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BOSTON — On Friday night, Ceddanne Rafaela offered a loud reminder that Roman Anthony hasn’t arrived quite yet.
Rafaela, assumed by many to be the odd man out in the outfield when the red-hot Anthony ascends to the majors at some point soon, had his best offensive game of the young season in a 10-3 Red Sox rout, launching his first homer of 2025, a 105.2 mph blast that got over the Green Monster in a hurry. For a player whose contributions have almost exclusively come on the defensive side of things so far, production at the plate was overdue.
“I’m just going to keep working hard,” Rafaela said. “I’ve been feeling good, just the balls haven’t been dropping. I feel good to have that one today.”
With the scorching Anthony dominating Triple-A pitching, it’s easy to imagine him displacing Rafaela in the coming weeks or months. Jarren Duran is going to continue to be an everyday staple and Wilyer Abreu is safe in right field after a torrid start to the season on both sides of the ball. Therefore, Anthony projects to either take over in left field, with Duran shifting to center, or in center to directly replace Rafaela. Rafaela would either then likely move to a super-utility/bench role.
Anthony isn’t in the majors, though, in part because a minor shoulder injury has prevented him from defensive action for the last week and also because the Red Sox still think there are ample development opportunities for him at the minors’ highest level, specifically with the glove and against left-handed pitching. Eventually, there are decisions to be made. For now, though, the 24-year-old Rafaela — the third youngest player on the 26-man roster behind Kristian Campbell and Triston Casas — is an everyday player the Red Sox are still developing.
“We live in the now,” Cora said. “I know there’s good players in the minor leagues that will contribute at one point this season.”
By admirably bouncing back and forth between shortstop and center field out of necessity in 2024, Rafaela wasn’t able to show the Red Sox all of his immense defensive upside. As the everyday man in center so far this year, he has. The Curacao native ranks second among all MLB fielders (behind only Abreu) in defensive runs saved while Statcast ranks him among the very best in all fielding categories. Rafaela ranks highly in range/outs above average (96th percentile), arm strength (91st), sprint speed (85th) and arm value (84th). It’s not an understatement to call him a game-changer.
“He’s been doing a lot of good things for us,” said Cora. “It doesn’t have to be, always, offense. Defensively, he has to be top two or top three as far as defensive runs saved. He stops the running game. I think we’ve done an outstanding job with that in the outfield, stopping the running game. Defensively, he’s one of the best.”
Offensively, though, it has been a slog after an encouraging spring training. Rafaela started 3-for-26 and entered Friday with just one extra-base hit, a triple in Chicago last weekend. More specifically, he’s still chasing at an outrageous rate — 46.4%, according to Statcast. The strikeouts and non-competitive at-bats have piled up.
“The offensive part of it, the swing is on point,” Cora said. “Now, it’s the approach, to be honest with you. There’s days we’re swinging a lot and others we’ve been more patient. More patient in spring training than during the regular season, swinging at the right ones, although he’s still chasing. It’s a long season. We just have to be patient with him.”
“We work everyday on the swing decision stuff,” Rafaela added. “We’re just focusing on getting good pitches to hit right now.”
Friday was an encouraging performance, not just because of Rafaela’s fourth-inning blast off Penn Murfee but because he hit three balls at 101 mph or harder. The swing-and-miss will always be part of the package, even as the Red Sox try to get Rafaela to be more selective. But there’s still untapped upside, too, and the knowledge that Rafaela can be a run-producer as someone who popped 15 homers and drove in 75 runs in 2024.
“He drove that ball to right-center, then he stayed on a breaking ball and drove it out of the ballpark,” Cora said. “When you see him driving fastballs to right-center that hard, good things are going to happen.”
Everyone in the Red Sox’ clubhouse knows Anthony is poised to be a star when he does ascend to the big leagues. For now, though, he’s not part of the group and players like Rafaela will still have ample chance to keep developing on the biggest stage.
“I haven’t really been listening about that,” Rafaela said of Anthony. “If he comes up, I think he will help us good here. I’m excited for him. I think we all are here.”
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Rafaela, assumed by many to be the odd man out in the outfield when the red-hot Anthony ascends to the majors at some point soon, had his best offensive game of the young season in a 10-3 Red Sox rout, launching his first homer of 2025, a 105.2 mph blast that got over the Green Monster in a hurry. For a player whose contributions have almost exclusively come on the defensive side of things so far, production at the plate was overdue.
“I’m just going to keep working hard,” Rafaela said. “I’ve been feeling good, just the balls haven’t been dropping. I feel good to have that one today.”
With the scorching Anthony dominating Triple-A pitching, it’s easy to imagine him displacing Rafaela in the coming weeks or months. Jarren Duran is going to continue to be an everyday staple and Wilyer Abreu is safe in right field after a torrid start to the season on both sides of the ball. Therefore, Anthony projects to either take over in left field, with Duran shifting to center, or in center to directly replace Rafaela. Rafaela would either then likely move to a super-utility/bench role.
Anthony isn’t in the majors, though, in part because a minor shoulder injury has prevented him from defensive action for the last week and also because the Red Sox still think there are ample development opportunities for him at the minors’ highest level, specifically with the glove and against left-handed pitching. Eventually, there are decisions to be made. For now, though, the 24-year-old Rafaela — the third youngest player on the 26-man roster behind Kristian Campbell and Triston Casas — is an everyday player the Red Sox are still developing.
“We live in the now,” Cora said. “I know there’s good players in the minor leagues that will contribute at one point this season.”
By admirably bouncing back and forth between shortstop and center field out of necessity in 2024, Rafaela wasn’t able to show the Red Sox all of his immense defensive upside. As the everyday man in center so far this year, he has. The Curacao native ranks second among all MLB fielders (behind only Abreu) in defensive runs saved while Statcast ranks him among the very best in all fielding categories. Rafaela ranks highly in range/outs above average (96th percentile), arm strength (91st), sprint speed (85th) and arm value (84th). It’s not an understatement to call him a game-changer.
“He’s been doing a lot of good things for us,” said Cora. “It doesn’t have to be, always, offense. Defensively, he has to be top two or top three as far as defensive runs saved. He stops the running game. I think we’ve done an outstanding job with that in the outfield, stopping the running game. Defensively, he’s one of the best.”
Offensively, though, it has been a slog after an encouraging spring training. Rafaela started 3-for-26 and entered Friday with just one extra-base hit, a triple in Chicago last weekend. More specifically, he’s still chasing at an outrageous rate — 46.4%, according to Statcast. The strikeouts and non-competitive at-bats have piled up.
“The offensive part of it, the swing is on point,” Cora said. “Now, it’s the approach, to be honest with you. There’s days we’re swinging a lot and others we’ve been more patient. More patient in spring training than during the regular season, swinging at the right ones, although he’s still chasing. It’s a long season. We just have to be patient with him.”
“We work everyday on the swing decision stuff,” Rafaela added. “We’re just focusing on getting good pitches to hit right now.”
Friday was an encouraging performance, not just because of Rafaela’s fourth-inning blast off Penn Murfee but because he hit three balls at 101 mph or harder. The swing-and-miss will always be part of the package, even as the Red Sox try to get Rafaela to be more selective. But there’s still untapped upside, too, and the knowledge that Rafaela can be a run-producer as someone who popped 15 homers and drove in 75 runs in 2024.
“He drove that ball to right-center, then he stayed on a breaking ball and drove it out of the ballpark,” Cora said. “When you see him driving fastballs to right-center that hard, good things are going to happen.”
Everyone in the Red Sox’ clubhouse knows Anthony is poised to be a star when he does ascend to the big leagues. For now, though, he’s not part of the group and players like Rafaela will still have ample chance to keep developing on the biggest stage.
“I haven’t really been listening about that,” Rafaela said of Anthony. “If he comes up, I think he will help us good here. I’m excited for him. I think we all are here.”
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