The Boston Red Sox and younger outfielder Roman Anthony are in enterprise on an eight-year, $130 million contract extension that features a $30 million workforce possibility and will preserve Anthony underneath membership management by the 2034 season, the workforce introduced Wednesday. The deal will run by Anthony’s age-29 season and his age-30 season if the membership possibility is exercised. Escalators based mostly on issues like awards voting and All-Star alternatives may increase the overall determine to as much as $230 million.
“I could not consider a greater metropolis to play in for the subsequent eight to 9 years of my life,” Anthony stated throughout a press convention Wednesday. “It is really only a particular place to play and a particular place to indicate up each single day.”
The rookie Anthony, age 21, entered the 2025 season as the highest prospect in all of baseball in response to some evaluators, including CBS Sports. In 46 video games since his call-up to Boston on June 9, Anthony has slashed .283/.400/.428 (132 OPS+) with a pair of dwelling runs and 15 doubles. He is backed up the manufacturing with sturdy underlying indicators on the batted-ball stage. Particularly, Anthony to date boasts a median exit velocity off the bat of 94.1 mph, a median bat pace of 74.4 mph, and a hard-hit price of 58% — elite on all counts, albeit throughout a restricted pattern. As effectively, he is proven a mature method on the plate, as he is labored an unintentional walks in a powerful 13.7% of his plate appearances. All of that provides as much as sturdy Rookie of the Yr consideration (+2000, per DraftKings).
A former second-round pick of a Florida highschool, Anthony within the minors put up an .879 OPS throughout elements of 4 seasons regardless of being considerably youthful than his peer group at each cease. Here is what our R.J. Anderson wrote about Anthony coming into the present season:
Anthony has rather a lot working in his favor. He will not rejoice his twenty first birthday till the summer season, but he is already authored a powerful 35-game stretch in Triple-A, throughout which he recorded a .983 OPS and a stroll for each strikeout. His superior metrics, together with his ninetieth percentile exit velocity and his in-zone contact share, line up with these posted by James Wood and Junior Caminero; his chase price, in the meantime, was superior to each. (Wooden and Caminero subsequently hit effectively within the majors.) If there’s an space the place Anthony may clearly stand to enhance, it needs to be with respect to pulling the ball within the air. He has immense uncooked power, the type that would ultimately end in 30-plus homers yearly; it is eyebrow-raising, then, that he pulled simply 4% of his Triple-A fly balls (the MLB common final season was over 9%). This rating is a wager on Anthony’s youth and expertise permitting him to determine that part over the approaching years.
This season, Anthony’s arrival and emergence has helped the Crimson Sox surge again into competition. Three days earlier than Anthony’s arrival, Boston slipped to a season-worst 5 video games underneath .500. Since that low level, nevertheless, the Sox have gone 35-17. At current, they occupy the highest wild card spot within the American League and path the first-place Blue Jays by simply three video games within the AL East race.
Trying additional ahead, Anthony is the domain member of the Sox’s rising younger core to commit long-term to the membership. Heart fielder Ceddanne Rafaela is signed by a minimum of the 2031 season, and infielder/outfielder Kristian Campbell can be signed by a minimum of 2031. As effectively, lefty ace Garrett Crochet, who’s nonetheless simply 26 years of age, can be signed by a minimum of 2031. Anthony had been in line at no cost company after that very same season, 2031, however now that is been pushed again till a minimum of the offseason of 2034-35.
On one other stage, the signing of Anthony marks a optimistic bit of stories after the June commerce of the workforce’s greatest hitter, Rafael Devers. Devers himself had been signed to a long-term extension, and the commerce of him to San Francisco proved broadly unpopular with the Boston fan base. Since then, although, the workforce’s surge and now the dedication to Anthony, probably the most ballyhooed of Boston’s younger abilities, have turned that individual web page.