{"id":34720,"date":"2025-03-21T02:23:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T02:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=34720"},"modified":"2025-03-21T02:23:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T02:23:33","slug":"shocking-infielder-who-added-20-pounds-of-muscle-this-winter-sent-packing-by-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=34720","title":{"rendered":"SHOCKING: Infielder Who \u2018Added 20 Pounds of Muscle\u2019 This Winter Sent Packing by Red Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"c-content entry-content\">\n<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\" class=\"wp-caption \">\n<div class=\"h-responsive\">\n<figure class=\"h-responsive__inner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2155083975.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2155083975.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2155083975.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2155083975.jpg?quality=35&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" data-img-load-time=\"805\" data-dom-ready-time=\"841\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-post-image-caption-text\">Vaughn Grissom<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The trade of 2024 National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale keeps looking worse and worse for the\u00a0Boston Red Sox. On Wednesday, the team announced they\u2019d optioned infielder Vaughn Grissom to minor league camp along with pitchers Luis Guerrero and Josh Winckowski. The\u00a020 pounds\u00a0of muscle\u00a0he reported adding in the offseason apparently weren\u2019t enough to win a Major League job.<\/p>\n<p>Grissom was the only player acquired in exchange for Sale in the 2024 offseason. According to\u00a0Major League Trade Rumors, the 24-year-old hit .190\/.246\/.219 without a home run in 114 plate appearances for the Red Sox last season while missing time with hamstring strains in both legs. This spring didn\u2019t prove much better for the former prospect.<\/p>\n<p>Selected by the Braves in the 11th round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Grissom quickly showcased his potential. In 2022, he was ranked among the Braves\u2019 top prospects, placing seventh according to MLB.com and twelfth by Baseball America. He was expected to compete for the Red Sox starting second base job this spring, but he hit .176 in 14 games for the major league team in camp.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">The good news is Grissom remains on Boston\u2019s 40-man roster despite his poor play and numerous setbacks. That indicates that the Red Sox still see potential in him and could use him as a stopgap or injury replacement later in the season if he performs well in the minors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bad news is he\u2019s seemingly blocked at second base on the Red Sox major league depth chart by at least three other players: David Hamilton, Kristian Campbell, and Marcelo Mayer, each of whom remain in major league camp, while his MLB stock continues to plummet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who\u2019s (at spring training) or what the situation is, I feel like I\u2019m good for it,\u201d\u00a0Grissom told The Athletic\u2019s Chad Jennings last month. \u201cI\u2019ve got my confidence back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLeaving Boston wasn\u2019t easy. I\u2019ve been there for a long time. It was a second home to me,\u201d Sale told Boston.com after the trade in January of 2024. \u201cMy family loved it, my kids loved it, and [Boston] treated my family the best. It was great. But at the same time, I felt like I went through some really tough times there, and they always had my back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kudos to the Braves, who may have been the only team in baseball who foresaw Cy Young-caliber potential in Sale after his uneven stint in Boston.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getty Images Vaughn Grissom The trade of 2024 National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale keeps looking worse and worse for the\u00a0Boston Red Sox. On Wednesday,&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SHOCKING: Infielder Who \u2018Added 20 Pounds of Muscle\u2019 This Winter Sent Packing by Red Sox - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=34720\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SHOCKING: Infielder Who \u2018Added 20 Pounds of Muscle\u2019 This Winter Sent Packing by Red Sox - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Getty Images Vaughn Grissom The trade of 2024 National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale keeps looking worse and worse for the\u00a0Boston Red Sox. 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