Red Sox should stop overthinking Marcelo Mayer as their shortstop

Now that Trevor Story is on the injured list and weighing the possibility of surgery for his sports hernia, the next major question facing the Red Sox is straightforward: Who should be playing shortstop?

For now, Boston plans to piece the position together with Andruw Monasterio, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Nick Sogard rotating through innings at short.

But the reality is, the Red Sox arguably already have their best shortstop on the roster; he’s just currently playing second base.

Marcelo Mayer was drafted fourth overall in 2021 as a shortstop out of high school and almost immediately became viewed as Boston’s long-term answer at the position.

Injuries slowed portions of Mayer’s development throughout the minors, but this season, the rookie is finally healthy and beginning to establish himself at the major league level.

At some point, the Red Sox need to stop overthinking it. Mayer should be playing shortstop while Story is sidelined, and quite possibly beyond that as well.

There’s an old saying in sports that players should not lose their jobs because of injury. Ordinarily, that sentiment carries weight, but this situation is more complicated because Story simply was not performing before the injury occurred.

The veteran shortstop was hitting just .206 with three home runs, seven doubles, 19 RBIs, eight walks, and 57 strikeouts while posting a miserable .547 OPS across 41 games.

According to FanGraphs, Story’s 44.0 percent chase rate ranked as the fifth-worst among qualified major league hitters, while his 32.4 percent strikeout rate sat sixth-highest in baseball.

There is little doubt that the sports hernia impacted Story’s performance physically. Even Story himself admitted he has not felt like himself on the field.

Still, the Red Sox have reached the point in their season where Chad Tracy‘s responsibility is to put the best possible nine players on the field each night.

Right now, that should include Mayer at shortstop.

“I know the big question is Marcelo; everybody’s gonna want to know that,” Tracy said. “I do think part of that depends on knowing what’s happening with Trevor. Is this a three-week thing and he’s going to be back quick? Or is this a longer thing? We have definitely kicked (that) around. We know Marcelo has played short. He’s done it his whole life.

“But definitely, number one, it’s not something we’re gonna do right now,” Tracy added. “And two, we can’t just fire him over there. If we are gonna do that, we need to get him some more (work). He’s taken no groundballs anywhere but second. So, again, let’s see what’s going on with Trevor, and then we’ll dive deeper into that.”

The timeline surrounding Story’s injury will likely determine whether the Red Sox ultimately move Mayer back to shortstop.

If Story avoids surgery and misses only a brief stretch, Boston may decide to continue patching the position together with Monasterio, Kiner-Falefa, and Sogard.

But if Story undergoes surgery, that could finally make the Sox push all their chips into the middle of the table on Mayer playing shortstop. The veteran shortstop believes the procedure could sideline him anywhere from six to 10 weeks, potentially costing him the bulk of the summer.

At that point, it becomes much harder to justify keeping Mayer at second base while relying on utility-type options at shortstop for an extended period of time.

“Oh, just very preliminary, just talking to Cello based on his comfort level and things like that,” said Tracy. 

“Also talked with him about making sure we see what's going on with Trevor before we do anything really quick and have to reverse it. Most of that was just conversations, he and I, on where he's at, and obviously [he's] very comfortable at shortstop. But there's more to it than that. It's not just a black and white scenario.”

Mayer is fine playing wherever.

“Wherever Trace wants me to play, that's where I'm going to go out there and give it all for the team. Obviously, that's home to me. That's where I've played my whole life,” Mayer said to The Boston Globe’s Tim Healey. “And we've had some discussions, getting some work there in practice whenever I can. But like I said, wherever Trace needs me to play, that’s where it’s going to be. Whether it’s short, whether it’s second, I'm just here to help the team.”

Boston would also prefer for Mayer to