The Boston Red Sox acquired Tyler O’Neill in a trade Friday, bringing in the two-time Gold Glove winner to replace the outfield production they lost in the early days of the offseason.
They’ve just got to keep him on the field.
O’Neill’s been productive when healthy, but has failed to find sustained success in the last two seasons. The 28-year-old has been placed on the injured list with a sprained right ankle, lower back strain, strained left hamstring, strained right hamstring and right shoulder impingement since the start of 2022.
That’s why he’s made some changes to the way he’s preparing for the grind of another Major League Baseball season.
“I’ve made a lot of adaptations to my training program,” O’Neill told Rob Bradford of the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast. “I’m working with new trainers this year, and it involved a lot more intensive warm-ups to get my body ready the right way, more shoulder mobility, more hip mobility. I’m on a core program that I follow religiously, that I do every day that’s helped my back a lot.”
It’s clear that O’Neill is dedicated to his craft, which is what players need to be when undergoing such large changes to their routine. He’s clearly able to follow a regiment. You don’t look like this without being able to.
It’s also possible a change of scenery will help O’Neill return to form, as his last season with the St. Louis Cardinals didn’t exactly go as expected. The Canadian is already pumped to play at Fenway Park, and has a good outlook on how to approach life against the Green Monster.
“It almost baits you as a righty to want to pull the ball. That’s not going to be my approach,” O’Neill told Bradford. “I don’t want to pull the ball and wear out the monster. I’m thinking a good approach for me is to blast balls to center field, because even center field is only like 380 feet. It’s a high wall, but I don’t think it’ll affect me too much. I’m more of a fly-ball hitter anyway, so I’m just going to trust my bat path and trust my ball flight. … It’s a good, generic approach.”
The Red Sox will provide O’Neill with plenty of competition in 2024, with Masataka Yoshida, Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, Rob Refsnyder and Ceddanne Rafaela all in the outfield mix. If he’s able to become a contributor right away, it won’t be because Boston didn’t have other options.
