The first of the Red Sox’s big three prospects to reach Boston is, on the surface, the most surprising.
Kristian Campbell has made the big league club and will break camp as Boston’s Opening Day second baseman, according to multiple reports. The club’s other two highly touted prospects, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer, look destined for Triple-A Worcester … at least to start the season.
One report indicated Mayer just missed the cut, and it looks like Anthony — the No. 1 prospect in baseball — will be on the wrong side of the roster crunch, too, assuming Wilyer Abreu is good to go.
While Campbell might not have the pedigree of Mayer (the 2021 No. 4 overall pick) and Anthony, it’s not shocking he’ll make the trip to Texas to start the season this week. In addition to being really good, he checks some necessary boxes for Red Sox roster building.
Here are three reasons Campbell will start the year as a big leaguer.
The ability to make adjustments
There’s a reason you have to let the process play out. If you had this conversation on March 2, Campbell’s spot in Worcester would be written in permanent marker. He went 0-for-11 with eight strikeouts to start the spring. Campbell started to turn things around after getting his first hit March 3 against Baltimore. He then cut down his strikeout rate, going down on strikes just nine times in his next 34 at-bats, a stretch that also included eight walks. The results weren’t always been there — Campbell has eight hits to show for this spring — but the process is what’s important.
As Alex Cora noted this weekend, Campbell’s batted-ball metrics pointed to progress, too. Those numbers are tougher to access in spring training when they aren’t available for every game. But a performance like March 18’s game vs. the Yankees undoubtedly helped. Campbell went 0-for-2, but he worked a walk, and the two balls he put in play were hard hit (both with exit velocities of more than 100 mph), including a 358-foot flyout with an expected batting average of .820. There’s enough good stuff happening with the process to believe the results will come. And if they don’t, there’s enough to believe Campbell can work his way out.
