The Red Sox DFA’d slugger Bobby Dalbec on Sunday.
Over the weekend, the Red Sox designated Bobby Dalbec for assignment, clearing space on the roster for the promotion of Richard Fitts. Saying goodbye is hard. So let’s raise a glass, cue up The Body Of An American, and do it together. It’s the Over The Monster Irish Wake in celebration of Bobby Dalbec.
Bobby Dalbec, Fan Favorite
Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
In the summer of 2021, I was in my final semester of grad school, finishing up my classes, finalizing my final projects, and preparing to move to Cambridge in September. As classes wound down with graduation in sight in August, my friends and I would receive text messages notifying us of $9 student tickets, pile in my Nissan Sentra, and drive from Rhode Island to Fenway for the game. Although that team didn’t have lofty expectations going into the season, they played well enough to make those late summer games meaningful. And while there were familiar faces in the lineup such as Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez who should have been celebrated, nobody had more fans than Bobby Dalbec.
Late in games, when the score was close and the righty came to the plate, it was almost an unspoken agreement that the crowd would rise to their feet and chant “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!” While more savvy analysts might have known Dalbec’s success with the bat was likely unsustainable, hopeful fans didn’t care. From August on, Dalbec hit .288 with 14 home runs and 38 RBIs.
While I’ve long been a baseball nerd, consuming any and all information I can get my hands on, Dalbec and the Red Sox’s run in late 2021 helped remind me that baseball is played on the field. Although the numbers say something “should” happen, there’s often something else that actually does happen. Rather than admonishing Dalbec (or any player) for what they might not do in the future, we should remember to celebrate what they actually did. For two months in 2021, Bobby Dalbec was a top-ten hitter in baseball and he should be remembered fondly for it.
— Jacob Roy
Bobby Dalbec, The Superhero That Never Was
When I think of Bobby Dalbec, I think of him hitting a home run off of a moving train in Worcester when I was covering the game.
In a parallel universe, this would be the kind of mythic moment that people remember and talk about for years. It has star quality, a burst of Hollywood in the Canal District. It combines Babe Ruth’s predicting his legendary home run in the 1932 World Series with Superman, the actual superhero whose mythology is tied up in moving trains.
To take the Superman comparison a little farther, Bobby D bears a striking physical resemblance to him, with or without his Clark Kent glasses. Those were added to try to fix his deficiencies in the batter’s box. He kept learning and trying new positions—also to fix his deficiencies in the batter’s box—because if he were valued as a super-utilityman, had maybe one more tool in his toolbox, one more superpower, then he might stick.
Bobby D compiled minor league stats like a 21st-century Crash Davis. There must be a poignant, bittersweet joy in raking so frequently at a level that’s designed to be a stepping stone. You want to mash home runs, of course…but not too many home runs, or you’ve stayed too long.
Bobby D seemingly had all the promise in the world, and he did his best, that much is clear. Yet here we are.
I wrote in July that I hoped the Sox might try to package him in a trade, give him a change of scenery (particularly a mile-high one in thin air) to see if that helped. Because he’s had no future here for quite a while. That’s sad, but that’s also the way it goes. I’m increasingly aware in my own life of how things don’t always turn out the way you think they will. Bobby D is a poster child for that, a parable, and now a memory.
— Maura McGurk
Bobby Dalbec, Symbol
Bobby Dalbec should be remembered for his blistering play in August of 2021, because all of us deserve to be remembered at our best. But memory is a reflexive thing. We can’t control it. That’s unfair, but that’s how the madeleine crumbles.
So, unfortunately for Bobby Bombs, I suspect I’m going to remember him for something else entirely — something that, like memory itself, was also entirely out of his control: I’m going to remember the time he started at shortstop just three weeks into the 2023 season.
He actually did alright! I mean, not really – he committed an error that led to a run in the very first inning – but for a 6-4, 230 lbs. first baseman who may have needed to borrow someone else’s glove that day, “alright” is a relative term.
Bobby Dalbec, SS is just so emblematic of so many of the issues that have plagued the Red Sox from 2020 to the present day, self-inflicted or otherwise: the terrible defense, the departure of one franchise cornerstone after another, the terrible defense, the injuries, the terrible defense, the bizarre willingness to begin the season with glaring holes and no plan to fill them other than crossing your fingers and playing someone out of position, which usually led to. . . terrible defense.
Bobby Dalbec came to symbolize an era. Probably not in the way he would’ve liked, but we don’t control that, either.
So long, Bobby Dalbec. I hope I see you on the field again someday. . . and I hope it’s as a badass relief pitcher.
— Dan Secatore
Bobby Dalbec, Prince of Worcester
Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
I was one of Bobby Dalbec’s most ardent supporters until quite recently, getting into arguments with friends regularly to attest that he was of more value to the 2022 Red Sox than the likes of Jose Iglesias, Christian Arroyo, and even Trevor Story (two of whom I like a good amount… if you’ve read my work, you know who). I defended his power, his durability, and his overall “aura” as all the kids (and I) say. Of course, the latter especially tapered off in recent months (years?), as his strikeouts never did calm down even after being relegated to Worcester, but neither did his ability to smack a ball all the way to Union Station (and I don’t say Kelley Square, because that’d be a foul ball.)
As those before me have said, we like to put Dalbec in two separate boxes; one for August 2021, and one for just about every month since. The first Dalbec thrown somewhere in this lineup, even with the presence of Triston Casas playing first base, might make the Red Sox a clear playoff-bound team But sadly, it wasn’t to be. Even so, he showed flashes of brilliance from time to time, but not enough to become a mainstay on a roster valiantly trying to convince everyone they were going “full throttle.” Not with that chase rate. I likened Bobby to a wrestler with the same initials as him, Rob Van Dam. He had power and character, but, man, did he go through some streaks that were tough to watch.
Still, Dalbec being trapped in Triple-A, despite his inability to connect at Fenway, was akin to trapping Godzilla in a zoo. Worcester fans would coo and cheer audaciously whenever his name would get announced, and you had a 50/50 chance of either seeing him launch a ball or go down swinging in 4 or 5 pitches. But, it was thrilling nonetheless. And, who knows. I may be saying all of this only for him to clear waivers, and he’ll be back in Worcester and be a spectacle for years to come, as well. Here’s hoping that Bobby D can fill fans somewhere else with that wondrous feeling, for at least a little while.
– Dean Roussel
Bobby Dalbec, COVID Icon
Although I had few chances to see the Bobstop in real life, he was very important to me as a player. I will never forget the first few weeks after his MLB debut, the hype, the homers and the hope he brought to the end of an absolutely dismal 2020 season. Getting to watch his eight home runs and 16 RBI in 23 games at the end of a terrible season while I was still attending school virtually and in the middle of a COVID hotspot was definitely a bright part of the year.
And now, the Red Sox are just giving up on my beloved Bobby D — a recently engaged man who has a family (fiancée) to provide for. I mean, who does that? Just let the man mash home runs in Worcester and live in peace, I will support him through it all.
-Avery Hamel
Bobby Dalbec, Fan Favorite (Reprise)
On April 27th, 2024 the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs 17-0. If you’ve watched games on MLB.TV this season this game comes up a lot during the selected highlights in lieu of commercials. Mostly because Ceddanne Rafaela hit two home runs and drove in seven.
But the loudest moment of the game, the one that made my watch say “hey it’s loud here!” was not Rafaela or Devers or Duran. It was after a Bobby D at bat. He was hitting a robust .093/.152/.116 entering that game and would go 2-5 with a double and three RBI. Were some of the cheers sarcastic? Probably. But It might have been the most intense crowd moment at at game I attended this season.
-Mike Carlucci
Oh, Bobby boy, the pines, the pines are calling
From fen to fen, and down the Worcester side.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back if slider’s on the menu,
Or when your flails are hushed and brown with rust,
It’s I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow,—
But, Bobby boy, oh Bobby boy, in you I do not trust.
– Bryan Joiner