The Boston Red Sox traded for first baseman Willson Contreras on Sunday night, which got people talking about Triston Casas’ future with the organization.
Casas, 25, ruptured his left patellar tendon in May and missed the remainder of the 2025 season. While some reports have suggested Casas could be ready to play by Opening Day, Boston’s chief baseball officer, Craig Breslow, hasn’t ever committed to Casas being the Red Sox’s starting first baseman for when the season begins in March.
The general thinking is that the Red Sox want to ease Casas back onto the diamond after such a serious injury, and that, generally speaking, it would be risky to place any sort of expectation on Casas at this point, given his string of durability issues.
This doesn’t mean Boston has lost faith in Triston’s talent or his capacity to bounce back and still have a productive MLB career. Red Sox manager Alex Cora has talked about Casas publicly on multiple occasions this offseason, reminding fans that the organization still expects big things from Triston.
Breslow feels the same way, it appears. That’s why he called Casas on Monday within 24 hours of trading for Contreras (according to The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier).
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Breslow didn’t share a ton of specific about the private conversation, but the takeaway was that Casas took the news with a professional attitude, and that Breslow was aiming to reiterate to Triston that the organization still believes in him.
Casas still has a minor league option remaining. The Red Sox could ostensibly send Triston to Triple-A to begin the 2026 campaign to help him re-gain his rhythm and confidence as he continues to build his body back up.
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Once Casas is ready to return to the big-league diamond, the Red Sox will now have two capable first baseman in the form of a powerful right-handed bat and a powerful left-handed bat. That is awesome flexibility for Cora to have at his disposal. Both players can get DH reps, too, which might end up being a revolving door of a role along with Masataka Yoshida.
It’s easy to speculate on Casas’ situation in Boston, but the fact of the matter is he needs to get healthy. Nothing else is worth discussing at length until Triston strings together another stretch of durability like he did very early on in his career.
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Everyone gets hit with the injury bug, and Casas has had it bad over the past couple of years. How he responds will define what his career looks like moving forward, but the talent has always been there. This is definitely a guy who can hit 30+ home runs in an MLB season if his body stops betraying him.
Featured image via Jerome Miron/Imagn Images
