Boston Red Sox Prospects: 2022 will be the year of Cameron Cannon

2022 will be the year of Boston Red Sox prospect Cameron Cannon

It’s time to start talking about the potential breakout prospects of 2022. As well as wondering who is going to own the upcoming season. For the Boston Red Sox, there are a lot of good candidates for this. There’s a pretty big difference between breaking out and owning the year in my opinion. You can do both, but some some players are already established.

Honestly, I think Cameron Cannon had his breakout season last year. It helped put him on the map for some fans. At the same time, it had to justify using a second-round pick on him in 2019 for Boston.

So if 2021 was a breakout year for Cannon, what will 2022 be? How about the year of Cannon?

After being drafted in 2019, the middle infielder hit just .200 in 45 games (170 at-bats). Even worse, he had to sit on that for all of 2020 due to the whole “there was no MILB season” thing that went on that year.

The combined not-great numbers and no 2020 really cooled off any hype surrounding Cannon. He was highly-touted for his offense for a reason though.

In 2021, the right-handed hitter slashed .284/.331/.440 with 30 doubles and 11 home runs between High-A and Double-A. He drove in 53 runs and scored 61 more, stealing nine bases.

That’s a really strong season. Especially considering he only had 170 career at-bats before that. And the fact that he played in two different levels that he had never even played in before.

Cannon isn’t known for his defense. However, it’s not really a “weakness”. He has solid range, a good glove, and a decent arm for shortstop. When he’s playing second base that gets upgraded to a strong arm. That’s not what we’re here to talk about though.

The reason he isn’t known for his defense is because Cannon is an offensive juggernaut. He has the ability to hit around .300 and is going to absolutely rack up the doubles (as shown by his 30 last season). He could also find his way to 20 home runs. Throw in enough speed to get 10-15 steals and you’ve got someone that can do it all.

2021 was going great for Cannon but he stumbled a little bit when he made the move to Double-A. Before the season though, he had never even played in anything higher than Short-A (which isn’t even a thing anymore). So you can excuse him for slowing down a bit in a long season at such a high level.

2022 will be different though. Cannon now has that full season under his belt. This should help him from hitting a wall. He’ll also have the experience at Double-A (which is likely where he’ll start the year).

With that in mind, we can expect the 24-year-old to be back to his mashing ways this season. Could we see him hit around .300? Absolutely. Could we see 50-plus extra-base hits? Very possible. What about double-digit steals? Why not?

This could all lead to a trip up to Triple-A by the end of the year. We saw a breakout year from Cannon in 2021 that saw him make it all the way to Double-A. Now he’s going to not only build off that strong year, but climb even closer to the Majors in 2022.

The Red Sox have a lot of talent on their roster but second base is a position where there isn’t really an answer at the moment. Cannon could build a serious case for why he deserves consideration for that spot long-term. Throw in the fact that every time he hits a home run everyone could tweet Don Cannon’s producer tag “CANNON, CANNON” which is one of the greatest producer tags in rap history and would just be fun to do. In fact, I’m doing that next year every time I tweet about a Cam homer. It is decided.

Would anyone really complain about having that type of offense in the Boston Red Sox middle infield? In the words of the legendary Bob Saget from his classic HALF-BAKED cameo “I didn’t think so.” (RIP to a great man and comedian).