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With the addition of Willson Contreras from the Cardinals last night, the Boston Red Sox seemingly no longer have room for Triston Casas in their starting lineup, with Contreras taking over first base duties and Masataka Yoshida being in line for the majority of the reps at DH. Casas was a pillar of the Red Sox lineup in 2023, posting a 131 wRC+ in 132 games, but he has played just 92 games over the past 2 seasons, and now his future in Boston is in question.
Paul Toboni has executed one trade with his former club this offseason, swapping left-handed pitching prospect Jake Bennett for right-handed pitching prospect Luis Perales, and he has the opportunity to make another one and fill a massive position of need for the Nats by acquiring Triston Casas from the Red Sox. By digging into the Nats’ bullpen or prospect stash once more, Toboni can buy low on a first baseman who posted elite batted ball numbers in his last full season.
One of the major concerns people have about Triston Casas is his durability, which is a fair concern when he hasn’t played a full season in going on 3 years now. The reason I would not worry about these injuries in the case of a potential Casas trade is the fact that they were more freak incidents, and not a sign of anything recurring. In 2024, he suffered from a broken cartilage near his rib cage, which he described as being like a “car crash inside his body” when he swung, but he fully healed from it and was ready to go for Opening Day 2025.
His 2025 season was also cut short, this time by a tendon rupture in his left knee while beating out an infield single. While both injuries were unfortunate and have left Boston fans frustrated with Casas’ inability to stay on the field, they are also separate injuries that don’t point towards future issues.
When Casas is healthy, he’s one of the best first baseman bats in baseball, as shown by his impressive 2023 season at just 23 years old, where he slugged 24 home runs and posted a 131 wRC+. Perhaps even more impressive than his results that year were his underlying numbers, which suggested Casas was going to slug like this for a long time.
Of those numbers, the ones that stand out to me are his 86th percentile barrel rate, 93rd percentile bat speed, and 93rd percentile walk rate, demonstrating Casas’s rare ability to not only be selective and take his free passes, but to do damage when he gets his pitch. Some may be concerned about the slow start Casas had to the 2025 season, posting just a 56 wRC+ in 29 games, but many of his key metrics, such as bat speed and whiff rate, remained right in line with career norms, and he was showing signs of heating up before his season-ending injury.
So what would it cost for the Nats to acquire Casas from the Red Sox? While he won’t be free by any means, I believe the Nats could get a heck of a deal for Casas, as the combination of Toboni’s familiarity with the Red Sox front office, his injury history, and Boston wanting to send him somewhere he can thrive will allow the Nats to get a bargain.
The Red Sox proved just how much they covet big left-handed pitchers when they flipped Perales for Bennett from the Nats, and maybe they could be tempted again by Jackson Kent from the Nats, the 22-year-old who checks in at 6’3”. There’s also the possibility of Toboni flipping a prospect from the old regime which he doesn’t feel strongly about for Casas, with names such as Seaver King and Caleb Lomavita coming to mind.
There are still plenty of avenues for filling the Nationals’ hole at first base this offseason, but if the choice were mine, I would push all my chips in for Triston Casas. If Casas continues to fight the injury bug and never hits at his 2023 level again, the reality will be that the price for him wasn’t large enough to cry about it. If Casas proves his injuries have been flukes and he is, in fact, the big bat we saw him be in 2023, the Nationals will have gotten a steal for a heart of the order bat.