Boston Red Sox trade: Where will new acquisition Caleb Durbin play?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Red Sox made a trade Monday, acquiring third baseman/second baseman Caleb Durbin and two other players from the Brewers.

Boston sent lefty starting pitchers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan along with utility infielder Dave Hamilton to Milwaukee. The six-player deal also included the Sox receiving utility players Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler as well as a Compensation Round B draft pick.

Durbin provides a right-handed infield bat, something Boston was lacking. He doesn’t solve the power-hitting shortage though. The 5-foot-7, 183-pounder hit 11 homers and slugged only .387 in 136 games (506 plate appearances) for the Brewers in 2025, when he finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting.

Where will Durbin play?

Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said that’s still to be determined.

“I think at this point we’re just excited about getting a really good player into the organization and we’ll figure out where he fits best,” Breslow said. “Just doesn’t feel like it makes sense to commit to anything right now. He’s got experience at third base in the big leagues, some experience at second coming up. He’s played a little bit of shortstop. And I think that versatility is something that helps us out, but we’ll figure that out as we get into camp and get underway.”

Durbin, who will turn 26 on Feb. 22, had five defensive runs saved in 1,060 ⅔ innings at third base last year. He had minus-1 defensive runs saved in 43 ⅓ innings at second base.

He also had zero outs above replacement at third and minus-1 at second base.

His stats are better at third but it’s difficult to judge his second base defense based on such a small sample size.

According to his Baseball America scouting report, “He is a versatile defender who saw time at all three non-shortstop spots on the infield as well (as) a handful of games in the outfield as well. Second or third base is his most likely home, and he should be average at either spot thanks to quick feet and a throwing arm which is at least average.”

He played more innings at second base (1,286 ⅔ innings) than at third base (628) in the minors. He also logged 343 ⅔ innings at shortstop, 65 ⅔ innings in left field and nine innings in center field.

The other question would be if he’s the everyday player at one of those two positions.

He had almost even splits against right-handed and left-handed pitchers as a rookie. He batted .255 with a .337 on-base percentage, .385 slugging percentage and .722 OPS in 373 plate appearances against righties compared to .258./326/.392/.717 in 133 plate appearances against lefties.

Breslow views him as an everyday player.

“I think he showed last year that he can be a very good everyday player in the big leagues,” Breslow said. “He does a lot of things really, really well. When you think about the deficiencies that our team had last year in terms of putting the ball in play, you know, not expanding the strike zone, catching up to fastballs, those are all things that he excels at and we think that he’s a really good defender as well.”

If the Red Sox play Durbin every day at third base, they could platoon left-handed hitting Marcelo Mayer and right-handed hitting Romy Gonzalez at second base.

Breslow is not sure yet whether Durbin will bounce around to different infield positions or if the Red Sox will have him play one spot.

“I think that’s something that we’ll figure out as we get to know Caleb and we look at the way that the roster comes together,” Breslow said. “Certainly Alex (Cora) has shown that he’s willing to take advantage of matchups and move guys around. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves before we’ve had a chance to really sit down and talk this through.”