The Boston Red Sox don’t have a lot to play for, but their front office still has plenty of player evaluation to do.
General manager Ben Cherington likely will have a close eye on his team in the season’s final two weeks. He and the baseball operations department must monitor a handful of young players, and the most intriguing (and most important) might be outfielder Rusney Castillo.
The 27-year-old Cuban made his major league debut Wednesday night, meaning the Red Sox now have a chance to see Castillo up close only one month after signing him to a seven-year, $72.5 million contract.
The initial observations seem to back up the Red Sox’s scouting report on the outfielder.
“I think what attracted us to him through the scouting process was just that he has kind of a broad base of skills,” Cherington said Thursday morning on WEEI’s “Dennis & Callahan” show. “We think he can hit, he’s got some power, he can run, he can play defense. So this is not a player that you can say is elite in any one category, but just good in a lot of categories, and the sum of that adds up to what we hope is a good player.
“I don’t know if there’s a particular player comparable, but we certainly believe he can be a very good major league outfielder and part of a good team.”
Many expect Castillo to be the Opening Day center fielder in 2015, but Cherington wasn’t ready to commit to any sort of lineup. He and the Red Sox certainly will have to figure out something, though, as they have a logjam of outfielders that only will become more complicated if and when Shane Victorino gets healthy.
Photo via Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports Images
