Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer are absolutely shredding minor league pitching so far in 2025.
Despite that, the Red Sox still have not elected to call up either of these two top prospects into the big leagues.
With the notable success fellow prospect Kristian Campbell has had in his rookie year in the big leagues, plus the Red Sox’s struggle to string wins together, fans have been left wondering why the team refuses to make such an obvious decision.
Where would they play?
An easy counter to those clamoring for Anthony and Mayer to get to the big leagues is the lack of positional opening for the two prospects to slot in.
I fundamentally disagree with this take and can find several ways to play both players.
First of all, since the injury to Triston Casas, the team has yet to find an everyday first baseman who isn’t a liability in the batting order.
Breslow, Cora, and the rest of the staff are going to have to reconcile with the fact that somebody has to play out of position at first. Whether that’s Mayer or Anthony, or perhaps a player currently on the roster, remains to be seen.
The good news is that Kristian Campbell has been seen taking reps at first during pre-game practices. I like this movie because it takes a struggling defensive middle Infielder and moves him to an objectively easier position for the sake of keeping him in the lineup.
Mayer, who is a middle infielder himself, can easily slot into second base and immediately be a better defender than Campbell was.
Let’s not forget the fact that Trevor Story has been awful for the past month at the plate. I know the Red Sox committed to him financially, but at some point, he is going to have to be removed from this lineup if he continues to be an automatic out.
For outfielder Roman Anthony, his opening to make the starting lineup is a bit less clear.
The Red Sox already have Jarren Duran in left, who’s an all-star, Wilyer Abreu in right, who’s been great this year, and Ceddanne Rafaela in center, who the team gave a contract extension to last year.
Craig Breslow has been on record stating that he doesn’t want to ruin Anthony’s outfield development by having him play first base. So, he either needs to DH or take someone’s spot in the outfield.
It could be time for the Red Sox to finally bite the bullet and admit to themselves that signing Rafaela to an 8-year, $50 million contract extension was a mistake.
Rafaela is a great defensive outfielder, but his bat is mediocre at best, and he is terribly inconsistent. The right-handed Jackie Bradley Jr., as I like to call him.
Ultimately, my preferred Red Sox lineup manages to get both Mayer and Anthony into the batting order without removing Cedanne’s defense in center.
I would remove Trevor Story and put Marcelo Mayer at shortstop, get Devers to stop crying and have him play first, and let Roman Anthony DH.
I will admit that this lineup could hurt the Red Sox defensively if Mayer isn’t as good as we think on that side of the ball, but the offense will be leaps and bounds better than what it is now.
What are they waiting for?
With all the different ways the Red Sox could slot two of the best prospects the MLB has seen in the past decade into their lineup, what’s the holdup?
It certainly isn’t because of performance. At just 21 years old, Roman Anthony is batting .317 in Triple-A with five home runs in 40 games played.
I’m usually not into these nerdy statistics, but according to MLB Pipeline, Anthony had a 31.9 percent barrel rate (barrel per batted-ball event) in Triple-A through the month of April. That was higher than any player in Major League Baseball.
22-year-old Marcelo Mayer is currently slugging .459 with eight homers through 40 games. He also has a very respectable .981 fielding percentage so far this year.
I believe the delay in calling up either player may be due to the Red Sox once again trying to take advantage of MLB’s service time rules.
The team has already passed the threshold at which they can maintain control of Mayer and Anthony for an extra year if they are called up. But, there’s one more hurdle the team may be trying to jump.
If any team has a player who wins the Rookie of the Year award, they are rewarded with draft picks. So, I think it is very likely that the Red Sox are holding onto Mayer and Anthony long enough so that they won’t be considered rookies in 2025.
With Kristian Campbell being an early front-runner to win Rookie of the Year this year, I think the Red Sox want to see if they can have repeat success next year.
If they call up the kids now, that ruins their chances of having Rookie of the Year award winners in multiple seasons.
If this theory turns out to be true, Red Sox fans should be absolutely furious. After an off-season where we were promised a commitment to winning, it seems like the team still has its sights set on the future, not the present.
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