Welcome to Rates and barrels. It is Friday, February 27th.

Derek Van Riefer here today, continuing the team preview series with a lot of help from our beatwriters.

We have the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, and the Minnesota Twins all on tap for today.

Eno on his way to Arizona, I'm a few hours behind him.

So by the time you hear this pod, we will both be enjoying 90 degree weather in the desert,

building baseball teams, going to the Sabre conference, doing the nerdy

things we like to do this time of year. But to get started today, Jen McCaffrey is here. Jen

covers the Red Sox for the athletic. Jen, thank you so much for making some time.

Thanks for having me. So let's talk about the position player group, because this is a lot

different than what we saw in Boston to begin last season. I was just looking back at where the playing time went last year, right? Jaron Duran, almost 700 played appearances. Trevor's story was finally healthy. He got the 654. Beyond that, I mean, Saddam Rafael was kind of like the next everyday guy moving around a little bit while doing that. Bregman went healthy was an everyday guy, but Bregman's gone.

Story's got a pretty rich injury history.

And you've got this core of young players that didn't have the roles we expected them to have last year,

who are all still in the fold potentially on the brink of making an impact.

So who do you think is actually

in this lineup on an everyday basis in 2026 based on how things stand right now? Yeah, it's a

much different team than this time last year. Just like you said, obviously Raphael Devers isn't here

either. So the way that it's breaking down as of now in late February, like we were saying, first base,

Wilson Contreras, he'll obviously see most of the reps there.

They're still figuring out third base and second base who's going to play where, but Caleb

Durbin is someone that they traded for right at the start of spring training.

So he's going to be a regular in one of those positions,

you know, come the start of the season. Marcel Meyer is likely going to win the other,

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