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By Ben Watanabe
Contributing Sports Writer
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By just about every conceivable measure, Vaughn Grissom simply isn't a very good MLB player.
But don't tell him that.
No, the 25-year-old infielder with a lifetime .255 batting average and more than three times as many strikeouts as walks in his career is merely a victim of an analytics-obsessed mindset by an organization that has vastly improved since his departure, if you listen to him tell it. Finally, though, a team is giving him the opportunity he so richly deserves.
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The fact that his current team happens to be wallowing in last place may or may not be relevant to him getting that opportunity.
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Grissom bemoaned the Boston Red Sox having "no belief" in him over his two-year stint with the organization, telling the Boston Herald's Mac Cerullo that what stood between him and success in Boston was the front office's focus on analytics.
"I think I would probably attribute that to the computer, you know what I mean?" Grissom told Cerullo. "You have to watch the game and I think I'm damn near the same player, it's just the opportunity, these people believe in me and in Boston there was no belief in the player.
"It is what it is, some people watch the game, some people go on the computer."
Grissom has been wildly better this season with the Los Angeles Angels than he ever was with the Red Sox, but that's a low bar. He accumulated negative-0.1 WAR in 31 games with Boston in 2024, and spent all of last season in Triple-A. This season, he has a .707 OPS and 0.5 WAR, which is hardly difference-making production for a team that holds the worst record in all of baseball.
What Grissom fails to grasp is that the Red Sox desperately wanted to believe in him. He was the central return in the trade that sent pitcher Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves, so Boston had motivation for him to succeed. Seeing as how he blames his lack of performance on his circumstances, rather than on his own play, does a lot to explain why he hasn't been able to improve on his areas of weakness and capitalize on his sizable talent.
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