Red Sox acquire third baseman Caleb Durbin in trade with Brewers

Ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Red Sox have a third baseman!

As first reported by Jeff Passan (who else?) the Red Sox have acquired 25-year-old Caleb Durbin in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers. Heading the other way are Kyle Harrison, David Hamilton, and Shane Drohan.

We’ll have more on Durbin soon, but the quick and dirty is that he plays a position of need, bats from the right side of the plate, and had a strong if unspectacular rookie year for the Brewers in 2025, slashing .256/.338/.387 with 11 homers and 18 steals in 136 games. His OPS+ was right at league average at 101, while his WAR numbers were 2.8 from Baseball Reference and 2.6 from FanGraphs.

As his slash line shows, Durbin has very little power. His offensive value comes from a good batting eye and a near elite ability to make contact and avoid strikeouts. The 9.9% strikeout rate he posted last year would have easily been the best mark on the Red Sox, nearly two full points lower than the next best rate, posted by Masataka Yoshida. He’s a pull hitter so moving to Fenway could give him a boost in the power department, but don’t expect too much there, as Durbin is just 5’7 and has an extremely slow bat. He just doesn’t hit the ball hard at all.

Defensively, he’s still learning to play third after bouncing around the diamond throughout the minors (where he actually spent more time at second). He doesn’t have a particularly strong arm and he had exactly zero Outs Above Average last year, making him (duh) exactly average in the field. Given that he’s still relatively new to the position, there might be some room for growth there.

Coming along to Boston in the deal will be Andruw Monasterio, a 28-year-old infielder who has been a Quad-A type for most of his career, Anthony Siegler, a 26-year-old who has split most of his minor league innings between catcher and second base, and a compensation round draft pick. I wouldn’t get too excited about either Monasterio or Siegler — there’s a good chance the Brewers would have DFA’d both of them in the near future.

So here we go: Spring Training is getting underway and it looks like Craig Breslow is done for now. Durbin fills a need, but he’s not exactly the bat the Red Sox wanted going into the offseason. Carry us now, Roman Anthony.