In baseball, your strengths can become weaknesses in the blink of an eye. For weeks now, Boston Red Sox fans have been wondering whether their team might part ways with outfielder Jarren Duran at this month's trade deadline. With Roman Anthony hitting the ground running, Ceddanne Rafaela blossoming and Wilyer Abreu manning right field, Boston had four outfielders (and then some) for three spots. Duran was the most established of the four, and with three years of team control remaining, he could fetch a haul if made available. Why not pull the trigger?
Well, the baseball gods may have provided the Red Sox with an answer earlier this week when young infielder Marcelo Mayer went down with a wrist injury. On its face, an injury to a second baseman wouldn't seem to have much of anything to do with Boston's outfield picture. But as Mayer landed on the IL on Friday afternoon, it set off a domino effect in the Red Sox lineup, one that could force the team to hang on to Duran after all.
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Jarren Duran isn't so expendable after Marcelo Mayer injury
The Red Sox have diagnosed Mayer with a right wrist sprain, and there's still no clear sense of just how long he'll be out or how long this injury might linger. Suddenly, though, Boston's unwillingness to entertain even healthy offers for Duran makes a bit more sense.
Mayer has gone through the normal rookie struggles at the plate since being promoted earlier this summer, but he'd helped to stabilize second base for Boston and more or less booted previous starter David Hamilton out of the picture. With Mayer gone, the team's best option is to shift Rafaela from center field to the infield — where he split his time coming up through the Minors and is more than capable — for the foreseeable future. That makes Duran the center fielder more often than not, with Anthony in left, Abreu in right and Masataka Yoshida serving as the DH.
Again, maybe this isn't a long-term arrangement. Maybe Boston is confident enough in Mayer's quick return to action that they're willing to deal Duran anyway, loading up for both the present and future while locking three plus starters into their outfield. That's an awfully big risk, though, especially considering Mayer's struggles even before he got hurt. This Red Sox team is talented enough to win now, and it has the ammo to bolster its pitching staff even without moving on from Duran. And besides, it's not like his market will be any less robust this winter, or whenever else the team might decide to revisit a deal.
For that reason, a Duran trade was always going to be trickier than it appeared on the surface. Now, though, Boston has been given a reminder of just how fickle depth can be, and it'll take someone blowing them out of the water to pull the trigger in the middle of a pennant chase.