If you look at his stats through the first few weeks of the 2025 season, one could comfortably say he hasn’t fulfilled that role, especially based on his own personal expectations. However, don’t be surprised if that starts to change as soon as this weekend in Boston’s return to Fenway Park.
Casas is hitting a paltry .172 (11-for-64) through his first 18 games this season. He has just one home run and three doubles. Despite hitting in the middle of the Red Sox order, he has just three RBIs. On top of that, Casas has 18 strikeouts in 70 plate appearances with just three walks.
It has not been good. However, the process has started to improve recently, and the results should come soon.
Casas is just 3-for-17 over his last five games, but if you look a little deeper, there are signs of progress. He’s starting to put the ball in play (just three strikeouts), and when he puts it in play, he’s hitting it hard.
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In the three games against the Rays earlier this week, Casas hit six balls in play with an exit velocity of at least 97 mph (consistently doing that would be Shohei Ohtani, top 1 percentile stuff), and he had one hit to show for it. Over that stretch, Casas’ expected batting average — .299 — is more than 100 points better than his actual batting average (.176).
Casas also had three batted balls during the Tampa Bay series with expected batting averages of .470, .680 and .340 — and all three went for outs.
The first baseman’s .411 expected slugging percentage is in line with the league average (.417) through this point of the season. Of course, the Red Sox do need Casas to be better than league average, but it does help illustrate that his performance hasn’t been as bad as it has looked. To that same point, the difference between Casas’ expected slugging percentage and actual slugging percentage is one of the biggest in baseball. Only 20 qualified hitters have been more “unlucky” to this point.
Again, that is not to say Casas has been unlucky. There have been some uncompetitive at-bats, and he hasn’t looked completely comfortable. But the most recent evidence suggests that could finally be starting to change, and if that’s the case, the results shouldn’t be too far behind.
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Getting back to Fenway Park — where his career OPS is more than 100 points better than it is on the road — for the next seven games should help, too.
