In recent Red Sox prospect history, good things have come in threes.
It’s premature to determine what sort of impact the trio of Marcelo Mayer, Kyle Teel and Roman Anthony will have on the Red Sox when they arrive in Boston.
Even with the explosion of data in the last 20 or so years, player projection is still something of an inexact science. No one knows for sure what sort of major league careers lie ahead for even the most talented prospects.
What is clear is this: the Red Sox’s Big Three represent the most talented group of position players the organization has had in at least a decade.
“My first year here was 2013,” said Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham this week. “Not really knowing the organization at the time, coming from the Blue Jays and not really knowing the system, I guess it would be Mookie (Betts) and Xander (Bogaerts) — that group of players. That would be the closest (comparison). I was working for the Blue Jays when it was Jacoby (Ellsbury), Dustin (Pedroia and Jon Lester), that group.”
That is select company indeed. In 2007-08, the Red Sox introduced Ellsbury, Pedroia and others to the lineup and won the 2007 World Series and went to Game 7 of the 2008. In many ways, the 2007 title team was the most homegrown of the four Red Sox championship teams.
In the next decade, the arrival of Bogaerts (2013), Jackie Bradley Jr. (2013) and Betts (2014) provided the nucleus or a team that would win division titles in 2016 and 2017.
Following Bogaerts, Bradley and Betts came another troika: Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi and Yoan Moncada. The first two joined forces with the previous three to form the heart of the 2018 roster which won 108 regular season games then went 11-3 in the postseason to win the World Series. (Moncada, an international free agent from Cuba, didn’t stay long enough to contribute, but was a big part of the package the Red Sox sent to Chicago to acquire ace Chris Sale).
It is the Red Sox’s fervent hope that Mayer, Teel and Anthony will similarly constitute the foundation for the organization’s next great team. Certainly, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow isn’t shy when it comes to predicting stardom for the group.
Speaking with the Boston Globe, Breslow sketched out his vision for the future when he noted: “It’s going to require aggressive player development in the minor leagues and the major leagues, so guys that we think are the next wave — Mayer and Anthony and Teel, that group — are not just big leaguers, but impact big leaguers.”
“There’s still obviously a lot to be told for these guys’ careers,” cautioned Abraham. “But in terms of what they’ve done so far, the type of people they are, the type of work they put in, their willingness to be great….we’re really excited about where they are. I think we know they’re good players, with the potential to be great players.”
BetMGM BET $5, GET $158! BONUS BETS
STATES: MA, KY, AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA. Visit BetMGM.com for Terms and Conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. MA Only. New Customer Offer. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets. Bonus bets expire 7 days from issuance. In Partnership with MGM Springfield. Play it smart from the start with GameSense. GameSenseMA.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org.
It’s important to remember that none of the three have so much as reached Triple A, much less the big leagues. Mayer had a poor two months in Portland last year, limited by a shoulder injury. Anthony has played a grand total of 10 games above High A and won’t turn 20 until May. Teel was still enrolled at the University of Virginia this time a year ago.
And yet, it’s impossible for the Red Sox to not be excited about the group’s potential. Others share in theat same optimism: Baseball America had Mayer as the game’s No. 14 ranked prospect, with Anthony at No. 21 and Teel at No. 62. Baseball Prospectus, meanwhile, had Anthony No. 8, Mayer at No. 32 and Teel at No. 47.
Appearing at the Red Sox’s Rookie Development Program this past week in Boston, the three players were all cognizant of the hype surrounding them, and the expectations that accompany that.
“It’s definitely exciting,” said Mayer. “It’s an honor to kind of be talked about like that. But at the end of the day, we haven’t done anything. We’re here at the Rookie Development camp, trying to get better and in order for (those expectations) to become a reality, we all know that we have to work extremely hard and work together and try to get better every single day.
“I wouldn’t say (we feel) pressure. We all love the game and we all love to be around each other. We all want to win. Every single person in this clubhouse wants to win. The Red Sox organization wants to win and that’s the only thing that matters in this city. We’re aware of that and that’s our goal as well, so we do everything we can every day to hopefully make that dream come true some day.”
“It’s always great to be rewarded, so it’s great to see all the hard work is slowly (paying off),’’ said Anthony. “But for me, I don’t really pay too much attention to (the talk) because, again, the end goal is to get here and help this team win and win a World Series in Boston. For me, it’s nice to be rewarded and for people to kind of recognize the work you put in every day. But again, everything remains the same, the process remains the same. The end goal remains to get here as fast as I can. But all (the other stuff) is nice, for now.”
“I would say it’s an honor to be mentioned in that conversation,’’ added Teel. “It’s a testament to all of our hard work. (Mayer and Anthony) are both great hitters and both great on defense, and they both work really hard.”
One difference separating this group from the others that have matriculated through the system is that they haven’t played together much. By the time Anthony and Teel got their late-season promotions to Portland last year, Mayer was sidelined with his shoulder injury.
Next month, it’s expected that all three will get major league invites to spring training camp, and then, it’s likely all three will begin the year at Portland. But there’s already a sense of unity among the trio, an emerging brotherhood as they make their way up the minor league ladder.
“I’m super close with those guys,” said Anthony. “And I don’t think it’s just those guys. We’ve developed a great close bond with each other. We all get dinners together, whether it’s during the year or spring training or whatever it is. We’re always hanging out. And I think that’s why this group is kind of close and tight-knit. It just makes it that much more special and that much easier to come to the field every day, when you have guys like Kyle and guys like Marcelo and whoever it might be.”
BET ANYTHINGGET $250 BONUSESPN BET
21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.
Anthony doesn’t shrink from the expectations that are being expressed for the group.
“It’s an honor to be counted on,” he said. “It’s an honor to be mentioned. You always have to take that as a positive, obviously. But we’re not there yet and none of have gotten there yet. We’ve got lot of work to do and a long ways to go before we’re there. But I think I can speak for all the guys when I say the end goal here is the same — to hold up that banner and win a World Series here in Boston. So we’re all just working as hard as we can to get there and enjoying every step of the way.”
While the Red Sox have already invested a lot in the three and have great expectations for each, it’s also understood that there are no guarantees in the game. The sport is littered with first-round can’t-miss picks who did, indeed, miss. Look back over the last decade of first-round picks by the Red Sox — or any other organization, for that matter — and there are plenty who never fully realized their potential: Jay Groome and Trey Ball never reached the big leagues, and Michael Chavis is now with his fourth organization.
Teams make mistakes. Players underperform. Injuries happen.
But in the cases of Mayer, Anthony and Teel, the faith seems justified. Other than Mayer’s struggles last summer while attempting to play through his shoulder woes, the three have answered every challenge put in front of them in pro ball. The fact that all three are “up the middle” athletes — catcher, middle infield and center field — makes them potentially even more valuable.
Now, for the Red Sox, comes the hard part: waiting for them to arrive.
_______________________
More and more, this offseason is beginning to resemble the one between the 2018-2019 seasons.
That year, arguably the two best players on the market — Bryce Harper and Manny Machado — were unsigned when camps opened before Machado agree with San Diego on Feb. 19, about 10 days before Harper agreed with the Phillies.
Those late-winter signings, a year after the Red Sox signed J.D. Martinez in mid-February — ushered in the era of the endless offseason, where transactions paid little attention to the calendar and both teams and agents now seem permanently locked in a staredown, with each side hoping the other blinks first.
It’s been more of the same this offseason. Shohei Ohtani went off the board first, and two of the top handful of starters, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Aaron Nola, were locked up relatively early, although Yamamoto’s signing was quickened by the posting process for Japanese players — even if he had wanted to drag on negotiations, there was a deadline to observe.
Now, with less than a month before players begin to report, two top starters — Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery — are still without deals, and top position players such as Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger, Jorge Soler, Justin Turner and Martinez are still available. So, too, is Josh Hader, easily the best reliever in the free agent class.
When Yamamoto signed, it was widely forecast that the remaining free agent starters would soon come off the board. Instead, the pitching market has stagnated. Even teams who were ready to turn to the trade market to address their pitching needs have, to date, been unable to strike deals.
Could the Red Sox be playing the long game here, hoping that, with spring training on the near horizon, players and agents might lower their ask? If they are, it’s unlikely that will be a winning strategy.
In the case of both Harper and Machado, both got eye-popping deals despite taking until mid-February or later to commit. Machado landed what was, at the time, the fourth-biggest contract in the sport’s history while Harper got himself one of the longest as measured by term (13 years) while still easily topping the $300 million plateau.
It could be argued that the remaining players this winter are not comparable to either Machado or Harper, both of whom had the good fortune of hitting the market while still in their mid-20s — both signed prior to their age-26 seasons.
The position player class this winter was notoriously thin, without any franchise-type stars at the top other than Ohtani. Chapman is coming off a disappointing season and Bellinger needed a bounce-back season in 2023 to reclaim his status as a star.
What’s more, the pitching market seldom bottoms out, and even while Snell (just two seasons with more than 130 innings pitched) and Montgomery (38 career wins and a rather pedestrian 3.68 career ERA) have their flaws, they’re likely to still realize big paydays — eventually.
It would seem both remain out of reach from the Red Sox self-imposed budgetary constraints and the best the Sox can hope for is that neither signs with a division rival.
As for what the Red Sox, they would seem to have three remaining options to fill obvious rotation holes: a mid-priced free agent — think: Mike Clevinger, Michael Lorenzen or Hyun Jin Ryu; a trade in which the Red Sox package a young outfielder and a prospect for a controllable arm; or reliance on internal competition.
Of the latter, the hope would be that the presence of new pitching coach Andrew Bailey and pitching director Justin Willard could result in significant performance upgrades for the likes of Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta, Garrett Whitlock and Josh Winckowski.
It’s not much, but at this late hour, it could also constitute be the most likely plan.
