Red Sox Announce Wilyer Abreu, Ceddanne Rafaela Lineup Decisions

Maybe you've heard this once or twice in the past year or so, but the Boston Red Sox have a lot of good outfielders.

It appears no one important will be traded at this stage, which means Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, and Roman Anthony will all be in the picture to start the season. Arithmetic would indicate that on any given day, one of those four is likely to be in the designated hitter spot (we'll look past the Masataka Yoshida debacle for a moment here).

It's hard to know what the lineup is going to look like from series to series when we're still over a month from games that count. But Red Sox manager Alex Cora did take some of the potential variables out of the equation in his Thursday comments.

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Alex Cora pledges not to DH Abreu, Rafaela

Boston Red Sox center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela (3), left, catches for a fly out against Detroit Tigers designated hitter Kerry Carpenter (30) during the seventh inning at Comerica Park in Detroit on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

During his Monday media availability, Cora made it clear that on days when they were in the lineup, Rafaela and Abreu would be on the field, and not in the DH role.

"One thing's for sure -- we've got two Gold Glovers out of five," Cora said. "When they play, they're gonna play the outfield. From there, we have to decide."

LIVE from the Fort with AC: https://t.co/J4SN8hZfB8
— Red Sox (@RedSox) February 12, 2026

Cora didn't take that moment to address whether the center fielder Rafaela would get any looks on the infield, but that possibility seems to have been strongly mitigated by the additions of Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Caleb Durbin.

Abreu, meanwhile, has mastered one of the toughest right fields to play in all of baseball, and with his cannon of an arm and ability to read wicked low liners off the bat, he should never play any other position.

And if you're a diehard who understands how good these two are on defense, and therefore a skeptic about the newsworthiness of this announcement, we'll simply point you in the direction of Buster Olney's Red Sox lineup projection from earlier this week.

There are so many ways that Alex Cora could go in drawing up the Boston lineup. Such as:
RF Anthony
3B Durbin
LF Duran
1B Contreras
DH Abreu
SS Story
2B Mayer
C Narvaez
CF Rafaela
Depth: Gonzalez, Casas, IKF, Sogard, Eaton, Wong
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 9, 2026

Funny enough, Olney forgot about the existence of Yoshida altogether, and that had nothing to do with him getting roasted by Red Sox fans in the replies.

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