Red Sox’s Alex Cora Sees Tough Roster Decisions As ‘Cool Thing’

If they ever return to full health (which is something that has seemed impossible for the last three seasons) the Red Sox will have tough roster decisions to make.

Boston’s infield, in particular, is going to look very crowded once Pablo Reyes and Trevor Story make their returns from the injured list. Story still has a number of hurdles to clear, but Reyes’ return is expected to come during the Red Sox’s series with the Oakland Athletics that starts Monday at Fenway.

“That’s the cool thing about having a good team right now,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Saturday, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “We didn’t have to make too many tough decisions in ’21 or last year as far as like roster spots. Now we’ve got better players and Pablo is one of them. So he’ll DH today (for Double-A Portland). I think he’s playing short tomorrow and then we’ll reassess the situation after that game. For how tough it is quote-unquote, it’s a cool thing. It’s good that we’ve got more good players and we have to make tough decisions.”

“It’s good that we’ve got more good players and we have to make tough decisions.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora

The Red Sox, at that point, would have Kiké Hernández, Yu Chang, Christian Arroyo, Reyes and even Justin Turner as middle infield options. That’s too many, especially considering they’ve got no choice but to keep all five outfielders: Masataka Yoshida, Jarren Duran, Adam Duvall, Rob Refsnyder and Alex Verdugo.

Chang has played tremendous defense and Turner has the hottest bat on the team, so the options are slim — especially considering none of the remaining players have minor-league options.

So, having to make some tough decisions will be cool, but it won’t be fun.