Red Sox
“As you go up, there’s more expectations, more cameras, as we can see right now.”
WORCESTER — Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kyle Teel have heard it all at this stage of the summer.
There’s the high expectations resting on the shoulders of three prospects who have yet to face a pitch in the big leagues. The pressure that comes with talk of righting the ship of a Red Sox organization that has been mired in the basement of the AL East for most of past half-decade.
But above all else, the trio have rarely parsed through a scouting profile, listened to podcast rundown, or glanced at front-page feature that hasn’t included all three as a single entity of hope for a Red Sox team short on home-grown star power.
Mayer, Anthony, and Teel are all their own man.
Teel — the poised catcher with a promising hit tool — is the “elder statesmen” at 22 years old, even though he’s actually only been in Boston’s organization for 13 months. Anthony, who just turned 20 in May, has developed a knack for extending at-bats with his keen eye, and teeing off on whatever pitch lands right in his wheelhouse.
And Mayer, 21, has long held court as Boston’s top blue-chip prospect — with the fourth pick in the 2021 MLB Draft projecting as a franchise shortstop capable of impacting the game both at the plate and in the field.
But be it through blind luck or some higher power, all three of the Red Sox’ best prospects have charted out the same developmental timeline this summer — first with Double-A Portland and now together with Triple-A Worcester.
“It’s a dream come true,” Teel said Tuesday ahead of his Triple-A debut at Polar Park. “I’m so grateful. It just shows the hard work paying off. And the important thing is to keep developing and keep working hard every day, and to be with these guys every day.
“It’s awesome. On the field we have fun playing the game together and competing. And then off the field, we hang out and we’re great buddies as well.”
Make no mistake, the Red Sox’ decision to promote all three of Mayer, Anthony, and Teel at the same time was far from a coincidence.
The case could be made that the trio should have been called up to Triple-A even earlier.
Mayer — tabbed as the No. 2 prospect in baseball by The Athletic’s Keith Law last month — slashed .307/.370/.480 with eight homers, 36 extra-base hits, and 13 steals in 77 games with Portland, with Teel (MLB Pipeline’s No. 27 prospect) batting .298 with 11 home runs and 31 extra-base hits over 84 games in his first full pro season.
Even Anthony, who was facing high-school pitching just two years ago, closed out his season against Double-A pitching with 15 home runs, 38 extra-base hits, and 16 steals over 84 contests.
Granted, WooSox manager Chad Tracy does not expect a seamless transition for any player making the jump from Double-A to Triple-A.
“It’s big. I think the experience here — the strike-zone changes … it gets smaller. But the quality of the stuff, the experience on the mound, all those things change,” Tracy said of the elevated competition found in Worcester. “You’re playing against guys that have big-league experience — have that savvy about them. I’ve told all three of the kids, this is finishing school now, right?
“Like you’re talented. You go through A-ball and Double-A, and your talent carries you. This is where you have to start thinking along with the pitcher, they’re going to be able to execute things that they can’t in Double-A — all those little things. And then the jump from here to the big leagues is just as big, if not bigger.”
Tuesday stood as a strong start for Anthony, who went 3-for-4 at the plate and roped a double in Worcester’s 4-3 win over the Lehigh Valley IronPigs on Tuesday. Teel — batting fifth in the lineup — went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts, while Mayer did not play while nursing a nagging lower-back injury.
Even with the Red Sox opting to take a conservative approach when it comes to getting Mayer back on the field, that injury setback wasn’t going to preclude the young shortstop from joining his close friends on this latest call-up.
Beyond the fact that all three players have developed a close bond in Portland, keeping that grouping together at the next level also allows the trio to band together for the inevitable bumps that await against Triple-A competition.
“Obviously the dream is to get here, and it’s another step along the way,” Anthony said. “But it was nice getting called [up] and obviously it makes it that much better when it’s the three of us, and I think it makes the adjustment a little bit easier when you have two other guys that you spend every day with are going through the same thing.”
It’s a unique fraternity that Mayer, Anthony, and Teel have found themselves in over the past year.
The Red Sox have seen plenty of MLB stars rise through their farm system over the years. But rarely have a trio of prospects traversed through a team’s pipeline at the same time — or be seemingly joined at the hip when it comes to scouting projections.
The pressure will continue to ramp up for all three players, especially with Fenway Park sitting just 45 miles away from Polar Park.
But for Boston’s “Big 3”, all that talk means something is clearly working. And with whatever challenges await, they plan on tackling them together.
“For me, I was always taught to play to win,” Mayer said. “So for me, that kind of takes all the pressure away. … I always kind of make this joke nowadays — there’s Perfect Game, all these ranking websites. So I’ve been ranked since I was like five years old. So you kind of grow up with that pressure. So it’s kind of nothing new.”
“I think we’re just having fun, the three of us,” Anthony added. “We just like to have fun. It’s the same game we’ve been playing since we were five years old. So nothing really changes. Obviously, as you go up, there’s more expectations, more cameras, as we can see right now, but nothing changes. We’re just gonna go out there and have fun and continue to play the game the right way, and everything else will take care of itself.”
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