Who Are The Red Sox Big Three Prospects, Really?

And what does the Red Sox sudden dependence on these three say about the state of the team? And a quick impromptu note on the John Schreiber trade.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

FanGraphs came out with their Top 100 prospects list this past week. They were the last of the major prospect websites to do so. Of particular note to Red Sox fans and, thus, to me, Marcelo Mayer (pronounced: My-Er) ranked 69th (not nice). That’s much further down the list than last season (Mayer was 15th to start the ‘23 season) and much much further down than any of the other lists have him now (14th, 15th, 28th, and 32nd for Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, ESPN, and Baseball Prospectus, respectively). Surprising!

Mayer is, to many, the Red Sox best and certainly most notable prospect. He went fourth overall in the 2021 draft making him the highest Red Sox draft pick since the 1960s. It seems fair to say at this point that he’s the biggest asset the Red Sox have, and yet… 69?

This isn’t a complaint about the FanGraphs list. I’m higher on Mayer than they are mostly due to what I’ve read and heard from the fine folks at Sox Prospects, but their viewpoint is totally legitimate, and it’s at least interesting to get a different perspective on the player, as FanGraphs clearly has. But the whole thing makes me think, because perhaps for the first time that I can remember, the Red Sox are openly placing much of their future on Mayer, and his two top prospect mates, catcher and 2023 1st round pick Kyle Teel, and center fielder and 2022 second rounder Roman Anthony.

The future, the Red Sox seem to be telling us, will arrive when these three show up, and by “the future” the Red Sox mean “success.” Then you see that Mayer is the 69th prospect in baseball according to a highly reputable source.

Yikes.

Still, I’m very optimistic about Mayer, Teel, and Anthony as players. Franchise cornerstones is asking a lot, but I do think ‘above average major leaguers’ is very much on the table for all three. But, and just go with me on this, what if I’m wrong? What if the sites are wrong and the Mayer, Teel, and Anthony aren’t even good major league players?

Despite being the highest drafted, Mayer is perhaps the easiest to see reaching that outcome. He’s had injuries in both seasons since being drafted and last season those injuries seemed to, if we’re charitable, negatively impact his on-field performance. If we’re not being charitable then he was bad in Double-A. Even if we agree that Mayer’s shoulder injury made things impossible for him when he got to Double-A, it was still a major shoulder injury! That’s, as the doctors say, not good.

Then there’s the defensive issues, which are, depending on who you talk to, either A) arm strength related, B) range related, or C) both, (or to be fair D) don’t exist). There’s also concern about his ability to hit off-speed pitches. So yeah.

Teel is either a great defensive catcher or, as FanGraphs calls him, an “odd duck.” Anthony’s swing decisions need to improve, and, oh yeah, FanGraphs says he’ll need a swing change.

These seem like rather pessimistic and/or negative comments to me, but these are also prospects we’re talking about. They are not major leaguers, they are not fully formed baseball players, so yes, they might need to change and/or improve aspects of their performance and/or physical throwing or hitting mechanics.

Again, this isn’t a poke at FanGraphs at all. If anything, this is a poke at the Red Sox, who seem to have spent the winter and seem content to spend the upcoming season as well waiting for these three prospects. But while it’s possible all three could be up by the end of the year, it’s also possible that none of them are. Further, it’s possible one or even all of them struggle in Double-A this season and by the end of the year we’re no closer to seeing them in Boston than we are right now.

We don’t yet know what Kyle Teel, Roman Anthony, and Marcelo Mayer are as players. FanGraphs doesn’t know either, and neither does Baseball America, BP, or Pipeline. But far far more importantly is this: The Red Sox don’t know either! And yet they seem content to sit on their proverbial bar stool, like Norm from Cheers, and wait. And that might work. But it might not! And if it doesn’t, we’re wasting this season to find out that it didn’t work.

Seems like a huge and entirely unnecessary risk to take.

As I was writing this, news broke that the Red Sox had traded reliever John Schreiber to Kansas City for pitching prospect David Sandlin. Sandlin is a college starter with some upside, so he’s a nice pickup, but it’s not like the Red Sox are flush with relievers, and even less so now. Schreiber slotted in as probably the Red Sox third or fourth best reliever, even after his down (ish) 2023 season.

This is the kind of trade you make if you don’t believe the 2022 version of Schreiber is ever coming back, which is fair. It’s also the kind of trade you make if you’re not concerned about the damage losing Schreiber could do to the 2024 bullpen. Whether or not you believe in Schreiber, this trade helps to paint a picture of the 2024 Red Sox seem as a placeholder for some better, shinier version that might maybe show up at some point in the future.

Thanks for reading.