3 Red Sox prospects who will debut and steal playing time in 2022

3. Triston Casas 1B/DH

Like Thanos, Triston Casas, is “inevitable.”

His promotion to Triple-A at the end of the 2021 minor-league season signaled that his debut wasn’t far off.

Across 86 games between Double-A and Triple-A last season, Casas hit .279/.394/.484 with a .877 OPS, 15 doubles, three triples, 14 home runs, 63 runs scored, and 59 driven in. He also went 7-for-10 in stolen base attempts.

Casas, who will turn 22 on January 15, will almost certainly make his debut in 2022, but his arrival in the big leagues throws a wrench into the current infield setup, in particular, Bobby Dalbec. Dalbec made his own highly-anticipated debut in September 2020 and hit eight home runs in 23 games.

Unfortunately, the hard-hitting infielder is also an absolute strikeout machine; Dalbec struck out 39 times in only 23 games in that first season and 156 times in 133 games in 2021.

Comparing minor-league hitting to major-league hitting is, by definition, a flawed exercise. However, it’s worth noting that Casas’ plate discipline has improved between 2019 and 2021, while Dalbec has struggled with it throughout his professional career. Between his first full season in the Sox system in 2017 and his 2021 season in the majors, Dalbec has more strikeouts than games played in every single season of his career. Casas struck out 118 times in 120 games in 2019, but only 71 times in 86 games in 2021. His walk rate also improved from 11.6 percent in 2019 to 15.36 percent this year.

It feels like the Sox will have to choose between Casas and Dalbec in the near future.