BOSTON — When the Red Sox began the process of working out rookie Kristian Campbell at first base on Friday, the implication was that the club could be clearing the way to promote top prospect Marcelo Mayer. But manager Alex Cora cautioned that a drastic infield re-shuffle involving Campbell is not a fait accompli.
Campbell, who has started 35 of Boston’s first 47 games at second base (as well as four in center field and one in left), has been doing drills and taking grounders at first — a position totally unfamiliar to him — before the last three games at Fenway Park. On Sunday morning, despite being out of the lineup against the Braves, the 22-year-old was on the infield dirt pregame, practicing picks at first off the fungo bat of infield coach José Flores. Meanwhile, for Triple-A Worcester, Mayer, a natural shortstop, was at second base for the second time in three days (and just the seventh game all season). Yet Cora warned not to draw any conclusions just yet.
“It’s not easy,” Cora said. “We’re taking a chance here. All this talk about, ‘This guy can play first,’ and this and that, I can give you five examples why it didn’t work the last five years. It’s not just, ‘Plug a guy over there, here we go, let’s see what happens.’
“We’ll get there when we get there. This is not a commitment. This is introducing the position to the kid. We believe that athletic-wise, he can do it but there’s more than just standing there and catching the throws.”
In the wake of Triston Casas’ season-ending knee injury, the Red Sox have used the trio of Romy Gonzalez, Nick Sogard and Abraham Toro as interim options at first. It‘s clear the club wants a stronger long-term option to emerge. As MassLive’s Sean McAdam reported Sunday, the Sox have made a number of inquiries around the game in search of external options, only to find that trade prices are too high at this juncture. And with Rafael Devers expressing his unwillingness to start taking reps at the position, the Red Sox are getting creative with Campbell, one of their most versatile players.
Moving Campbell to first would open up second base, either for Mayer or for Trevor Story to move from shortstop to second base, allowing Mayer to play his natural position. Story, who has struggled mightily at the plate in recent weeks (he has hit .129 with one extra-base hit, 31 strikeouts and a .360 OPS in his last 92 plate appearances), played second base for a full season in 2022 and proved capable at the position. Mayer, conversely, never played the position in four minor league seasons before this one and has logged just 50 innings there before Sunday.
Mayer has proven that offensively, he’s major league ready, hitting .273 with eight homers, 40 RBIs and an .819 OPS in 39 games for the WooSox. But in the infield re-shuffle scenario, it’ll be Campbell who determines the timeline for drastic moves.
“We have to see how he moves,” Cora said. “Obviously, decision-making, we won’t know until he actually plays. We were actually talking about, ‘Hopefully, we’re up 15 and we can put him at first’ or, hopefully not, but we’re down 10 and he can go to first and get a few reps.”
The Red Sox, who have tried — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — to convert players into first basemen a bit too frequently in recent years, want to make sure Campbell is truly capable of playing the position at a major league level instead of forcing him into action on a whim.
“We’ve been through this dance before,” Cora said. “We did it with Kyle (Schwarber). He got hurt right away in Detroit, on his first day of taking ground balls. (Christian) Arroyo, playing in New York, first play, he stretched and got hurt. Franchy (Cordero), we moved him to first, it wasn’t great.
“We’ve just got to be patient with the process. Whenever we decide he can handle the position, we’ll put him there. If we don’t believe he can handle it, we’ll stay the course.”
