Red Sox News & Links: Marcelo Mayer is your second baseman
Come on, now, who else was it going to be?
FORT MYERS, FLORIDA - MARCH 7: Marcelo Mayer #11 of the Boston Red Sox patrols the infield during a spring training game against the Tampa Bay Rays at JetBlue Park at Fenway South on March 7, 2026 in Fort Myers, Florida. (Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images) | Getty Images Yesterday, manager Alex Cora announced that Marcelo Mayer would be the starting second baseman for the 2026 Red Sox. Thus concludes one of the sillier spring training storylines we’ve seen in a long time.
There was never really any baseball reason to suggest that either Isiah Kiner-Falefa or Andruw Monasterio would make more sense for the big league team than Mayer, even considering Mayer’s struggles at the plate in his first taste of the majors last year. But Cora says he “wanted to push him. ” (Alex Speier, Boston Globe) As a domino move that corresponded with Mayer making the big league team, Krisitian Campbell was officially sent down to AAA.
This isn’t surprising, though Cora did sound surprised by some of the things he saw from Campbell in Fort Myers. “The strikeouts were going up and the walks going down, and that’s not him. He’s a guy who controls the strike zone and doesn’t swing and miss.
That didn’t happen during camp. ” (Chris Cotillo, MassLive) I’m all for making Marcelo earn his spot in theory. But the problem with putting that theory into practice is that no serious and intelligent front office would ever base any meaningful decisions on spring training performances, marked as they are by small sample sizes and variable competition.