Triston Casas Should Not Be Rushed by the Boston Red Sox
The 2022 Boston Red Sox are a dumpster fire so far. 9-14 to start the year, Boston just dropped two of three to the lowly Baltimore Orioles and sit 7.5 games back of first in the AL East. They have just one series win so far this season.
Weirdly, a team that is built on guaranteed offensive production has looked absolutely dreadful at the plate. A lineup with Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Trevor Story, and Alex Verdugo should not be struggling this much, but here we are.
So what’s wrong with the offense? Well for one, they swing at pretty much anything that comes their way. Boston is first in MLB with a 51% swing rate. Any semblance of plate discipline has gone out the window. They’ve also been pretty unlucky. Although the Red Sox are bottom-10 in both batting average and slugging percentage, their expected batting average and expected slugging percentage based on batted balls are in the top half of the league. Unfortunately, XBA and XSLG aren’t winning them baseball games.
One area where the offensive drought has been most apparent is at first base. The Red Sox first base situation is not super encouraging.
The easy thing to do would be to look at this graph, slam the panic button, and call up Triston Casas. Most publications have the 22-year-old as the No. 1 or No. 2 prospect in the Red Sox system. MLB has him at No. 2. The logic is pretty simple for most fans: Bobby Dalbec has looked terrible, Franchy Cordero is a wild card, and Triston Casas rakes.
And yes, Casas does indeed rake. One might say he hits nukes.
Just go to Twitter, type his name in, and hit the videos tab. There’s plenty examples of Casas brutalizing baseballs. Casas had a slow start to the season for Triple-A Worcester, but he’s since started to swing the bat well. It’s hard to blame fans who want to see him in a Red Sox uniform sooner rather than later.
The Situation Isn’t Great, But Let’s Be Patient
The stats indicate the the offense will eventually start producing. Let’s hope “eventually” is within the next week or so, because the AL East gap is growing by the day and there’s only so many bad losses a guy can take.
Even though the pitching has looked decent to open 2022, those results are ironically due for some negative regression. Opponents are second in MLB in solid hit percentage and fifth in barrel percentage. The point is, the offense needs to show up before the pitching stops getting some fortunate breaks. Not a great spot to be in, but the Red Sox are less than one-seventh through the 2022 season. Give it some time before hitting the panic button.
Triston Casas is currently hitting .262, which is fine, but it’s not “get this guy to the Show immediately” good. Friendly reminder that it is May 3. Casas will join the Red Sox in due time. Alex Cora can be trusted to not botch the timeline. The only thing worse than watching the Red Sox offense as it currently exists would be if Casas gets called up before he’s ready and absolutely stinks.
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