UPDATE: I was right about Roman Anthony (kind of)

The rookie is quickly becoming an offensive force.

I’ll make this short and sweet, because this prediction was so obvious at the time that I’m not even all that proud of it. On June 24, I wrote that not only was Roman Anthony about to break out, but that I believed he was the best hitter on the Red Sox (though there was an Alex Bregman injury caveat applied to the latter assertion). At that time, Anthony was hitting .128/.308/.256 with 2 doubles and 1 homer through the first 13 games of his career.

Since June 24, Anthony has put up a slash line of .329/.409/.476 and cobbled together a 10-game hit streak. The breakout happened, obviously.

Has he been the best hitter on the Red Sox in that span? His .329 batting average leads the team, as does his .409 OBP, his 27 hits, his 9 doubles, and his 62.7% hard hit percentage. His wRC of 16 is second on the team, one behind Jarren Duran.

While the doubles are there and he’s hitting the ball harder than anyone else, he’s still looking for his home run stroke. He’s hit just one since June 24 and his .476 slugging percentage is only sixth on the team. Surprisingly, he’s not walking as much as I expected he would (or will for the rest of his career) as his 9.7% walk rate is only fourth on the team.

This span has also coincided with the best stretch of baseball that Ceddanne Rafaela has ever played in his life. Meanwhile, Wilyer Abreu is in the midst of a power surge (he’s hit 7 homers since June 24!), and Jarren Duran has been excellent overall: he’s walked 13 times since June 24, which is the most walks he’s ever compiled over a 22-game stretch, while also belting 4 homers and putting up a .936 OPS.

So, despite the fact that he’s leading the team in two of the three slash line categories, it’s far from definitive that Anthony has actually been the best hitter on the Red Sox since June 24. During that span he’s just fifth in OPS, wOBA, and wRC+, all of which purport to tell a wholistic story of offensive production. Moreover, we should note that his stretch of offensive success has been aided by an unsustainably high BABIP, and Anthony is still learning to make more contact overall.

But I’m undeterred. Anthony’s plate appearances continue to be the most professional, competitive plate appearances on the team. When it comes to laying off bad pitches, he’s easily the best hitter on the Red Sox, having swung at just 20.2% of pitches outside the strike zone since June 24. It’s very rare to combine a batting eye like that with the hard contact that Antony has. Or, as Mike Monaco recently put it:

So maybe we can’t yet say definitively that Anthony is the best hitter on the team. But he’s getting there. Talk to me again at the end of the season. Or hell, let’s talk again at the end of this month. That’s how quickly Roman Anthony is turning into an offensive force right before our eyes.