Red Sox manager explains why club hasn’t promoted top prospects yet
Why aren t Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer in the majors yet It s a straightforward question that fans have been asking all year but has become more pressing with each passing day The two top Red Sox prospects who rank No and on Baseball America s Top Prospects list respectively have been dominating at Triple-A Worcester all season Meanwhile the big league club entered Wednesday - and with multiple holes in the lineup The simplest explanation is the Red Sox don t have an obvious place for them on the big league roster but manager Alex Cora is already on record saying it wouldn t necessarily take an injury for the two to earn a spot Prior to the second challenge of the season in Texas Cora described reporters that they re going to push us to make decisions With Anthony batting with a OPS and specific of the best underlying metrics in the minor leagues what else does he need to do Cora was posed the question point blank on Wednesday That s a great question I understand where you re coming from but we are where we re at Cora informed MassLive s Christopher Smith Right now we ve got particular guys here that are playing great baseball right And we understand that at one point I do believe they re going to be part of this but as of right now we haven t made that decision Though Anthony has performed better overall through the first seven weeks of the season Mayer arguably has the cleaner path to the majors Trevor Story Boston s starting shortstop has been mired in an abysmal slump and is right now batting with a OPS on the season He s especially struggled in recent times batting with only one extra-base hit over the past month and even his normally reliable defensive numbers have dipped Things have gotten to a point where Story has begun batting seventh in the lineup below modern Triple-A call-up Nick Sogard Just felt like that was the best lineup for us Cora commented of Story batting seventh Meanwhile the Red Sox have gotten little to no production at first base since Triston Casas and Romy Gonzalez both went down due to injury and after a hot start to the season Kristian Campbell s production has also fallen off a cliff Though Mayer and Anthony are not considered candidates to play first Campbell has just now begun doing pregame work at the position suggesting the possibility that Mayer could take over as the everyday second baseman while Campbell plays first Mayer who is batting while ranking second in all of minor league baseball with RBI started at second in Worcester for the fourth time in five games on Wednesday after previously playing just five games there over the first month and a half Anthony would be tougher to fit into the big league puzzle The simplest approach would be to either bench or demote Ceddanne Rafaela who usually bats ninth but he has also been one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball and has made strides at the plate since his rookie year Jarren Duran got off to a slow start but has really turned it on over the past week and Wilyer Abreu has been one of the best all-around players in MLB For now the Red Sox are content to go with who they have but Anthony and Mayer have both done everything in their power to push themselves into the conversation If things keep going the way they are they could start making it tough on the Red Sox to justify keeping them in Triple-A
