Ex-Red Sox Fan-Favorite Elects Free Agency, Officially Ending Boston Tenure

Time for a change of scenery...

Sep 20, 2019; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; A detail view of Boston Red Sox hats and gloves at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-Imagn Images / Kim Klement-Imagn Images

Major League Baseball, in case you hadn't heard, is very hard.

It doesn't matter if you're a 15-year veteran, a former top prospect, or a rookie fighting for one of the last spots on the roster. Present success never guarantees future success, and if you struggle long enough, you won't be around much longer.

Former Boston Red Sox fan-favorite first baseman Bobby Dalbec found that out the hard way the past few seasons. After a solid 2021 season, Dalbec continually lost playing time at the major league level and ended up spending the vast majority of 2024 in Triple-A, even getting designated for assignment before eventually returning to the Boston organization.

Dalbec was once a promising piece of the Red Sox's future, but both sides are now ready to turn the page. According to Chris Cotillo of MassLive, Dalbec officially elected free agency on Saturday, ending his run with the Red Sox and making him eligible to sign a minor-league contract with another club.

In 2021, Dalbec hit 25 home runs and had a very respectable .793 OPS, clearing a lane for himself to become the first baseman of the future. But in the three years since, he's put up a .599 OPS with 189 strikeouts in 499 big-league plate appearances, with -1.7 wins above replacement at the big-league level.

Manager Alex Cora was asked when Dalbec was DFA'd about the possibility of a change of scenery being beneficial for the struggling 29-year-old, and seemed to concur that Dalbec moving on from Boston would likely be the best path forward.

“I hate to say that, right, but it’s happened before,” Cora said in September, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “If you look at the swing and miss percentages, he's up there... He's still a good player. Good defender. Has some pop. He's a good athlete."

One can imagine Dalbec might find success elsewhere, though the road certainly won't be easy after struggling so mightily at the big-league level the past few seasons. But that was perhaps least likely to happen if Dalbec stayed in Boston, so a change of scenery should be a welcome development.

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