Last week was baseball’s opening day. And so on the socials I released my predictions for the season and then a look at the revolving door that has been the Red Sox and second base since 2017.
Back in 2017 we were in the 11th year of Dustin Pedroia being the Sox’ star second baseman. That summer, Manny Machado slid spikes up into second and ruined Pedroia’s knee. Pedroia had surgery and missed Opening Day 2018 then struggled to return. He played 105 games in 2017 then only three in 2018 and then six in 2019. And thus began the instability. Here’s a list of the Opening Day second baseman since 2017.
- 2018 Eduardo Nuñez
- 2019 Eduardo Nuñez
- 2020 José Peraza
- 2021 Kiké Hernández
- 2022 Trevor Story
- 2023 Christian Arroyo
- 2024 Enmanuel Valdez
- 2025 Kristian Campbell
And, again, by comparison…
- 2007 Dustin Pedroia
- 2008 Dustin Pedroia
- 2009 Dustin Pedroia
- 2010 Dustin Pedroia
- 2011 Dustin Pedroia
- 2012 Dustin Pedroia
- 2013 Dustin Pedroia
- 2014 Dustin Pedroia
- 2015 Dustin Pedroia
- 2016 Dustin Pedroia
- 2017 Dustin Pedroia
But not only is it a lack of stability, it is a lack of production. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is a statistic that attempts to capture a player’s value relative to an “average” player or substitute. A below replacement level person is less than 0 WAR. A substitute is 0–2, a regular everyday players is 2–5, an All Star is 5–8, and an elite MVP level performance is 8+ WAR. And, spoiler, the Sox have not had a 5+ WAR second baseman since Pedroia’s final full season in 2016.
Suffice it to say, the Sox have long had a need for a long-term second baseman. The graphics I created were meant to be two Instagram images in the same post, and so the the axis labels and lines stretch across the artboards.
The graphic shows pretty clearly the turmoil at the keystone. The two outliers are Kiké Hernández in 2021 and Trevor Story in 2022. The latter is easily explained. Story was signed to be the backup plan in case shortstop Xander Bogaerts left after 2022. (Back in 2013 I made a graphic after a similar revolving door of shortstops in the eight years after the Red Sox traded Nomar Garciaparra. Then the question was, would a young rookie named Xander Bogaerts be the replacement for the beloved Nomah. Xander played 10 years for the Sox.)
Kiké, however, is a bit trickier to explain. WAR weights value by position. A second baseman is worth more than a leftfielder. But shortstops and centrefielders are worth more than second baseman. And Kiké played a lot more shortstop and centre than he did second base, which likely explains his 4.9 WAR that season.
And so now in 2025 we had yet another guy starting at second. His name? Kristian Campbell. I saw him a few times last year as he rocketed from A to AAA, the lowest to highest levels of minor league player development below the major league. I thought he looked good and so did the professionals, because he’s a consensus top-10 prospect in the sport.
Going into Monday’s matchup between Boston and Baltimore, Campbell is hitting 6 for 14 with one homer and two doubles, an on-base percentage of .500 and an OPS (on-base plus slugging, which weights extra base hits more heavily than singles) of 1.286. Spoiler: that’s very good.
Boston beat writers are reporting the Sox and Campbell’s agent are in talks for a long-term extension.
It looks like the Sox may have found their new long-term second baseman.
Credit for the piece is mine.
