Boston Red Sox fans are running out of good reasons to explain why Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer aren't in the big leagues yet, and the team is running out of excuses.
Anthony and Mayer have crushed Triple-A pitching since their respective promotions in August and at the beginning of the season. Anthony is slashing .306/.428/.478 over 37 games with the WooSox in 2025 and Mayer is batting .282/.350/.500 in 36 appearances.
The two top prospects certainly look ready to take the next step up to MLB, and the Red Sox could use their help. Their sluggish offense with runners in scoring position and tendency to lose one-run games requires a spark, and Anthony's .428 on-base percentage could be a great place to start.
Some members of Red Sox Nation have begun to theorize that the team may be purposefully delaying Anthony and Mayer's call-up to manipulate their service time. MLB has rules in place to encourage clubs to call up their best players and field their best team, but the rules could be pushing Boston to do the opposite.
Why haven't the Red Sox called up Roman Anthony or Marcelo Mayer?
An official MLB season lasts 187 days, and players must be on the roster for 172 of them to accrue one year of service time. After six years of service time, players on rookie contracts reach free agency for the first time in their careers if they haven't been extended by their team.
Anthony and Mayer are well past the date when they could have accrued 172 days of service time by their addition to the 40-man roster, but there are other ways players can gather a full year of service, such as winning Rookie of the Year. Anthony, the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball, and Mayer, who's also been in the top prospect spotlight for years, will have eyes on them from the moment they're called up, looking out for a ROY run.
Kristian Campbell is a frontrunner in the American League ROY race this year, but the Red Sox have nothing to fear if he wins because they extended him early in the 2024 season. Boston has also approached Anthony about a contract extension, but he said he "isn't thinking" about that at this stage of his career. If he wins ROY, he would earn a full year of service time, regardless of when he was called up, and be a year closer to free agency. The same goes for Mayer, who also hasn't been extended.
The Red Sox could be waiting to summon Anthony and Mayer until the ideal window for either to win ROY is closed. It would be hard for voters to justify giving the award to Anthony or Mayer if they were called up half a season later than Campbell or other frontrunners like Jacob Wilson.
The Red Sox could be trying to prevent Anthony or Mayer from winning ROY, or the big league roster could be built so poorly that they have nowhere to put them. Trevor Story is blocking Mayer's path to shortstop until at least 2028 and the outfield is packed already, with nowhere to put Masataka Yoshida, who is on the books for another two and a half years.
Either way, Anthony and Mayer deserve to be in the big leagues after their early results in Triple-A and the Red Sox need an offensive kick. Boston won't be able to get away with keeping their top prospects in the minor leagues for much longer, especially if the Red Sox continue to struggle at the plate.