{"id":434738,"date":"2026-01-24T15:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434738\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T15:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:53:08","slug":"how-about-a-defense-forward-infield-for-the-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434738\/","title":{"rendered":"How about a defense-forward infield for the Red Sox?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alex Bregman\u2019s departure not only opened up a hole which the front office thought it had solved in 2025, but it deepened the mystery of what we have in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mayerma01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcelo Mayer<\/a>. Mayer will continue to be an unknown quantity until he spends more time in the majors and proves he can stay on the field for a full season. Not only is he young and untested, but he can play second and third base as well as shortstop. What position he\u2019ll more or less settle into in 2026 has been one of the more enigmatic questions of the offseason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">One piece of circumstantial evidence\u2014and that\u2019s sometimes all we\u2019ve got in the offseason, until the process completely unfolds\u2014is that Mayer <a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=1025X1734621&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fnews%2Fmarcelo-mayer-preparing-to-play-second-and-third-for-red-sox%3FpartnerID%3Dmlbapp-iOS_article-share\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has said<\/a>: \u201cSecond base, you\u2019re doing everything backwards.\u201d To some, this may sound like a degree of discomfort, but it also conjures up the grace and confidence of a Ginger Rogers, doing everything Fred Astaire did\u2014but backwards (and in heels). For someone working to transition from one side of the infield to the other, I have no doubt that\u2019s what it might feel like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A recent post on Bluesky from Alex Speier may do more to illuminate the front office\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If this is to be believed (and I\u2019ve been taken in a few times over the years), this might suggest that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suareeu01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a> will not end up on the dirt for the Sox. Our own Mike Carlucci said so in our Slack chat, and others have noted this on the socials too. (Even as Su\u00e1rez is considered a good overall fit for the team.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This defense-forward thinking should also have implications for second base. It could reasonably be said that being \u201cvery mindful of defense\u201d should preclude an in-house platoon at second of Romy Gonz\u00e1lez, Nick Sogard, or David Hamilton. With the possible exception of Sogard, who is also young without a lot of time in the majors, we know those players, and they\u2019re not the answer. Romy can be successful coming off the bench. Hamilton might be best as a pinch runner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While the rumors are going this way and that, it sounds like second base is still open. So who\u2019s it gonna be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Bregman\u2019s departure not only opened up a hole which the front office thought it had solved in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,227171,85],"class_list":["post-434738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox-commentary","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}