Now that the dust in Boston Red Sox spring training surrounding the Rafael Devers-Alex Bregman drama appears to have settled — at least for now — the conclusion left some questions. While it appears clear now that Devers will move to DH to make way for Bregman at third base, that leaves plenty of uncertainty about the starter at second base.
If Devers had stayed at third, that would’ve put Bregman at second. With Bregman at third, however, that left the battle we’ve largely been seeing throughout the spring between top prospect Kristian Campbell, Vaughn Grissom and potentially even David Hamilton as well.
As Opening Day fast approaches in just over a week, though, it appears that manager Alex Cora and the Red Sox have made their decision — or at least have shown their hand as to what they ideally would like to do at second base. That plan is for Kristian Campbell to make his MLB debut on Opening Day.
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Red Sox clearly want Kristian Campbell to be their Opening Day 2B
Monday’s Red Sox spring training action featured split-squad action. But against the in-division Baltimore Orioles, it looked a lot like the Opening Day lineup with Jarren Duran, Devers, Bregman, Triston Casas and Trevor Story at the top, the first five in the lineup that Cora had already mentioned. Down in the eight hole starting at second base, though, was Campbell, the No. 7 overall prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline.
Grissom and Hamilton, meanwhile, were playing with the other squad against the Atlanta Braves on Monday.
Now, this is anything but a guarantee that Campbell is going to make the roster. Throughout the spring, it’s appeared almost as if the Red Sox are begging the prospect to take control of the position. Early on, though, we saw some defensive miscues from him at second base while he’s also been far from lighting the world on fire at the plate, hitting just .152 with a .445 OPS coming into Monday, not to mention the 13 strikeouts in 38 plate appearances.
Campbell has started to show improvement in both facets, though, including two nice plays defensively against the Orioles in the first two innings, knocking a double in his first at-bat, and raising his batting average from .059 on March 5 to where it is now. Perhaps more importantly, Grissom has been far from lighting the world on fire in his own right while Hamilton is more valuable as a middle-infield utility and depth piece.
After what Campbell did in the minors a season ago, though, it stands to reason why Boston wants him to be the guy on Opening Day. He posted a .997 OPS with 20 home runs and 32 doubles as he made his way from High-A to Triple-A in one year, dominating at all levels. If that continues to the majors, he could be the right-handed power at the bottom f the order that would round things out beautifully.
We’ll find out in about a week if Campbell has done enough to earn the job but it definitely seems this is where the Red Sox are heading and where they want to head. The good news for Boston, is that they now have a plethora of options of quality, not something they’ve been able to say in some time. Whether it’s Campbell, Grissom or Hamilton, it’s all indicative of a good problem to have.
