Craig Breslow's Response About Calling Up Roman Anthony Is Brutal Look For Red Sox

A Boston Red Sox star has driven in five runs in his last three games. He just isn't in the major leagues yet.

Baseball's number-one prospect, 21-year-old outfielder Roman Anthony, is surging in Triple-A, proving for the umpteenth time that he's ready for the big leagues. Meanwhile, his parent club, the Red Sox, have scored five total runs during their four-game losing streak.

At 27-30 and with superstar third baseman Alex Bregman on the injured list, the Red Sox are already in high danger of letting this season slip away. But even as Anthony has compiled a .981 OPS through 48 games, Boston has shown no urgency to get him to the majors.

During a phone interview with the Boston Globe's Alex Speier on Tuesday, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow attempted to justify why Anthony hadn't yet been called up. But his response is unlikely to quell many angry Sox fans' impatience.

“Those are a few development opportunities that we want to make sure we lock in. Those are things the minor league schedule and training environment afford. Obviously, we have to balance that with our major league needs,” Breslow said. “That’s a conversation that we’re having every single day.”

Boston does have three outfielders who are capable of being above-average starters for big-league teams in Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Wilyer Abreu. But Anthony is plainly a better hitter than Rafaela right now, even if he hasn't seen a single pitch in the big leagues.

There's one other explanation, though. The Red Sox don't want Anthony to win or finish second in Rookie of the Year voting, because that would mean they'd lose a year of service time, and he'd hit free agency after the 2030 season instead of 2031.

Breslow can't say that. So instead, he has to pretend there's something they're looking for Anthony to prove that no one can quite see, most likely because it doesn't exist.

“He does all these things well, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a chance to try to improve,” Breslow told Speier. “It kind of sounds a bit like we’re overly scrutinizing the performance, but he has really high demands of himself... We just want to make sure that while he’s in the minor leagues and working through these things, we’re giving him the chance to do so.”

To some degree, the service time manipulation, though frustrating, is justifiable if the Red Sox aren't going to make the playoffs anyway. Every day Anthony is still in the minor leagues, though, is a wasted opportunity on multiple fronts.