Baseball Isn’t Boring
Cora In The Morning: Marcelo Mayer Is Officially The Starting Second Baseman
21 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is the announcement about Marcelo Mayer's role?
A different spring compared to last year, understanding that there's a lot of new stuff in his life, right? You have a kid, more than 200 innings, 30 plus starts, touching the playoffs and all that. So I think he did a good job in the offseason. The pitching department have done an amazing job taking care of him. And obviously the trainers, he's in a good spot now to be ready for Cincinnati.
Both personally and professionally for him, that's quite a year. From where he was a year ago in camp to where he is now as a dad, as a pitcher, everything, right?
Yeah, and the ace of the Red Sox. That's why we traded for him. The organization and him made a commitment for him to be here for a long period of time.
Chapter 2: How has Marcelo Mayer progressed during spring training?
And he's doing an amazing job leading us. It's good to have those type of guys to pitch opening day. He sets the tempo. He did it last year in Texas. We expect him to do the same thing in Cincinnati.
Monasterio on the lap today. What have you liked out of him, Monasterio?
Yeah, good player, versatile, good defender, good at batting against lefties. He's still in the conversation.
Any more decisions or cuts or anything?
Chapter 3: What factors contributed to Mayer being named starting second baseman?
Yeah, Marcelo's gonna be our second baseman. I talked to him today. He did an amazing job. In the offseason, I think, like I told him, he's always been a good player, but he actually did an amazing job putting himself in the conversation to play in October last year after surgery. You don't see that often, especially with young guys, right?
And him and Kiyoshi and the group, JJ in the training room, they push hard, and he was about to start taking swings. How realistic it was for him to play, I don't know, but I saw him on a daily basis pushing forward, and that caught my attention. The offseason was great. With him, it's going to take time to see him grow into a big dude because he's so tall and lanky, right? But he's stronger now.
He can play second. He can play short. He can play third. We'll protect him against lefties. I talked to him about it. I know he wants to, and he will. He will at one point. When? We don't know.
Chapter 4: What challenges did Marcelo Mayer face last season?
So just a good defender, a good player, and I'm excited about him.
He had obviously been prominently in the mix for a long time. When did you realize that? Was there something that you needed to see in camp? Or was this just not wanting to put the cart before the horse with someone who hasn't? I wanted to fish him.
Nothing is given here. Obviously last year wasn't great for him offensively, but it's part of the process and he understands that. But we have some capable players here that can play second base most of the time too. So out of respect of the whole group and obviously understanding that there's certain things that he needed to do.
And he showed me that he's been disciplined, especially down in zone, obviously. Everything changes when the season starts, but so far, so good. He's been really good, not chasing pitches down. He hits the ball hard. Yesterday, that was a good at bat against the lefty. The ball that hit to left field, he hit that ball hard. And little by little,
He gained confidence, and I was like, okay, this is going to be okay.
He will be okay. When you say push him, are you talking about swing decisions?
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Chapter 5: How does Alex Cora view Mayer's potential in the upcoming season?
All-around player, defense, base running, just a player. Push him to show us that he's capable of doing this, and he did.
Even though he was part of the picks last year, is there kind of exactly from someone when they learn they're going to be kind of bringing camp to the team for the first time playing?
I think it's different when you play it already, right? So, yeah, not really. I can't believe it. What's the message to him? You got to get back to the big leagues, and just got to play better. There's a few things that he did in camp and he didn't do in camp. Obviously, in camp, he didn't walk as often. He struck out a lot, right? So that's not him. And we just have to keep working together.
But at the end, as he said it, it's up to me. It's up to me to get back here. And we will help him. He's going to get his at-bats. He'll play the majority of his games in the outfield. Like I said, we got to get the offense going. There were some things that we felt comfortable with during camp. But I'm not concerned, but the strikeouts going up and the walks going down, that's not him.
This guy that controls the strike zone, he didn't swing a miss, and that didn't happen during camp. What do you guys think of just the outfield play and reps on everything? It was okay. I mean, he didn't have too many reps. The work was good, and he'll be fine. But we gotta go down there and show the people that you're the best athlete on the team and you're the best player on the team.
You've talked about infield defense here for a long time.
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Chapter 6: What are the expectations for Mayer's performance at second base?
How better do you feel about your infield defense now? We've been talking about for five years and then when the season comes, we struggle. So I feel good like every year, we just have to perform.
Monasterio was playing the second base today right uh is this the first time like he hasn't gotten much exposure at second base this spring um what do you think it's taking grounders I mean we're moving people around and we want them to feel comfortable at first base you know that when Wilson was wasn't here that's why we play Izzy and Monique over there because they don't have too much experience there and uh we try to pitch them to play the position yeah so like
It's kind of a situation where second base is a little bit like, you know, you didn't need game reps in order to be. Yeah.
I mean, I don't think he's any reps at shortstop, but he.
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He'll play short, and I don't think Masseria needs reps at second base because he's a good second baseman. But today, he's just playing. I was gonna say against lefties at second. We'll see how it goes. We still have to make decisions in the upcoming days for one more spot, right? So whenever we make that decision, then we decide how we're gonna do it. How's Izzy Hale in first base?
He's been good, he's been good. There's one play that as middle infielders is always tough when you go there is to ramble to your right because you just go. And you make the play, he's been able to go stop and get back to the back and easy. That's not easy to do because as a middle infielder, you're taught to just go get it, right? And decision making has been really good for him.
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Chapter 7: How does the team plan to support Mayer's development?
He cannot play three games in a row here.
Catching, where are you at with the decisions there?
Still waiting. I mean, I think I'll probably make a decision, you know, play tomorrow or the next day. But I think You know, we're pretty confident that the guys that we have here, you know, whoever the two we take, right, we're going to be in good hands. The two new relievers, Colom and Conley. Yeah, Danny's sick. He's under the weather, so he's out of camp today. I think he's pitching tomorrow.
Yeah, tomorrow, right? So hopefully he's able to come. Ken Lee's today. He's on the list today. He'll pitch. You know, we run out of time, of course. I think Danny is ahead. You know, we feel comfortable that he, you know, health-wise is good. Volume-wise, we'll see where we're at after tomorrow. Did you guys talk through the lung-liver issue at all?
Chapter 8: What future decisions are pending regarding the team's roster?
No, not today.
Not today.
We're good? Thanks. Thank you.