With Marcelo Mayer out of the picture and Trevor Story offering little certainty, the Red Sox are putting a heavy load on Franklin Arias. Boston’s shortstop future is suddenly hanging on the 20-year-old, and right now there isn’t an obvious fallback plan if he doesn’t become the answer.
That’s what makes the position so tricky for the Red Sox at the moment. Andruw Monasterio has been adequate with the bat, but he’s not built to handle the spot every day.
Story, meanwhile, remains a tough sell as the long-term solution. He was hitting just .206 through 41 games before his injury, and even once he comes back, there’s no guarantee he’ll be the kind of impact player Boston needs.
So for the Red Sox, Arias looms large. If the club is going to solve shortstop for the long run, it likely has to be him.
The encouraging part is that Arias is moving fast. He’s Boston’s top prospect and MLB.com’s No. 7 prospect in the minors.
After his recent promotion to Triple-A, he’s done plenty to strengthen the case that he won’t be there long. In 10 games, he’s batting .326 with a .981 OPS, along with three home runs and 12 RBIs.
Boston has been here before. The last time the organization leaned this hard on a shortstop prospect to help shape the future, it was Xander Bogaerts, who reached the majors in 2013 and gave the World Series team a major lift that season before becoming one of the franchise’s best players for the rest of the decade.
The Red Sox are hoping Arias can follow a similar path, at least in part. He brings skill across the board, and at 20, he still has plenty of room to grow.
Mayer never became the player Boston expected, though a move to the San Francisco Giants could still help him develop. But his exit has created an opening for Arias, and if he keeps moving the way he has, the Red Sox may have found a shortstop who can matter for a long time.
In Other News...
Former Red Sox Fan Favorite Is Walking Away From Baseball
Rob Refsnyders name still carries a little extra weight in Boston, where his career got a second life and he became one of those players fans seemed to appreciate for how he fit into the room as much as what he did on the field. After bouncing through several organizations, he found real footing with the Red Sox during a revival that helped turn him from a journeyman into a familiar and well-liked presence for the club.
Now, according to reports, the former outfielder has stepped away from professional baseball altogether. Refsnyders path included parts of 11 major league seasons and a late-career stop with the Mariners, and he leaves behind a modest but respectable big league rsum with a .246 average, 37 home runs and 165 RBIs. For Red Sox fans, though, he will likely be remembered less for the final numbers than for the run that made him feel like one of their own. [Read more 🡒]
Red Sox Just Pushed Out A Productive Outfielder For A Bigger Reason
Roster churn at the Double-A level can look routine from the outside, but it often says more about an organizations direction than any box score does. The Red Sox parted ways with outfielder Matt Fraizer, a former Pirates third-round pick who had joined the system on a minor-league deal last winter and had spent his time with Portland, where he was one of the more established outfield options on hand.
Fraizers exit appears to fit the kind of roster management that happens when a club wants to open space for younger talent moving up behind him. In Bostons case, the move helps clear room for other outfielders and comes as Henry Godbout gets a promotion within the organization, a reminder that even productive minor-league pieces can become expendable when the pipeline starts to move. [Read more 🡒]
Red Sox Prospects Are Giving Boston A Depth Boost Fans Will Notice
Bostons farm system has been doing more than just filling box scores lately. Across different levels, several Red Sox prospects have started to show the kind of steady production that can make a rebuilding pipeline feel a little more real, with Mikey Romero, Franklin Arias, Allan Castro and Gage Ziehl among the names drawing attention for recent game-to-game impact. The updates have come from all over the system, which is part of what makes the stretch notable for the organization: it is not just one hot hand, but a collection of players giving the club reason to keep watching closely.
There was also a familiar big-league name in Worcester for a rehab assignment debut, though it sits outside the actual prospect conversation. Even so, the broader minor league picture is the one Boston has to like right now, because depth only matters if it is producing in more than one place at once. For a team that always has one eye on the next wave, these are the kinds of performances that can change the tone of a farm system, even before any of them force a bigger conversation. [Read more 🡒]