{"id":518679,"date":"2026-03-06T18:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/518679\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T18:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:31:09","slug":"red-sox-insider-names-massively-improved-part-of-team-before-2026-mlb-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/518679\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Insider Names ‘Massively Improved’ Part Of Team Before 2026 MLB Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sox Insider Names ‘Massively Improved’ Part Of Team Before 2026 MLB Season<\/a> originally appeared on NESN<\/a>. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The biggest offseason departure from the Boston Red Sox<\/a> was All-Star third baseman<\/a> Alex Bregman, who won a Gold Glove award in 2024.<\/p>\n

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Boston’s infield has plenty of new additions though, including\u00a0Andruw Monasterio<\/a>, Brendan Rodgers (who is dealing with a shoulder injury<\/a>) Caleb Durbin<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0first baseman Willson Contreras.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old Contreras in particular, is expected to be a huge part of the team and possibly take over Bregman’s leadership role<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Red Sox insider Mac Cerullo of The Boston Herald<\/a> wrote on Friday that he expects the team’s infield defense to be a significant strength during the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

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“Probably the biggest difference between this year\u2019s team and the past few is the infield defense looks massively improved,” Cerullo said.<\/p>\n

Contreras is lined up to be the starting first baseman, with two-time All-Star Trevor Story returning to man shortstop.<\/p>\n

Durbin will almost certainly be starting at either third base or second base, with Marcelo Mayer possibly occupying the other position<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Regardless of whether they start at second or third, Caleb Durbin and Marcelo Mayer are both smooth fielders who have consistently made some impressive plays at both positions. Durbin is athletic, fundamentally sound and has sneaky good range. And Mayer is just a natural, making highlight-reel glove flips as well as the sort of heads up plays you don\u2019t typically see from guys with his level of experience,” Cerullo wrote. “Willson Contreras was regarded as one of the best defensive first basemen in the league after shifting to the new position last year, and he\u2019s been as advertised since joining the Red Sox. Trevor Story has historically been a strong defender too, though his metrics were somewhat skewed last year by a stretch of bad throws toward the end of the season.”<\/p>\n

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The reporter opined that the Contreras\/Durbin\/Mayer\/Story combination could “absolutely rank among the best defensive infields in baseball.”<\/p>\n

More MLB: ESPN Writer Makes Bold Predictions For Roman Anthony, Red Sox Lineup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox Insider Names ‘Massively Improved’ Part Of Team Before 2026 MLB Season originally appeared on NESN. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[7679,78141,3959,8812,49,3987,48,204913,30569,462,82,13308,13989],"class_list":{"0":"post-518679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alex-bregman","9":"tag-andruw-monasterio","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-brendan-rodgers","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-caleb-durbin","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-gold-glove-award","16":"tag-marcelo-mayer","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-trevor-story","20":"tag-willson-contreras"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}