From social media buzz to roster flexibility, Caleb Durbin is quickly becoming this year’s spring fascination.
In the early days of spring training, every team’s fan base feels like they’re going to win the World Series.
This is not an opinion. It’s a fact.
I’ve lived and worked in a rabid baseball market most of my life. And in the couple stretches of my life where I didn’t live in New England, it was in Los Angeles and St. Louis - two national league cities that also have irrational love for their baseball teams.
Each year, no matter where I lived, I could find a large group of fans with irrational expectations for both their team and the players they brought in that offseason.
“Yasiel Puig is going to win NL MVP next season,” I remember a friend at FOX Sports Radio telling me after the Dodgers lost in the NLCS in 2013.
“Jack Flaherty is going to win the NL Cy Young Award,” said many, many, many people in my life after a 2019 trip to the NLCS for the Cardinals.
And while Red Sox fans can skew cynical, there’s always a faction ready to go to the wall in defense of some of, in hindsight, the funniest players.
Think Jared Saltalamacchia. Or Sandy Leon. Or Mark Belhorn. Or Dom Smith. Or even as recently as last season in Abraham Toro. Cult followings for guys simply because they had their flashes, and maybe didn’t fit the exact mold of a guy that should be a “star” on a major league roster.
And while I like the player I’m about to call out in this regard, I fear we have a new candidate on the 2026 Red Sox to fill this spot for “irrational fan confidence guy,” for lack of a better title:
Caleb Durbin.
Oct 16, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Milwaukee Brewers third baseman Caleb Durbin (21) reacts at second after hitting a double against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh inning during game three of the NLCS round for the 2025 MLB playoffs at Dodger Stadium. (Jayne Kami Oncea/Imagn Images)Finishing third for NL Rookie of the Year in 2025, Durbin was acquired by the Red Sox last week in a trade with the Brewers that sent David Hamilton, Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan to Milwaukee. In exchange, Boston received Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, Anthony Siegler and a competitive balance round B draft pick.
First of all, that price for Durbin should tell you everything you need to know. He isn’t exactly projecting to be some sort of perennial All-Star when you’re including a glorified pinch runner, a scrap piece from the Rafael Devers trade, and a 27-year-old career minor league arm that had basically no shot of cracking the major league roster.
While is counting stats as a 5-foot-7, 183-pound sparkplug of an infielder looked OK by the end of the 2025 season (114 hits in 445 at bats, 11 home runs, 53 RBI, 18 stolen bases, 60 runs scored), one surface level deeper tells you he still has a lot of work to do (.256 BA, .334 OBP, .387 SLG, .721 OPS).
Two things to hang your hat on for Durbin, if you’re going to join his fan club:
His versatility as a defender, and his strikeout rate.
Durbin has the ability to play at third, short and second. Both Alex Cora and Craig Breslow have continually preached about the importance of bringing in players this offseason that can be a plus-glove. Durbin is not only good with the leather, he can help fill multiple spots in the infield when needed.
When it comes to strikeouts, Durbin only struck out 50 times in 506 plate appearances in 2025. That’s good for a strikeout rate of 9.8%. For reference, the modern average for strikeout-rate is around 20%. For a team that struggled mightily at times in 2025 with stranding runners in scoring position, Durbin’s ability to avoid a strikeout in late game situations could make him extremely valuable as a pinch hitter.
Add in the fact that he’s a stocky fella that looks like the type of short king you’d see roaming the streets of Southie on a Saturday night, and I foresee Durbin having all sorts of @DrakeMayeLover-esque social media accounts made in his honor.
If you want some early tangible evidence of Red Sox fans’ love for Durbin, take a look at the WEEI Instagram page. Two different videos of Durbin basically doing nothing have already popped off - one has 632,000 views, and the other has 357,000 (as of publishing). By comparison, a video of Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell in a similar context has seemingly plateaued at 164,000 views.
This, obviously, isn’t an exact science. But it’s a unique window into the current psyche of Red Sox Nation.
They want Durbin content, because they’re excited about what he can bring to the 2026 club.
Does third place in the NL Rookie of the Year voting mean Durbin is destined for greatness?
I’d like to remind everyone that Triston Casas finished third for AL Rookie of the Year in 2023 before you give your answer to that question.
Whether he becomes a cult hero or key piece for late game situations down the home stretch of another playoff season in Boston, there’s no denying the addition of Durbin was a smart one by Breslow.
Milwaukee Brewers infielder Caleb Durbin helps a customer on Thursday, January 22, 2026, at Culver’s in Howard, Wis. Durbin, starting pitcher Chad Patrick and the Famous Racing Sausages worked at the counter and drive-thru window while giving fans free tickets to Brewers games during the 2026 season. (Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
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Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.