The easiest path for the Boston Red Sox to promote their top prospect, Roman Anthony, give him regular playing time and perhaps jolt their lagging offense would be to move versatile center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela to the infield and use Anthony in center.
It has not happened, in part, because the Red Sox see Rafaela as one of the truly elite defenders in baseball and believe he may be on the verge of a breakout akin to what the Chicago Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong has delivered this season.
There is merit, some in the organization acknowledge, to the concept of Rafaela as a utility player extraordinaire, especially if it opens outfield playing time for Anthony, but such a move would eliminate Rafaela’s greatest strength -- his center field defense -- and could disrupt his encouraging signs of progress at the plate.
Rafaela has hit the ball better than his statistics suggest, and even if he were to remain a slightly below-average hitter, his defense and base running have him on track to be a 4 WAR player, according to FanGraphs. Only 12 outfielders (and only three center fielders) reached 4 WAR last season. Rafaela has the third-best WAR among American League center fielders, his base-running metrics are among the best in MLB and only Crow-Armstrong has slightly better defensive numbers in center.
Crow-Armstrong is a worthwhile comparison and perhaps a useful model. A year younger than Rafaela but with similar major league experience, Crow-Armstrong has a profile remarkably similar to Rafaela’s. The two are elite defenders and great base runners who swing and miss a lot but also have a knack for barreling the ball often.
Based on plate discipline and batted ball data, Eno Sarris, who writes about baseball analytics for The Athletic, found that Crow-Armstrong is indeed one of Rafaela’s strongest comps of the past five years. Houston Astros catcher Yainier Diaz is another, but so are less productive hitters such as Alex Kiriloff and Jordan Diaz.
“High-chase guys don’t age well,” Sarris said, citing Josh Hamilton, Pablo Sandoval, Javier Báez and Tim Anderson, “but they can be superexciting in their primes. I think I’d be excited about Ceddanne as an overall player, and maybe less so just as a bat.”
One clear difference between the two, however, is that Crow-Armstrong, a left-handed hitter, has pulled the ball with authority, something the Red Sox would like the right-handed Rafaela to do more often. Manager Alex Cora on Wednesday compared Rafaela’s offensive development to that of Mookie Betts, who won an MVP award in 2018 when his pull percentage soared.
“And I think Ceddanne is learning how to do that,” Cora said, speaking at Fenway Park. “We’re going to keep the conversations. I think he can take his shots to right field, especially later on when it becomes hot and the ball is going to carry that way, but most of the time here, it’s a hard place to live in right-center.”
As it is, Crow-Armstrong is an early MVP candidate while Rafaela is a potential Gold Glove winner with a 91 weighted runs created plus. That’s a below-average offensive figure, but underlying metrics show Rafaela trending heavily in the right direction at the plate.
Since his MLB debut in 2023, Rafaela has steadily cut down on his strikeouts while improving his hard-hit rate. He is slugging just .401, but Baseball Savant gives him an expected slugging percentage of .491, one of the 30 largest negative disparities between expected and actual slugging in the majors.
Despite mediocre surface-level statistics, the Red Sox are encouraged by Rafaela’s development at the plate. In the field, they see few better.
Rafaela first gained prospect attention as a lower-level player with energy and a good glove at shortstop, but he really blossomed when he started playing center field in High-A in 2021. His offense improved at the same time, and what had been a good defender in the infield became almost immediately an elite defender in the outfield.
When Rafaela became a consensus top 100 prospect in 2023, Keith Law of The Athletic wrote that he had a chance to become a 70- to 80-grade defender in center field -- the highest end of the scouting scale -- while Baseball America noted that “Rafaela’s excellent first step in center field, plus speed, fearlessness and creativity offer elite defensive potential, and he can also play a solid shortstop.” The infield ability had become an afterthought.
Rafaela has lived up to his defensive billing. By almost every Statcast measurement, he has been the best defensive center fielder in the American League this season, but it is unlikely he would maintain that value as an infielder.
Trevor Story’s injury led the Red Sox to play Rafaela semiregularly at shortstop last year, but he produced minus-7 outs above average at the position. The Red Sox believe Rafaela would improve with reps and fresh familiarity, but a move to the infield would almost certainly downgrade Rafaela’s defensive impact and potentially wipe out much of his immediate value. It would also potentially throw a wrench in his steady progress in other aspects of the game.
“I’m the type of guy that I’m not really worried about where I play,” Rafaela said. “But it’s helpful, of course, to just focus on that position and be me. I’m happy that I’m playing everyday center field. It’s helping my body, too.”
Anthony, the top prospect in baseball, has dominated Triple-A as a 21-year-old, but he has yet to make it to the major leagues. The Red Sox have promoted their top infield prospects -- Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer -- but finding at-bats for Anthony has proved more difficult.
The Red Sox have one of the best outfields in baseball with Rafaela in center, Jarren Duran in left, Wilyer Abreu in right and Rob Refsnyder crushing lefties off the bench. Nearly all designated hitter at-bats have gone to Rafael Devers, who is having the best offensive season of his career. That alignment -- with Rafaela remaining in center -- leaves little room for another outfielder, a crunch that the team’s chief baseball officer, Craig Breslow, seemed to acknowledge in a recent radio interview.
“Roman’s time is coming,” Breslow said, adding, “We want to make sure when he comes up, not only is he ready, but there’s runway for him to play.”
