teel filled an immediate hole whereas we have Story a couple more years at SS.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about Abreu and his achievements. Defensively, he finished behind both Rafaela and Duran in 2024 while both played CF and Duran had the higher number between, he and Rafaela but Rafaela was a rookie and has improved in 2025. Abreu finished last but played RF and the other Right Fielders in the AL are not comparable to the defensive skills of the center fielders thus Abreu's GG should have an asterisk because he wasn't even close to a top 3 finish on defense in the OUTFIELD in the AL in 2024. Next, Abreu in 2024 batted 338 times versus RH pitchers and hit .266 and batted just 61 times against LH hitters and hit .180 (86 points lower than against RH) That's why he is strictly a platoon player that requires another hitter to join him to face the LH pitchers which is a complete waste of a roster spot. The funny thing about this situation or should I say Abreu's limitation is that he shares the platoon with Refsnyder for the most part. In 2024 Refsnyder hit .302 with a 941 OPS against LH pitchers so he clearly was a MASSIVE improvement over Abreu hitting against those LH pitchers. The surprise is that Refsnyder also batted .267 (1 point higher than Abreu) against RH pitchers!!! So, Refsnyder hit better than Abreu against both LH and RH pitchers, yet Abreu got to play more. That speaks volumes to the bias I continue to complain about with respect to Cora. Refsnyder should have gotten more at bats than Abreu in 2024 based on performance. Fun fact, Refsnyder's defensive numbers this year are better than Abreu's in RF!!!! Duran in 2024 played in 160 games making him the most durable player on the team. Duran put up an 8.7 WAR, hit .285/.342/.492/.834 with 34 SBs and an OPS+ of 132 So if we all assume Anthony needs to be in LF for the next decade it comes down to who should be in the other two outfield positions. Duran performed the best of all other outfielders in 2024 while playing CF. Usually that gives him the edge for that spot and should. That just leaves right field. Rafaela is the best defender on the team, Refsnyder proved to be the best all-around hitter among Rafaela, Refsnyder and Abreu and when compared to Abreu he outhit him against both RH and LH pitchers BUT Rafaela's defense is superlative and against the weak defenders in the AL he has a great chance of winning a platinum glove annually if he plays RF like Mookie did. So ranking the RF options I believe Rafaela is #1, Refsnyder is #2 based on his 2024 and 2025 performance and finishing in last place in Abreu who can't hit LH pitchers and is being outperformed on offense and defense by Refsnyder in 2025. This data from Baseball Reference documents the bias that exists with Cora's decision making. Abreu has NEVER belonged in the starting line-up whether it's a RH or LH pitcher. He's a bench hitter and a potential 4th outfielder as long as LH pitchers aren't starting that day. People can cheer for Abreu to play all they want, the facts show that he has no business being in the starting line-up if you go by past performance.

ABSOLUTLELY NOT!!!! Baseball is about maximizing defense not favoring certain players. Clearly the data shows that to maximize the defense RAFAELA like MOOKIE should be in RF. Duran is an all-star quality defender in CF as he proved in 2024. RAFAELA is the best overall defender and belongs in RF where he plays 81 games at the most difficult position in Fenway. Anthony follows in the footsteps of the great Ted Williams, Yaz and Jim Rice and should play LF for his entire career. Lessening the defense so Abreu a platoon hitter can start in RF is typical of Cora and his bias. He's the 3rd best defender behind Rafaela and Duran and he certainly doesn't deserve to start before Anthony in the outfield considering he's a platoon hitter. At best, Abreu should be a platoon DH with Refsnyder but to me that's not fair to Yoshida who is costing the team $18Million a year. Yoshida should be the DH and Refsnyder who can play all outfield positions can be the 4th outfielder which completely eliminates the wasted roster spot Abreu fills as a platoon hitter. For 2025, carrying a part time player who is a late inning pinch hitter is fine because of his power but going forward Boston needs more complete players to roster so the 13 spots for hitters is maximized. Garcia should fight for the 4th outfielder spot in 2026 versus Refsnyder and Abreu needs to be traded for pitching.

The Duran haters never stop. FACT (CLUTCH FACTOR DEFINED BY BASEBALL REFERENCE) 2 out RISP - Duran .396 That fact alone makes all the bogus information in this article obsolete. FYI 2 out RISP - Abreu .233 This suggests Abreu is the player that needs to go since he is the weaker defender, can't hit LH pitchers and is missing the clutch gene. CAREER STATS 2 out RISP - Duran .304 and Abreu .289 So Duran is raising his clutch factor in 2025 and Abreu has dropped his clutch factor by 56 points. Isn't it fun to see facts instead of unsubstantiated conjecture? I still don't understand after all Duran has done for Boston (despite being screwed over by Cora) why there are so many haters in the ranks of the Boston Fan Base. The opposite is true for Abreu who has gotten every break in the book from Cora. Duran remains under rated especially by the haters and Abreu remains grossly overrated by a similar group of fans who simply can't accept Duran as the better player making the following true. ABREU SHOULD BE THE ODD MAN OUT IN THE OUTFIELD!!! RAFAELA SHOULD OWN RF PERMANENTLY. DURAN SHOULD OWN CF PERMANENTLY and ATHONY SHOULD OWN LF PERMANENTLY.

Again, cherry picking and insults. That's always been the issue with you. Your response has nothing to do with my comment it's just a cheap shot that is irrelevant and your ignorant friends who gave you thumbs up on your other cheap shot of me shows you are the primary instigator of the abuse. You should be removed as a moderator and frankly from the site too.

With all the injuries, risk tolerance should suggest he be packaged to some other team for a current need of the 2026 ball club. His value on paper doesn't bring home wins or division titles or world series rings. That's the harsh reality of an injury prone player. BOB HORNER always come to mind for me because he had awesome talent and couldn't stay on the field. Heck, Bryce Harper at a young age had injuries issues for years and ended up at 1B where he still had issues for a while. You have a guy with a bad wrist which impacts hitting and throwing since it's his right wrist. Even after surgery, it will take time to rebuild his physical health to be able to hit with the power he had when he was younger. He's a great kid, but how fair is it to others who also play SS for the team to hold his spot open for him when he's finally right? If Story returns to his previous Red Sox form in 2026 is the answer really the injury prone Mayer when you have a healthy SS named Campbell in the organization? Why isn't he working out at SS if he's not going to be promoted to the MLB in 2025? Afterall, the wasted effort at him playing 1B when the team now has Lowe and Casas returning next year is a joke. Campbell should be returned to his natural position of SS like in 2024 to prep him as a back-up to Story in 2026 because Mayer is not reliable enough to fill that position. The opt outs suggested are farfetched at best. Nobody is willing to pay Bregman more than $80Million over the next two years and we can extend him if it appears someone else is willing to extend him. Story IS NEVER getting $23.3 Million from another team after putting up a 94 OPS+ for four years in BOS. The left side of the infield will be Bregman and Story and Anthony should be in LF behind them. They are the three best hitters on the team based on historical performance. The team will guess incorrectly that Narvaez will be the Catcher in 2026 just like they expected Wong to be in 2025 and were wrong. Duran, Rafaela and Abreu will start the year on the 2026 roster, but Abreu really has no place to play since he's not replacing Anthony and Duran and Rafaela are both better defenders than Abreu and are not platoon hitters. Mayer likely will play ahead of Campbell at 2B despite being injury prone and not earning it and Casas and Campbell will probably be wrongfully traded (one of them) to make room for Nate Lowe. Basically, the hitting side of the team will probably look almost identical to this season so no opts are going to happen in my opinion and Cora will continue to make the same personnel mistakes. 2026 should look a lot like 2025 except I believe Breslow will significantly improve the pitching staff with some of the Devers money.

One injury is blown off with the statement that "it could happen to anyone." Two injuries in back-to-back seasons where you miss significant time and you don't hit like a first round pick is concerning. Three injuries in back-to-back-to-back seasons where you miss significant time is a HUGE RED FLAG especially when the player is finally hitting like he was supposed to hit his first three seasons. During this entire time fans love Mayer for his athleticism despite all his errors at SS. Then he gets a call-up and plays 3B and 2B, positions he didn't play much in the minors and for a small sample size looks like the fielder he was supposed to be, and then he gets hurt yet again for significant time. Here is his injury history: 2022 - Right wrist injury which impacts one's ability to hit and throw effectively 2023 - Shoulder soreness injury which impacts one's ability to hit and field 2024 - Lumbar strain injury which impacts one's ability to hit 2025 - Right wrist injury which again impacts his ability to hit and throw effective These injuries have been used as excuses as to why he was so mediocre at hitting and bad at fielding until 2024. The injuries may have caused his very average numbers in the minors, but the fact remains he can't seem to avoid them so is his value still his potential or is it his actual performance due to injuries? I've been arguing for the past several years that his performance is all about execution and that's the value of a player which made him no better than Meidroth despite his athleticism. People prefer to suggest his paper skills are more accurate than his actual performance, but I disagree. Until he actually performs at a star level his prospect rating is completely misleading. Only Anthony has proven his prospect rating to be correct so far. The key question for the front office is - "How many more seasons will you keep the SS position protected/reserved for Mayer? In 2024 Campbell was asked to play half his games at his normal position of SS because Mayer got hurt again in 2023. Now that BOS has two qualified SSs, someone needs to decide to the future of the position. Either keep Story at SS for the remainder of his contract and permanently reposition Mayer at another position like 2B so Campbell is free to pursue a long-term position as well OR keep Mayer as a utility player since he's completely unreliable and make Campbell the future 2B and ONLY 2B so he can get back to contributing to the success of the Red Sox. With the addition of Nate Lowe, the 1B position in 2026 can be Lowe or Casas so the wasted effort to convert Campbell to a 1B just shows the stupidity of the front office/Cora when it comes to planning the future. They forced the Minor League Player of the Year to be a utility player so the injury prone prospect could have a spot in the infield when Story finally lived up to his contract and Bregman returned from his injury. Somebody needs to get their ____ together and figure out where the long-term positions are for the top prospects that graduated to the MLB this year. Based on what's left in the minors (other than Garcia) it's going to be years before we see the same or higher level of talent in the farm system at any position other than pitcher. For me, it always comes back to firing Cora because this team just needs some good old fashion baseball logic to determine the batting order and the best defensive set-up. The fact that Anthony has proven to be good enough to stay makes him the weakest defender among Duran and Rafaela placing him in LF in the tradition of Ted, Yaz and Jim Rice. Duran clearly is outstanding in CF and Rafaela is the best defender on the team and should play the most difficult field - RIGHT FIELD. Abreu and his platoon issues needs to be outside the normal fielding line-up and focused on the one thing he does well and that is hitting RH pitchers as a DH or PH. Refsnyder can be the other half of the DH tandem and either of them can fill the role of 4th outfielder making the outfield one of the best in baseball. Mayer like Abreu is the piece of the puzzle that doesn't really fit anywhere. He could be the injury prone SS if Story was not here yet Campbell could be the more reliable choice for that position if Story was not available or Mayer could be the injury prone 2B when you have the player of the year qualified to play the same position 150 games a year not 110. His presence ruins things for Campbell just like Abreu's presence ruins things for Rafaela. If the front office prefers Mayer and Abreu, then give Campbell and Rafaela a chance to play for another team who will see that they are the two superior choices to the platoon guy and the injury prone guy. The misuse of resources continues to be a huge issue under Cora.

They picked him up and if Campbell gets brought back to play 2B and Rafaela goes to RF with Duran in CF the team has a shot at winning the division. No way that happens because the manager is a numbskull. Breslow needs to dictate to him, but he won't because when Boston fails with this much talent, he'll finally have the ammo to FIRE Cora!!! Oh, happy day!!!!

As a comparison, when Mookie got traded, he pretty much stayed the same all-star level player and got extended which further stuck the knife in the back of all Red Sox fans and the three alleged qualify prospects were exactly what I pointed out in 2020, crap. Verdugo was injury prone and inconsistent; Downs had 12 good games at the end of 2019 to go with his 298 bad games prior to being promoted to AA and that boosted his prospect rating from around 200 to 44 thanks to a bunch of bull provided by Friedman and Wong was the 6th best catcher in a fully loaded LAD farm system. They were NEVER going to equal one year of Mookie let alone 13 years of Mookie. Worst trade in Boston history. The Priester trade may produce better prospects, but Priester has already put us far behind in the balance of the trade. My belief is that the imbalance will grow as time passes but just the opposite could happen as well.

First, it's clear you are inexperienced in baseball and have some very naive beliefs about the game so I will be very specific about why your opinion doesn't support standard baseball thinking. If you had played, you'd realize what it takes to change positions mid-season and how frustrating it is to not be as good at your second position on defense as you are at your first position. That frustration eats into your hitting. Next, Mookie played 2B in the minors at ages 18 to 20 (12 years ago). Yes in 2011 he was a SS, then in 2012 split time at SS and 2B at LOW A, then in 2013 he played 2B at A, Hi-A and the AFL and only played 1 game at SS his 20-year-old season. At 21 he went to MLB for BOS and played 1219 games at OF including with the Dodgers. He then got moved to SS in 2023 for 16 games because Roberts is as dumb as Cora as a manager. The arm injuries that can stem from changing arm angles on throws mid-season can be devastating. Torn labrums, rotator cuffs and TJ surgery can result. That's why changing positions usually happens in the off season when you can make thousands of throws over a 6-month period. Mookie's full time move to SS in 2025 has resulted in his worst hitting season EVER. Yes, he was an infielder 12 years ago but it's not like riding a bicycle, hours and hours of practice to be as good at SS as he was a RF is the way Mookie approaches the game as a perfectionist. Clearly, his focus being shifted has impacted his hitting. By next year, I fully expect his hitting numbers to rebound as he settles in at SS with a comparable skill level to his RF skill level.