Article: Breaking: Roman Anthony Called Up By Red Sox, Will Make MLB Debut Vs Rays

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Yes, and just, because Anthony can play CF, orbRF doesn’t mean he should. Especially RF in Fenway.

RF at Fenway is tough for your first day in the bigs. 😖

[notin]

7 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

They'll do some sort of OF rotation to limit Roman's at bats so that he doesn't get ROY votes and earn a full year of service. 😬

Can he get his first hit before we launch conspiracy theories about how the Red Sox do not want him winning ROY?

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

46 minutes ago, notin said:

Can he get his first hit before we launch conspiracy theories about how the Red Sox do not want him winning ROY?

I absolutely think the Red Sox want Anthony to win Rookie of the Year... in the year 2026.

If he starts raking and gets demoted when Abreu comes back, you'll have your conspiracy. 

But barring the trade of another outfielder, if they give Anthony a first baseman's mitt, it means he's here to stay.

[Hitch]

52 minutes ago, notin said:

Can he get his first hit before we launch conspiracy theories about how the Red Sox do not want him winning ROY?

Do we really need to call it a conspiracy? Of course they won't want him to win it this year.

[moonslav59]

Nice hit, by Roman, tonight.

It's too bad Abreu had to go on the IL for him to get a shot, but such is the way of MLB.

[cp176]

Watching a 21 year old Anthony in that batter’s box reminds me of some of the very greatest that I have seen since 1955.  Tall, poised, strong - we shall see what happens going forward.  

[Bellhorn04]

37 minutes ago, cp176 said:

Watching a 21 year old Anthony in that batter’s box reminds me of some of the very greatest that I have seen since 1955.  Tall, poised, strong - we shall see what happens going forward.  

What a great first MLB hit - shooting it into the left field corner, and looking like it was something he's been doing for years.  All the Sox great lefty hitters have done a lot of damage going the other way.  Very impressive and exciting.

[mvp 78]

16 hours ago, notin said:

Can he get his first hit before we launch conspiracy theories about how the Red Sox do not want him winning ROY?

If he wins the ROY, he gains a year of service time. That's a worst case scenario for the Sox. 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

What a great first MLB hit - shooting it into the left field corner, and looking like it was something he's been doing for years.  All the Sox great lefty hitters have done a lot of damage going the other way.  Very impressive and exciting.

He should have been up on Opening Day. 😎

[notin]

7 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If he wins the ROY, he gains a year of service time. That's a worst case scenario for the Sox. 

Right now he’s now even the ROY front runner on the Red Sox…

[notin]

15 hours ago, Hitch said:

Do we really need to call it a conspiracy? Of course they won't want him to win it this year.

Yeah they would hate it if he performed so well.  That’s probably why they took so long to promote him…

[mvp 78]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Right now he’s now even the ROY front runner on the Red Sox…

Right now. I'm also just stating what happens if he does win the ROY and why it'd be bad for the Red Sox. Same for Mayer. 

[notin]

13 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If he wins the ROY, he gains a year of service time. That's a worst case scenario for the Sox. 

If he wins, he does gain service time and he’s been reluctant to make that matter moot with an extension.

On the other hand, it also means he plays very well, which should be good for both the team and business…

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

Yeah they would hate it if he performed so well.  That’s probably why they took so long to promote him…

It is why they took so long, to reduce his chances. What other reason? He was the most "ready" player available. He was more advanced than Campbell or Mayer. 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, notin said:

If he wins, he does gain service time and he’s been reluctant to make that matter moot with an extension.

On the other hand, it also means he plays very well, which should be good for both the team and business…

If he wins ROY for a team that is currently languishing below .500 because of their horrible starting pitching, it won't matter much. I'm more concerned about this team in '26 and beyond TBH.

[notin]

15 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

 

If he starts raking and gets demoted when Abreu comes back, you'll have your conspiracy. 

Let’s say he does start raking, or at least hits bare minimum well enough that he shouldn’t be demoted.  What should Boston do when Abreu comes back? 

[notin]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

It is why they took so long, to reduce his chances. What other reason? He was the most "ready" player available. He was more advanced than Campbell or Mayer. 

I assumed the primary reason they didn’t promote him was the outfield appeared to be set.  Maybe they figured in time someone will lose their job or get hurt.  And it happened; it just took over 2 months.  

Campbell got promoted earlier because he only had to beat out Romy and Hamilton.  Mayer didn’t get the call until the Sox almost ran out of infielders.  

I was being sarcastic about Boston keeping Anthony down.  The Sox absolutely didn’t keep him down to prevent him from winning ROY.  Zero chance of that.  Probably less..

[mvp 78]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Let’s say he does start raking, or at least hits bare minimum well enough that he shouldn’t be demoted.  What should Boston do when Abreu comes back? 

I think Abreu still should get most of the reps in RF. I'd platoon CF with Rafaela/Duran and plop Anthony in LF. I don't really want to play Rafaela all over the place. I think the team is kind of stuck at the moment. They probably need to trade a guy. 

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

I assumed the primary reason they didn’t permit him was the outfield appeared to be set.  Maybe they figured in time someone will lose their job or get hurt.  And it happened; it just took over 2 months…

I was being sarcastic.  The Sox absolutely didn’t keep him down to prevent him from winning ROY.  Zero chance of that.  Probably less…

I disagree and I'm not the only one. It's been theorized (again it is just a theory) by Section 10, SoxProspects and many others. At best, they goofed on calling him up and froze on the decision making process. I don't know which scenario is worse. 

[Old Red]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

I think Abreu still should get most of the reps in RF. I'd platoon CF with Rafaela/Duran and plop Anthony in LF. I don't really want to play Rafaela all over the place. I think the team is kind of stuck at the moment. They probably need to trade a guy. 

They needed to trade an OF last offseason, and to me that would have been Duran selling high.

[mvp 78]

Just now, Old Red said:

They needed to trade an OF last offseason, and to me that would have been Duran selling high.

It's the recent history of halfassing a trade deadline/offseason:

Two DH's! (Masa, Raffy)

Logjam in OF

Logjam at SS due to a bad contract

Plan at 2b? 

Relying on the pitching coach to solve for a lack of talent in arms

[Old Red]

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

It's the recent history of halfassing a trade deadline/offseason:

Two DH's! (Masa, Raffy)

Logjam in OF

Logjam at SS due to a bad contract

Plan at 2b? 

Relying on the pitching coach to solve for a lack of talent in arms

And I believe that Mayer, and Anthony might still be at Woo if not for injuries, because of all of this.

[notin]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

I disagree and I'm not the only one. It's been theorized (again it is just a theory) by Section 10, SoxProspects and many others. At best, they goofed on calling him up and froze on the decision making process. I don't know which scenario is worse. 

Goofed how?  They still had Duran, Rafaela and Abreu.  Since Cora said Rafaela will be in CF “as much as possible”, that eliminated one starting role already.

Reportedly they tried to deal Abreu this offseason.  Not sure if there was no interest or insufficient interest.  But if their only option there was to trade Abreu for far less value, should they have?  
 

Trading Duran absolutely made the most sense, and I’m not sure if they tried.  But the same reason trading him made sense (clear high after 8 bWAR season) also made it difficult to trade him because he became immensely popular.

Campbell made the team because his path was the easiest.  It took multiple injuries to get Mayer up…

[notin]

1 hour ago, Old Red said:

And I believe that Mayer, and Anthony might still be at Woo if not for injuries, because of all of this.

And it is so horrible to be able to cover those injuries with prospect depth.  What the fire truck is going on here?

[notin]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

It's the recent history of halfassing a trade deadline/offseason:

Two DH's! (Masa, Raffy)

Logjam in OF

Logjam at SS due to a bad contract

Plan at 2b? 

Relying on the pitching coach to solve for a lack of talent in arms

I think the biggest mess was not moving Devers to 1b right away.  Casas ihas always been more injury prone and it’s not like his glove was locking down the position.  If Devers was awful, what was the worst case? Status quo at 1b?  If it gets a Gold Glove 3b into the mix, definitely worth it…

[notin]

1 hour ago, Old Red said:

They needed to trade an OF last offseason, and to me that would have been Duran selling high.

There were a few of us posting this.  I proposed a deal to Philly for Cristofer Sanchez that made a ton of sense for both teams.  But plenty on this forum were not so willing to see the Sox trade their second best player…

[notin]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

If he wins ROY for a team that is currently languishing below .500 because of their horrible starting pitching, it won't matter much. I'm more concerned about this team in '26 and beyond TBH.

And ROY is so dependent on other factors.  Anthony could have come up with April and posted 3.0 fWAR already and he still might not win ROY, since Jacob Wilson is off to an even better start…

[Old Red]

42 minutes ago, notin said:

And it is so horrible to be able to cover those injuries with prospect depth.  What the fire truck is going on here?

My reply to MVP’s had nothing to do with prospect depth at all, so you just ran with something in the wrong direction. My point was, because of how the roster was constructed there was NO room for either Mayer, and or Anthony, and if not for the injuries they would still be a Woo, because of it. No one said anything to the sort of anything being terrible to cover injuries with prospect depth, but you. Another N added.🤭

[Old Red]

47 minutes ago, notin said:

I think the biggest mess was not moving Devers to 1b right away.  Casas ihas always been more injury prone and it’s not like his glove was locking down the position.  If Devers was awful, what was the worst case? Status quo at 1b?  If it gets a Gold Glove 3b into the mix, definitely worth it…

There was NO Mess at all by not moving Raffy to 1B right away just like there isn’t a mess of having Raffy at 1B now. Just a narrative that many like to run with.

[notin]

7 minutes ago, Old Red said:

There was NO Mess at all by not moving Raffy to 1B right away just like there isn’t a mess of having Raffy at 1B now. Just a narrative that many like to run with.

Right.  The whole thing went down smoothly and thankfully John Henry didn’t have to get involved…