The roster is getting a makeover, and it may not look the way you expect.
A flurry of roster moves are ongoing with the Red Sox this week, spurred by injuries, a rehab assignment, and the general evolution of the roster.
We can start with what’s already happened: Over the weekend, the Red Sox acquired first baseman Garrett Cooper from the Cubs for cash.
The Chicago Cubs have traded Garrett Cooper to the Boston Red Sox per sources.
— Craig Mish (@CraigMish) April 27, 2024
Since Cooper had recently been designated for assignment and the Red Sox have a huge need at first base with Triston Casas out, it was an easy move to make. The one stipulation however was that the Cubs wanted the Red Sox to wait until after they left town before potentially using their old player against them.
To make room on the 40-man roster for Cooper, the Red Sox moved Triston Casas to the 60-day IL. But to make room on the active 26-man roster? That’s where things get trickier.
Coming into this week, the Red Sox had four potential infield candidates that could be displaced: Enmanuel Valdéz, David Hamilton, Pablo Reyes, and Bobby Dalbec. One advantage Reyes seemed to have over the other three is that he’s out of options and could not be sent directly to Worcester to be stashed in Triple-A if expunged from the big league roster.
Well, guess what?
The #RedSox today made the following roster moves: pic.twitter.com/N7FUvJ8j18
— Red Sox (@RedSox) April 29, 2024
Oddly, the last thing Pablo did for the Red Sox was pitch a scoreless ninth inning in Saturday’s 17-0 win over the Cubs.
So, with Reyes gone, this leaves Valdéz, Hamilton, and Dalbec all as demotion targets for when Vaughn Grissom gets called up in the next 24 hours.
I may be reading entirely too much into this, but my guess is that Dalbec might be safe here. The reason? Well, as weak as the Red Sox have been in terms of major league production from the middle infield so far this season, they actually do have a surprising number of options bubbling below the surface, and the domino effect of Reyes being expendable because of that means they also moved the other guy who can fill in some at first base.
As far as the middle infield goes, not only is Grissom coming up this week, but there’s also the underrated Chase Meidroth and the versatile Nick Sogard already in Worcester. In the grand scheme, this is a good sign as the front office probably wants to keep giving those guys at bats, and in Meidroth’s case in particular, he may be an option later this summer. Then on top of that, there may also be additional jockeying for middle infield playing time in Worcester during the coming months as both Marcelo Mayer and Nick Yorke are trying to advance upward from Portland. With all of this, Reyes just became expendable.
As bad as it’s been in this part of the diamond, the Sox are likely to only get steadily stronger here over the next 12 months until they (possibly) have one of the best middle infield situations in baseball in the heart of 2025.
Now with Reyes gone, I think this means Dalbac is probably going to split time with Cooper at first since Reyes was an option to play some first base. So from here, either Hamilton or Valdéz likely gets sent down and you just have to deal with one more guy fighting for the Worcester middle infield instead of two. Hey, at least Bobby Dalbec superfan Jared Carrabis will be happy!
Either that, or somebody else will be going on the IL. Please don’t let it be another player to the IL!