Triston Casas, A New Hope for the Red Sox
Triston Casas of the Boston Red Sox (Associated Press)
When Triston Casas hit .197 in 27 games last year, folks were beginning to wonder if he was a bust. He can only play 1B and isn’t very good at it. He was 22 years old last year and everyone in Boston knew he was going to need to hit to stick around. However, many fans and writers acknowledged Casas had a crazy low BABIP of .208, indicating some serious bad luck. This bad luck poured into 2023, when Triston hit .133/.283/.293 and had fans calling for his demotion. Now 23, this is the year Triston had to flash the hitting potential that we’ve all been talking about since he was drafted back in 2018 out of Plantation, Florida. Despite immense pressure, Casas kept his cool and never seemed to lose confidence in himself. In fact, April was really his only bad month this season. He put a .766 OPS in May, and an .855 OPS in June. Triston finished the 1st H with a .728 OPS, which is not terrible, but it’s certainly not good enough for a guy who can barely play 1B and can’t be put anywhere else other than DH.
Things have changed quite a bit for Triston since then, as he hit .349/.442/.758 in July and was arguably the best hitter in baseball with a 216 wRC+. In August, Casas put up a .918 OPS and in September was trending at .858 before his season was abbreviated by a shoulder injury. He finished his 2nd H with a .317/.417/.617, plus 15 HR in only 54 games. Among qualified hitters in the American League, only Shoehi Ohtani had a higher wRC+ than the 175 put up by Triston. Now the question is a long term one: do we get the average hitter who can only play first or do we get the top 3 hitter in the American League in the 2nd Half of 2023?
As statistics will often tell us, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. ZIPS has Casas projected for .792, .802, and .804 OPS over the next three respective years. He projects as a .257-.258 hitter, with a K rate around 22% long term. However, his knowledge of the strike zone enables him to take pitches others would swing at, which does drive his BB rate and therefore his OBP as well. Since he walks around 15% of the time, he can be in the range of .360-.370 OBP even if he does only hit .250. Over 159 career games in the show, Casas has 29 HR in 505 AB’s, with an .842 OPS. I can agree with the ZIPS projection for Triston as a .250-.260 hitter, but I think he has more power than his projections. I think he can continue at roughly the pace of his first 160 games and display 30 HR on a consistent basis. Though I would like for Casas to improve at 1B defensively, none of us can really say if he will or not. In 152 games at 1B, Triston has mostly negative defensive stats, including -9 OAA. UZR is more optimistic at 1.4/150, but his DRS is -6. Bottom line, he is probably one of the worst first baseman in the league, at least for now. If he wants to play 1B in the major leagues, he’ll need to outperform his power projections, or improve at first base. Otherwise, he’s a borderline DH who gets on base at a decent clip, but 15-20 HR power isn’t enough for an everyday DH.
Player Comp: Adam Laroche
Like Casas, Laroche struggled defensively early in his career, but had the offensive profile to succeed. A 6’ 3” first baseman, Laroche put up a .798 OPS in over 6300 plate appearances. He hit .260 over his career and his 25-30 HR power was consistent as well. I would hope Casas develops power a tick above Laroche, as Adam averaged 26 HR per 162 games. That said, Laroche won a Gold Glove later in his career after improving at 1B, maybe Casas could follow in his footsteps? The Red Sox upper brass certainly hope so.
*Stats are as of 9/25/23