This week Craig Breslow and every other MLB club’s top decision makers are in Las Vegas for the annual GM Meetings, and Monday night the Red Sox chief baseball officer spoke to reporters ahead of what is expected to be a busy offseason.
Among the topics covered, Breslow provided some notable injury updates concerning several of the club’s top young players.
According to WEEI’s Rob Bradford and others, Breslow said first baseman Triston Casas is trending towards being ready for spring training, as are top rookies Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer.
Anthony and Mayer’s availability wasn’t in doubt, but with Casas coming off a significant season-ending knee injury the club has been cautious about his recovery.
“I’m always reluctant to put timelines on things that are months away because you feel like you either meet them and everything is OK and you don’t sometimes for no reason other than things pop up and there are questions about what thee setback was,” Breslow said, per Bradford. “Triston is anticipating being ready for spring training. Exactly what that looks like, we’ll find out. But he’s moving around really well. He’s committed to living in Fort Myers for the offseason to make sure he gets the treatment and support that he needs.”
Casas suffered a ruptured left patellar tendon on May 2, ending his season after only 29 games. It was the second major injury suffered by Casas in two seasons, following a painful rib injury that sidelined the young slugger for nearly four months in 2024.
But when healthy, Casas has shown himself capable of performing at a high level in the majors. The 25-year-old has hit 45 home runs in 251 career games, and in his only full big league season the first baseman hit 24 homers with an .856 OPS.
With the Red Sox lineup in need of power, Casas returning to full health could give the club a huge lift.
As for Anthony, Breslow said the Rookie of the Year finalist is “completely asymptomatic” and is expected to begin his usual offseason activities on schedule. Anthony missed the final month of the season with a strained left oblique, which also sidelined the standout for the team’s AL Wild Card series against the New York Yankees.
Had the Red Sox made a deeper postseason run it’s possible Anthony could have eventually returned, and Breslow said the same may have been true for Mayer, who underwent wrist surgery in August after suffering a sprain on July 23.
“Marcelo’s been making great progress to the point that he was pushing to get back in time if we would have continued deeper into the postseason,” Breslow said, per MassLive’s Christopher Smith. “But he’s having a good offseason out on the West Coast, getting bigger and stronger.”
