The Red Sox continue to be the picture of dysfunction, and now the players are disagreeing with each other.
On Sunday, veteran Willson Contreras was asked about the team’s struggles and said that it probably didn’t help having so many young players in the lineup who didn’t know how to deal with slumps. Second-year second baseman Marcelo Mayer took exception to that idea.
“It’s different with Alex not here,” Contreras said. “But after Cora got fired, the guys got loose a little more because I feel like the tension was gone. ... That’s what I felt. That’s my own opinion. When Alex wasn’t in the dugout [anymore], the team was kinda like loose. But that doesn’t matter. We have to play better. We have to find consistency. We have to get better, we have to be better.
He added, “It probably doesn’t help that the lineup has a number of young players who don’t have much experience in dealing with slumps.”
Mayer thought thtat was just a convenient excuse.
“To me, that’s just kind of an excuse: blame the young guys,” Mayer said. “But at the end of the day, we’re all playing baseball, we’re all pros. We all know what we need to do. I don’t think we’re doing a good job with runners in scoring position. When you don’t do that, you don’t score runs."
It’s not clear whether Mayer knew he was responding to comments from Contreras directly or if the question was posed to him separately, but the conflict still exists. Contreras thinks the team’s lack of experience is hurting it, and Mayer disagrees.
Contreras was added in a trade with the Cardinals this winter and has arguably been Boston's best hitter. The 33-year-old is slashing .280/.387/.492 with seven home runs, 21 RBIs, a wRC+ of 142 and has already produced 1.5 fWAR. Wilyer Abreu, who is 26, is also hitting well to start the season. He's slashing .298/.379/.460 with a 131 wRC+. Other than that, most of the team has struggled.
Mayer is 23 and has a wRC+ of 82, Roman Anthony is 22 and having issues (93 wRC+), and the 25-year-old Ceddanne Rafaela (89 wRC+) is also struggling. But, unlike Contreras’s suggestion, it isn’t just the young guys who are in a bad spot. In fact, some of the veterans are far worse off.
Former All-Star Jarren Duran has been awful to start the 2026 campaign. Through 29 games, the 29-year-old is slashing .186/.246/.310 with a woeful wRC+ of 50. Trevor Story, who is 33, has a slashline of .208/.245/.310, a wRC+ of 44 and has produced -0.3 fWAR.
Caleb Durbin is only 26, so he fits somewhere between young guy and veteran, and has been the team’s worst hitter. He’s slashing .165/.254/.248 with a wRC+ of 37.
It’s a mix of veterans and young guys bogging down Boston’s offense. The team is currently 13–21 and has lost four of its last five. A team doesn’t get into this position because one section of the roster is struggling. This is a franchise-wide problem created by incompetent leadership.
Mayer is right, blaming the young guys is an excuse.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Marcelo Mayer Takes Exception to Teammate Blaming Red Sox Woes on Young Players.
