Roman Anthony on lofty expectations from the Red Sox organization: ‘It’s an honor to be counted on’
The Red Sox future is bright with top prospects Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kyle Teel set to impact the 26-man roster as early as next season or 2025.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has said repeatedly he is focused on building a pitching infrastructure that will have a pipeline of pitchers developed from within. He also has not taken his eye off his positional players and has placed lofty expectations on his “Big Three” prospects.
Anthony is not shying away from the expectations and is honored the Red Sox are looking at him as a potential impact payer for the future.
“It’s great. It’s an honor to be counted on, and it’s an honor to be mentioned,” Anthony said at the Red Sox development program. “You always got to take that as a positive, obviously. But we’re not there yet. None of us have gotten there yet. We got a lot of work to do. We got a long ways to go before we’re there. I think I can speak for all the guys here when I say the end goal is the same. It’s to hold up that banner and win a World Series here in Boston. I think we’re all just working as hard as we can to get there and enjoy everything else along the way.”
Anthony flew through the Red Sox system last season, displaying his power and offensive approach at each level he played at in 2023. He batted .272 with 27 doubles, four triples, 14 homers, 64 RBIs, 16 stolen bases with an .869 OPS.
While the 19-year-old is very proud of his offensive numbers, his defensive approach is just as important to him.
“A lot of people obviously, they look at the hitting side more than they do the defensive side,” said Anthony of the To the Show We Go Podcast. “I think that's just how it is in baseball now. But for me, going into the year, defense was just as important to me and going into spring training, I was trying to learn as much as I can.”
This winter Anthony expects to work on developing more physically, getting stronger, faster and quicker to make him an overall better player. The Red Sox top prospect is not a finished product and he knows that.
“I’ve learned a ton, I’ve been to three different levels now and experienced my first spring training so it’s been an awesome year,” Anthony said. “It’s definitely something I’ll look back on when its the offseason and be like wow, it’s definitely a special year but there’s a lot of work to be done.”
After an offseason of working out and getting stronger for 2024, Anthony will get an opportunities at spring training in Fort Myers that will either land him in Portland or possibly Worcester next season.
“Yeah, I think it gets better every time. Being here, being in this locker room, being around some of the big-league coaches, coordinators, it just makes it that much more real. It makes it feel like much more closer, and it’s amazing. It’s a blast. It’s awesome to learn as much as I can from all these guys and retain as much info from guys who have so much experience.”
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