When Has The Red Sox Farm System Previously Ranked This High?
Image credit: Roman Anthony, right, and Marcelo Mayer during batting practice with Double-A Portland. (Photo by Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
In our most recent Top 100 Prospects update, we moved Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony to No. 2 in the rankings. We agonize over every spot in the rankings, but we spent extra time figuring out who would rank No. 2.
We had a clear No. 1 prospect in Junior Caminero. But Caminero is only 28 at-bats away from graduation (and averaging roughly 25 at-bats a week), this means that we knew that whoever we chose to rank second will likely ascend to No. 1 on our rankings before long.
Related: See the Red Sox midseason Top 30 Prospects
There are a number of potential candidates, but eventually Anthony rose to the top. He has plenty of company from his teammates. Shortstop Marcelo Mayer ranks 11th. Second baseman Kristian Campbell has jumped to 25th. Catcher Kyle Teel is 26th. Outfielder Braden Montgomery, the team’s 2024 first-round pick, ranks 61st, while shortstop Franklin Arias is 94th.
Expect four Red Sox prospects to rank in the top 25 when Caminero graduates. Boston is among the favorites to rank No. 1 in our offseason talent rankings. Those talent rankings weigh prospect starpower over depth. The Red Sox are loaded with top prospects.
That has led to a logical question from several Red Sox fans: when was the last time the Red Sox had a farm system ranked this high?
It’s been a while.
The Red Sox have never ranked No. 1 in our offseason Organization Talent Rankings (which is considered our canonical list). But they have ranked second on two occasions, most recently in 2014.
The Red Sox ranked as a top five system in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
In 2014, Xander Bogaerts led the Red Sox Top 30, and Mookie Betts was also a top-10 prospect. Manuel Margot and a very young Rafael Devers were in the top 20 as well. In 2014, the Red Sox had eight Top 100 Prospects including Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Betts.
That 2016 Top 30 looks quite stacked as well. Yoan Moncada, Devers and Andrew Benintendi ranked as the top three and Michael Kopech ranked fifth. Moncada, Devers, Benintendi and Anderson Espinoza ranked in the top 20 on our preseason Top 100 and Kopech was also a Top 100 Prospect.
There were some misses in those rankings as well. Henry Owens and Blake Swihart didn’t live up to the lofty expectations we put on them. Not everyone hits. But the seeds of the 2018 Red Sox 108-win World Series winning team can be found on those top-five ranked prospect lists. Betts was the best player on the 2018 team. Bogaerts and Benintendi were two additional stars in the lineup. Devers was a 21-year-old rookie regular. Moncada and Kopech were traded to the White Sox to bring back ace Chris Sale.
The previous time the Red Sox ranked second was in 2008, at the tail end of a three-year stretch of top 10 finishes from 2006 to 2008. In hindsight, our No. 8 ranking in 2006 undersold a farm system that had Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz in the top 10. (Lester, Papelbon and Pedroia ranked in the Top 100). The 2008 Red Sox Top 30 was led by Buchholz, Ellsbury and included Jed Lowrie, Josh Reddick, Anthony Rizzo and Daniel Bard as well. The Red Sox had seven Top 100 Prospects including Buchholz, Ellsbury and Lowrie.
Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester and Buchholz were key parts of the Red Sox 2013 World Series champs.
Notably, with the exception of Montgomery, Boston’s five other Top 100 Prospects were acquired during Chaim Bloom’s tenure as Red Sox GM. Bloom was charged with revitalizing the farm system when he was hired in 2020 along with bringing the big league club back to the playoffs.
The Red Sox had ranked 30th in our farm system rankings heading into the 2019 season and 20th coming into Bloom’s first season with the club in 2020. The Red Sox 2019 Top 30 was led by Bobby Dalbec, Michael Chavis and Darwinzon Hernandez. The team did have Triston Casas, Tanner Houck and Jarren Duran in the top 12 of the rankings. All three, though, were early in their pro development at that time.
At the major league level, Bloom’s teams struggled. Boston made the playoffs in 2021, but went 78-84 in each of Bloom’s final two seasons as GM.
But the farm system has blossomed, and it’s been through astute drafting and development. While Boston drafted Mayer with the fourth overall pick in 2021, it picked Anthony No. 79 in 2022 and he signed a well overslot deal. Campbell was the 132nd pick of the 2023 draft out of Georgia Tech. Arias was a $525,000 signing out of Venezuela in 2023.
To the credit of Craig Breslow and his staff, the Red Sox have seen Campbell blossom this year and the club’s hitting development has seen numerous success stories this year, including Mickey Gasper’s breakout and improvements from Chase Meidroth, Mikey Romero and Jhostynxon Garcia.
