The case for Red Sox keeping Triston Casas and finding an ace elsewhere

The case for Red Sox keeping Triston Casas and finding an ace elsewhere originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

For a guy with obvious 40-homer and All-Star potential, Triston Casas sure finds himself in a lot of hypothetical trades.

Send him to Seattle for pitching. Clear him out to make room for Alex Bregman in free agency. The lineup is too left-handed, so someone’s gotta go. He’s just blocking Rafael Devers’ inevitable move across the diamond. Trade him for a starter and sign Willy Adames. And on and on.

A case can be made for moving Casas (and I made it a couple of weeks ago), but let’s argue the flip side: why the Red Sox should keep him.

Casas possesses a rare combination of skills. In an age where power still wins ballgames and patience can be the difference between a great lineup and a mediocre one, Casas checks both boxes.

Even his injury-riddled 2024 projected to 30 homers and 75 walks, and that’s on the heels of a rookie campaign in 2023 that saw him emerge as one of baseball’s best power hitters down the stretch.

On the patience side, his lifetime on base percentage tracks more than 100 points higher than his average, a quick-and-dirty metric that makes virtually any power hitter viable. Think Brewers maulers Gorman Thomas and Rob Deer of yesteryear, or old friend Kyle Schwarber today. If you can take a walk and smash a homer, there’s a place for you in the middle of 30 lineups.

But Casas isn’t just about homers and walks. He does everything you’d want out of a young hitter, ranking among the league leaders in bat speed, barrel percentage, and chase rate. He swings at strikes and when he connects, he hits the ball hard. It’s easy to envision him growing into a Carlos Delgado-style destroyer, and who wouldn’t want one of those?

Making the case for him even stronger, Casas doesn’t turn 25 until January. For an organization that’s desperate to win with elite homegrown talent, Casas and his lifetime .830 OPS represent a surer thing at the moment than even baseball’s No. 1 prospect, Roman Anthony. For the Red Sox to trade him when there are other ways to acquire impact pitching feels impatient, counterproductive, and at odds with their stated mission.

For one, they could trade someone else. Their prospect base is too left-handed and it’s a virtual guarantee that at least one out of Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Kyle Teel, and Kristian Campbell will never possess more value than right now. If Craig Breslow can identify that player or players, now is the time to trade high.

For another, they’re still sitting on a pile of money, more than $60 million below next year’s $241 million luxury tax line. Owner John Henry has a longstanding aversion to paying for 30-year-old starters in free agency, but if he wants to keep his best young players, he could always address the issues atop his rotation with straight cash. Signing Orioles ace Corbin Burnes would cost the team a couple of hundred million and a draft pick, but no prospects. And more importantly, no Casas.

So why the rush to move on from someone who hasn’t even sniffed his prime? We shouldn’t dismiss the off-field component, where Casas’s iconoclasm has earned the occasional sneer of disapproval from a teammate (for sunning himself half naked in the outfield) or rebuke from manager Alex Cora (for overstating his pain level after returning from a rib injury). Of course, another way to look at Casas’ personal peculiarities is that he’s being authentic and fans like guys who are real, even if they’re a little weird.

In any event, it’s not like he’s a destructive clubhouse presence or a miscreant frequenting the police blotter. He’s simply a free spirit who marches to his own beat. That’s hardly grounds for parting ways.

Add the fact that the Red Sox wouldn’t exactly be dealing from a position of strength after watching him appear in just 63 games last year, and it makes sense to wait and see what he can do in a Red Sox uniform before regretting his production somewhere else.