It's no secret that the Red Sox have an overabundance of position players, both on the roster and in the farm system. With top prospects like Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer knocking on the door, the Red Sox will probably have to move some players currently in the big leagues to make room for them.
Recently, the MLB Trade Rumors podcast addressed a proposed solution to this problem. The idea is to trade first baseman Triston Casas and move shortstop Trevor Story over to first to make room for Mayer at short. Casas has been no stranger to trade rumors this year, but this proposal might be one of the wildest. Well, at least it was before Casas injured his knee on Friday night. Now, it's possible this could work.
The theory behind this proposal is that Casas is one of many left-handed batters in the lineup, and that the Red Sox would be better served by evening out the roster. Not only that, but Casas' rocky start to the season has caused many Red Sox fans to panic about his future with the team.
Wild proposal has Red Sox trading Casas, moving Story to first
There's more than a few problems with this proposal. First is the fact that Casas has a good track record. Prior to 2025, he had an .830 OPS, walked at a prodigiously high rate and hit for excellent power. It's amazing how quickly Red Sox fans have turned on Casas after a rocky start to 2025, especially with how small his sample size has been this year.
By the same token, Red Sox fans also seem to have forgotten about Story's less than stellar history in Boston. From 2022 to 2024, Story dealt with near-constant injuries, appearing in just 163 games. Not only that, but he wasn't good in the games he did play, managing just an 89 OPS+ and striking out a whopping 210 times.
Moreover, as the podcast hosts pointed out, much of the disparity between Casas and Story's respective starts to 2025 comes down to luck. Casas' walk and strikeout rates are similar to his career totals, but his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is just .197, compared to the league average of around .300. Meanwhile, Story is striking out a lot and not walking frequently but has a .356 BABIP. Therefore, Casas has been very unlucky while Story has been quite fortunate. Over a larger sample size, that should even out.
At this point, though, the Red Sox might have no choice in the interim. Casas going down at least gives them time to figure things out before the trade deadline, so they might as well experiment with this imperfect scenario while they have the time.