Milliken: Early spring training standouts for the Red Sox

Heading into spring training, everybody’s attention was on Kristian Campbell and Roman Anthony, but Marcelo Mayer has grabbed the spotlight. He’s 5-for-14 with a homer and a triple so far. The triple was off Jack Flaherty and the homer off Kenta Maeada, both guys who have seen their fair share of success at the big league level. Hell, even Alan Trammell wanted to reunite with Mayer after the game and shake his hand.

On Friday against the Phillies, Mayer also showed off his eye by spitting on two 4-seam fastballs that were half-an-inch off the plate, with him challenging the final one to draw a walk. That’s the type of approach fans were hoping to see when he was getting compared to Corey Seager during the draft process. If anything, it’s felt like the last 10 days have been a reminder of why he’s still rated a top 15 prospect in the sport by Baseball America.

Defensively, he’s looked fluid and has continued to draw the praise of Alex Cora. He’s also seen time at third base and didn't look out of place. Next up should be some time at second base, which he’s done on the backfields over the last few weeks.

If there’s one player jumping off the screen when you watch the Red Sox right now, it’s Ceddanne Rafaela. The body is clearly different, which was intentional with the organization asking him to gain weight and get stronger over the offseason. He’s now 13-14 lbs heavier with some mechanical adjustment at the plate and an improved approach.

It's led to Rafaela going 5-for-13 out of the gate with a homer, double, and 4 runs knocked in. He also hasn’t struck out once, while drawing 2 walks. I’m not here to tell you that he’s magically flipped the switch at the plate, but after working with Team Sosa over the offseason, it’s clear that he’s bringing something new to the table. There were signs of a more cautious approach last spring, but it wore quickly as the year went on. Time to see if he can sustain it through 162.

Luis Guerrero has been filthy. Hard to frame it any other way. He’s up to 6 strikeouts through 3 scoreless innings of work with only one walk and one hit allowed. It looks like the type of stuff you want at the back of your bullpen, which will only become more apparent if Liam Hendriks isn't able to find his footing over the next 3 weeks.

Considering he only has 10 innings at the big league level under his belt, I’d be surprised to see the Red Sox put him in the closer competition. Yet if he keeps throwing this way, it won’t be long before he forces himself into those conversations. Just talking to those who have seen Guerrero this spring, they believe this is the best he’s ever looked. Hard to disagree.

Trevor Story’s hot start to spring training feels like déjà vu. At this time last year, his bat showing life was the best part of a rather depressing camp. Now, it’s just another positive storyline in a sea of excitement surrounding the 2025 Red Sox.

Through 5 games, Story is 6-for-14 with half of his hits being doubles. He’s pulling everything in sight, which doesn’t seem to be a bad plan for when he’s at Fenway Park. It’s obviously early, but he does have 4 strikeouts over that stretch with no walks, yet only one of them has come over his last 3 games.

Off the field, it feels like Bregman has given Story the ability to be more comfortable overall. Last spring, Story seemed like he was trying to be a leader for a team that just didn’t have that necessary veteran presence. Then when he got hurt in Anaheim less than two weeks into the season, it became clear they had no defensive identity without him. Adding Bregman into the mix has taken some of that pressure and weight off Story’s shoulders, which should be a good thing as the former Rockie tries to get his career back on track.

My brain is still having a hard time processing that Roman Anthony is only 20 years old. He hasn’t had this big breakout game like Mayer yet, but he’s been nothing short of consistent by reaching base in every single game so far. That started with a hit in his first 4 games of the spring, before walking 3 times against the Phillies and once against the Mets.

4-for-13 with 4 walks and 1 strikeout just screams that Anthony is comfortable. Something that Kristian Campbell has still been looking to find so far. While his body has continued to fill out since being drafted, he still shows above-average speed, with him being timed at 4.11 from home plate to first base in recent weeks. Despite some (Hi Mazz) tagging him as a DH already, he made a nice diving grab in left against the Phillies last week and looked comfortable in center against the Tigers. His most likely home will eventually be a corner outfield spot, but his “strong defensive instincts” give him a solid floor if he loses more range.

If Alex Bregman hadn’t played a single game yet, he might still have made this list with the impact he seems to be having behind-the-scenes. Whether it’s players, coaches, or members of the front office, it feels like everyone’s giddy about what Bregman brings to the organization. He’s spending time with the minor leaguers, talking with the pitchers, and even helping Rafael Devers improve defensively at third base.

On the field, the results have been pretty exciting as well. He started the spring with a bang by going 3-for-3 with a homer and a double against the Blue Jays. One of the more glaring parts of his game that has stuck out so far is his ability to put the ball in play, especially with a runner at third and less than 2 outs. It’s led to him racking up 6 RBI in 4 games. Oh, and he’s also 5-for-10 overall.

Bregman does have 2 errors at third base so far, but it’s nothing to worry about. If anything, Triston Casas and Blaze Jordan probably should have picked both balls with neither being far away from the bag. Still, it was nice to see Bregman and Casas link up on an impressive play on Saturday.

It took one outing for Austin Adams to show Red Sox fans he was a psycho. And I love it. So far the results have been there as well, with him putting together 3 straight scoreless innings with 5 Ks. He mentioned back in January that Andrew Bailey had given him a plan to work on before arriving at spring training and it seems to be doing the job.

In this same spot, I want to highlight Greg Weissert as well. He’s shifted from the third base side of the mound to the first base end and has thrown three scoreless innings with 4 Ks and 2 walks. He finished 2024 on a strong note with 16.2 scoreless innings, but didn’t flash the same ability to miss bats. So far, he hasn’t had that issue.

Both will be part of the battle for the last spot in the bullpen. Cora has alluded to multi-inning options being important with the 6-man rotation idea going out the window, which isn’t great for Adams who only did it twice in the minors last year. Still, the organization has a series of arms that feature a similar look to Adams and Weissert with Wyatt Mills and Adam Ottavino, so it seems like something they wouldn’t mind having on the 26-man roster.

Out of all the starting pitchers so far this spring, Walker Buehler has been the biggest standout. He had been slowed a bit compared to Garrett Crochet and Tanner Houck because he pitched until November, but when he stepped on the mound against the Mets yesterday, he looked like the October version of himself. It was 2 innings of 1-hit ball with 4 strikeouts and no walks.

Buehler ended up topping out at 95 with his 4SFB, which was what he averaged after returning from Tommy John last year. It was especially nasty against left-handed batters, with it bleeding back over the plate against Jesse Winker and Brett Baty on strikeouts. Add in his secondaries looking sharp and it’s hard to imagine him posting only a 7.6 K/9 again in 2025. If he's fully healthy, he gives this rotation a chance to compete with anyone in baseball that isn't the Dodgers.

Heat. That’s the best way to describe Richard Fitts’ start to the spring. He’s thrown 4 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts, 1 walk, and 4 hits. That includes him topping out at 99 with his 4SFB and introducing a new sinker and curveball. Hello, 6-pitch arsenal.

Missing bats has been the biggest concern for Fitts as he worked his way up through the minors. His stuff consistently faded as he worked deeper into outings. It’s why there wasn’t a ton of buzz when he posted a 1.74 ERA/3.31 FIP over 4 starts (20.2 IP) to end 2024. His new velocity gains have a chance to change that though.

Alex Cora told Fitts that he wanted to see his 4SFB sitting 95+ because it makes his arsenal play better. So far, he's been doing that and then some. The real test will be when he’s asked to go 4 or 5 innings, but it also shows that if he’s pushed to a relief role, his stuff definitely ticks up. Keep in mind, his 4SFB averaged 94.5 in the big leagues last season.

It’s been an extremely small sample size, but Kristian Campbell has had a rough start to the spring. Through his first 11 at-bats, he hasn’t picked up a hit and has struck out 9 times. Seems like he’s pressing a bit, considering he rocked a 19.9 K% between High-A, Double-A and Triple-A in 2024.

Am I panicking? Nope, not one bit. It’s fair to wonder if the organization put too much pressure on him by making it clear behind the scenes they wanted him on the Opening Day roster, which will have dramatic implications for Bregman and Rafael Devers, but the damage is done. If there’s one thing Campbell has shown the ability to do in the minors, it’s make adjustments on the fly.

Something that has stood out with Campbell is his two recent starts in left field. Could they be preparing to fit him on the roster a different way if Wilyer Abreu needs to start the season on the IL? Maybe. If you ask Abreu, he seems pretty confident he'll still be ready for Opening Day after battling GI issues. Cora has also made it clear how much versatility matters, so this might be another way of keeping their roster flexible. Seems like there’s still a lot of balls in the air with Abreu ramping up, Masataka Yoshida returning to game action, Vaughn Grissom trying to prove 2024 was a fluke, and the continued development of Campbell and Anthony.

What the hell has happened in the last 48 hours? It was hard to find better vibes than what the Red Sox had cooking at the end of last week, as Alex Bregman arrived in Fort Myers fresh off signing his 3-year, $120 MM deal with visible excitement about his new home. At that time, the message from the organization had been about making Bregman the club’s second baseman, but that changed quickly once Alex Cora wouldn’t commit to a defensive position at Bregman’s introductory presser.

“We'll talk about that later on," Cora told the media. "Right now, there's a lot of stuff going on as far as where we're going to be roster-wise. We'll make the decision when we have to make it… He hasn't played second base in the big leagues. I do believe he can be a Gold Glove second baseman, too. There's other stuff that comes into play as far as roster construction and what's better for the team and what can be the best lineup. Competition comes into play."

If you want to go back to the first initial buzz between the Red Sox and Bregman, it started with Cora gushing about viewing Bregman as a second baseman at the Winter Meetings. He doubled down on that sentiment roughly a month later at Fenway Fest. “Raffy Devers is our third baseman. Alex was a Gold Glover at third base and we all know that, but in 2017 I had a conversation with him, and he needed to play third because it was Correa and Altuve. I always envisioned Alex as a Gold Glover second baseman. His size, the way he moves.”

That message from the Red Sox never changed once as they pursued Bregman. Jeff Passan reported within the hour of the agreement going public that the plan was for Bregman to be at second base. Not to mention, Breslow had emphasized at the end of season presser and again at the Winter Meetings that they hadn’t discussed moving Devers off of third base, despite there already being rumors about their interest in Nolan Arenado.

Whenever the question about a potential positional change for Devers came up, Breslow made it clear that those talks would happen internally before anything else. “Any conversation that we would have about [a position change] is going to happen internally before it goes external. At the same time, we saw progress [from Devers] on the defensive side, and it’s unclear to what extent the knees and the shoulders impacted his ability to defend at third [down the stretch]. But what we’re after is putting a winning team on the field. And we’ll have conversations as needed, as things go, but as of right now, that’s not where we are.”

From Devers’ standpoint, I don’t think it’s hard to see why he’s upset about the Red Sox dropping a positional change on him. He was never spoken to about moving off of third base all offseason, despite his bosses saying they’d talk things over with him if something changed. Instead, he heard exactly what the fans were told, which was that Devers was the third baseman and Bregman could win a Gold Glove at second.

As we know, the Red Sox weren’t seriously in on any of the DH/OF options like Teoscar Hernandez and Tyler O’Neill. In Jen McCaffrey’s story about how the Bregman deal went down, it was noted that after the Red Sox missed out on Juan Soto, they turned their focus to Bregman. Even Sean McAdam had written in November that Arenado was essentially a “Plan B” for the Red Sox, which was obviously the case as they waited out the Bregman sweepstakes over the last two months.

During that entire period, the Red Sox had the opportunity to at least approach the topic with Devers. That would’ve ensured they kept their word from earlier in the offseason, while also showing a level of respect towards Devers, who was reportedly promised he’d be the third baseman of the team for “several” years after signing his extension. Yet the organization dropped the bomb on him this past Friday after Bregman had already been signed and he had been in Fort Myers since the middle of January. 

While many didn’t take Devers’ agent, Nelson Montes de Oca, too seriously over the course of the offseason, he made it clear that his client expected to be at third base. Whenever rumors started to fly about Bregman or Arenado, Devers’ camp sent their message both locally and nationally. You even had, which pointed to him feeling disrespected by those saying he should be a DH moving forward. Beyond the poor communication, this is an example of just not reading or understanding your players correctly, which is a dangerous game to play with someone who just signed an 11-year, $331 MM extension.

If the front office felt it was that important to upgrade the infield defense, that should’ve been communicated at the start of the offseason. Strictly from a baseball perspective, Devers wouldn’t have much of an argument, but they chose to muddy the waters with their comments about his improved performance in 2024 and Bregman playing second base. Devers himself admitted that he thought he made strides last season, which only matches what the organization said about him.

I was shocked when the Red Sox applauded Devers' defense at the time. While he didn’t fall into his typical error funks for once, he registered a rough -6 Outs Above Average and -9 Defensive Runs Saved. So, why not be upfront when the data in front of you justifies the conversation you need to have with your best player? If you were that committed to Devers only swinging a bat moving forward, the best course of action would’ve been to let him process it away from everything. Even after coming up short on that front, they could’ve slow played the conversation early in camp to make up for the lack of communication in the first place. Nobody is a bigger Kristian Campbell fan than me, but why ruffle any feathers until he proves to be a real candidate for the Opening Day roster?

Make it appear as if Campbell was battling for a spot in left field. In that scenario, Jarren Duran could move to center field where he posted elite defensive numbers in 2024 and Ceddanne Rafaela works in a super-utility role. If Campbell decided to show out and Rafaela was deserving of an everyday role in center field, then the convo changes during camp and there’s direct proof of why that’s happening.

It wasn’t only Devers that was put in a tough spot with how the Red Sox framed things either. They made it pretty hard to envision where Masataka Yoshida would slot into things. That’s a major reason why I was cautious to pencil in Devers at DH and Bregman at 3B because if you hope for Yoshida to rebuild any of his value, that’s not happening with a lot of time on the bench. This was a way to put your best offensive lineup out there, keep everyone happy, and still improve your defense from where it was a year ago.

Does the poor communication from the Red Sox justify Devers completely shutting down the idea of being a DH or first baseman? No, not one bit. In a perfect world, you’d hope his sole focus was on the Red Sox being the best version of themselves, but he said himself that he feels like a victim of bad business. This is where Cora will have a chance to earn his money as a player’s manager, but it’s going to take some real work after contradicting himself the last few months.

The Red Sox can claim that Campbell forced them to reconsider their defensive alignment, but he hasn’t done anything to dramatically change their evaluation since the offseason started. If you felt this strongly about him playing against the Rangers on March 27th, why not approach things with that outlook all offseason? Talking out of both sides of your mouth did you no favors in this scenario and has now created an uncomfortable position for a team looking to solidify themselves as contenders in the American League.

Over the next 5 weeks, there’s going to be a focus on Red Sox spring training that hasn’t existed in a long time. Every defensive rep that Bregman and Devers takes is going to be questioned or noted. Same goes for Campbell, who will be in the midst of his first big league spring training. Even when it comes to the media, players are going to be asked about it constantly, which is where you risk guys stepping in it and starting fires (Yes, I’m talking about Triston Casas). That attention is a product of how the Red Sox handled things over the course of the offseason and into camp, which they can only blame themselves for.

At the end of the day, it’s Cora’s job to fill out the lineup. If he wants Devers at DH, that will be a pill he’s forced to swallow. It just feels like there was a simpler way to handle this situation that didn’t make Devers feel blindsided and defensive. The last thing the Red Sox need with their image on the upswing again is a public dispute with their longest-tenured player, who is right at the center of what should be a lengthy competitive window for the organization.