{"id":556168,"date":"2026-02-05T15:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/556168\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T15:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:28:18","slug":"with-isiah-kiner-falefa-on-board-what-will-the-red-sox-infield-look-like-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/556168\/","title":{"rendered":"With Isiah Kiner-Falefa on board, what will the Red Sox infield look like for 2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Good morning! The Red Sox have a new infielder. And, uh, he\u2019s not exactly one to get all that excited about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Isiah Kiner-Falefa is a perfectly good backup to have on your team. He plays three positions in the infield and plays them all well \u2014 possibly better than anyone else currently on the Red Sox if you\u2019re not yet convinced of Marcelo Mayer\u2019s glove (though I am). He makes contact and doesn\u2019t strike out much. He\u2019s right-handed, which is important for this Red Sox team. He\u2019s a perfectly cromulent backup, is what I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">But where the worry creeps in is in the possibility that he doesn\u2019t end up being a backup on the Red Sox. Six million dollars is in no way a lot of money for the Boston Red Sox, a team that finds all kinds of ways <a href=\"https:\/\/www.overthemonster.com\/red-sox-comentary\/95758\/did-the-red-sox-actually-break-the-law-with-junk-ticketing-fees\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:(both benign and not so benign);elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">(both benign and not so benign)<\/a> to print money \u2014 but it\u2019s a curious amount to give to a backup who is only a marginal upgrade over the backups that are currently in-house. Are the Sox envisaging something of an everday role for IKF? And even if they\u2019re not, will he end up playing essentially every day anyway, given the injury risks on the left side of the Red Sox infield?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">How do you see this infield situation shaking out this year?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Talk about that, whatever else you want, and, as always, be good to one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning! The Red Sox have a new infielder. And, uh, he\u2019s not exactly one to get all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,24,1248,4,89,2543,1035],"class_list":{"0":"post-556168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-chicago-cubs","13":"tag-marcelo-mayer","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-red-sox","16":"tag-redsox","17":"tag-trevor-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116018735126976464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}