{"id":8883,"date":"2025-05-07T21:06:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T21:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/8883\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T21:06:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T21:06:13","slug":"red-sox-notes-first-base-devers-yoshida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/8883\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Notes: First Base, Devers, Yoshida"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox lost first baseman Triston Casas<\/a> to a season-ending knee injury earlier this week and quickly selected Abraham Toro<\/a>\u2019s contract to the big league roster. The switch-hitting Toro and righty-swinging Romy Gonzalez<\/a> appear set to share time at the position for the time being, although the Casas injury immediately prompted speculation about a potential move to first base for Rafael Devers<\/a>. Manager Alex Cora told the Red Sox beat last night that there\u2019s been no discussion of a role change for the third baseman-turned-DH (link via Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got these two guys (Gonzalez and Toro) here, Toro starting today,\u201d Cora said prior to last night\u2019s loss. \u201cRomy has done an amazing job in the starts over there so we\u2019ll keep going that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cora followed up today in an appearance on WEEI radio, repeating that Devers is a DH for the time being but taking a slightly softer stance on the possibility of an eventual position change (link via WEEI\u2019s Tom Carroll<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked him to do something in spring training that, as you guys know, he didn\u2019t agree with in the beginning,\u201d said Cora. \u201cAnd then little by little, he has embraced it because he knows the quality of the player that we have at third base and where we\u2019re at as a team. \u2026 I\u2019m not saying we\u2019ll never have that conversation [about moving to first base], but I think for now, where we\u2019re at, I like Raffy as a DH.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within that WEEI appearance, Cora again praised the season that Gonzalez has put together thus far. There\u2019s no denying that the 28-year-old has excelled in the early stages of the 2025 season. He\u2019s hitting .327\/.382\/.449 in 55 trips to the plate, although that small-sample production is buoyed by a .421 average on balls in play. Gonzalez is averaging 94.1 mph off the bat and has seen 58% of his batted balls depart at 95 mph or more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strong profile, but one that is preceded by minimal track record. Gonzalez is in his fifth major league season and entered 2025 as a .242\/.271\/.387 hitter. He\u2019s always hit lefties well (.281\/.329\/.465), but right-handers have long been a problem. That hasn\u2019t been the case this year, and Cora\u2019s comments seem to suggest he\u2019ll at least get some runway to prove he\u2019s made some real gains.<\/p>\n

Toro, also 28, has a similar track record to that of Gonzalez. He\u2019s a career .220\/.285\/.352 hitter who\u2019s now seeing action in his seventh MLB campaign. He\u2019s bounced around the league more (Astros, Mariners, Brewers, A\u2019s) and has a strong Triple-A track record but limited success in the majors. Cora noted that Toro \u201cput [together] some good at-bats\u201d in his Red Sox debut yesterday, when he went 1-for-4 with a single.<\/p>\n

The combination of Gonzalez and Toro, whether in a traditional platoon or a more selective timeshare, doesn\u2019t feel like a feasible long-term option, but it\u2019s understandable to hear a team\u2019s manager voice confidence in the options he presently has on the roster. That said, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow<\/a> took a more open-minded stance to the team\u2019s first base void, telling NESN\u2019s Tom Caron prior to the game that the Sox \u201cneed to be willing to put all idea and options on the table\u201d and \u201cuncover every rock\u201d to make the team as competitive as possible (hat tip to the Boston Globe\u2019s Peter Abraham<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The case for moving Devers to first base is one that we discussed on this morning\u2019s MLBTR podcast episode<\/a>. MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes also touched on it in today\u2019s mailbag<\/a>. That switch would open DH at-bats for the return of Masataka Yoshida<\/a>, or it could help facilitate a big league promotion for Roman Anthony<\/a>, who is widely ranked as the game\u2019s No. 1 overall prospect. Anthony could join Jarren Duran<\/a> and Wilyer Abreu<\/a> in cycling through the outfield and DH spots. He\u2019s hitting .294\/.410\/.495 with five homers as a 20-year-old in Triple-A. Dating back to last year, Anthony has slashed .321\/.440\/.508 in 298 Triple-A plate appearances \u2014 all before even turning 21.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Yoshida, meanwhile, has been out all season while recovering from October surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right (throwing) shoulder. Yoshida spoke with the Red Sox beat yesterday and said through an interpreter that hitting is \u201cno problem\u201d but that he\u2019s still feeling discomfort when throwing (video link via NESN<\/a>). He received a cortisone injection three days ago and will be shut down from throwing for at least another couple days while that takes effect. The Red Sox have no plans to activate Yoshida until he is able to play in the outfield, per Abraham.<\/p>\n

Devers\u2019 move from third base to DH was a major storyline in spring training and led to plenty of hand-wringing early in the season when he went through one of the worst stretches of his career at the plate. That panic looks silly in retrospect, as Devers struggled for all of one week and has hit .292\/.404\/.508 since the calendar flipped to April. His lack of experience at first base is an obvious consideration in any scenario, but the current tandem of Gonzalez and Toro have relatively limited experience there themselves: 319 innings for Gonzalez and 353 for Toro.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no perfect solution. The Red Sox will likely be getting sub-par defense at first base whichever route they take. Playing Devers there could free up DH at-bats for Yoshida or open a clearer path to get Anthony to the majors. For the time being, they\u2019re sticking with Devers at designated hitter and seeing what they have in Toro and Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

Run production has been an issue over the past week as the Red Sox have dropped five of six games, and even looking at the past month (i.e. excluding Devers\u2019 early slump) they\u2019ve been a league-average offense on a rate basis and sit 15th in the majors in runs scored. If Boston\u2019s rotation continues to struggle as it has over the past two weeks (24th in MLB with a 4.76 ERA), or if Gonzalez and Toro play closer to their career levels in the weeks ahead, one would imagine the Sox will more seriously consider changes to get more offensive firepower into the lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox lost first baseman Triston Casas to a season-ending knee injury earlier this week and quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2047,5,792,4,863,793,1083,1946],"class_list":{"0":"post-8883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-abraham-toro","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-masataka-yoshida","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-rafael-devers","13":"tag-roman-anthony","14":"tag-romy-gonzalez","15":"tag-triston-casas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114468591036650870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883","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=8883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}