Boston Red Sox
As Boston Red Sox pin hopes on Triston Casas, a full season from Roman Anthony could define 2026 — and determine whether Boston’s promise turns into power.
Boston, MA- 9/2/25- Boston Red Sox right fielder Roman Anthony (19) at bat during the fourth inning at Fenway Park on Sept. 2, 2025. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
February 23, 2026 | 8:29 AM
4 minutes to read
Playing nine innings while wondering if the Red Sox will ever get anything out of Triston Casas …
1. I’m sure there’s a caché of specific memories that would be stirred by watching a 2025 Red Sox highlight reel. But off the top of my head and without any attempts at memory-jogging, I can say that two of the three most enjoyable memories from last season involve Roman Anthony:
His laser-rocket of a home run off Pirates ace Paul Skenes in late August is one; mortals aren’t supposed to do that to a Skenes fastball, and Anthony made it look like a breeze.
His two-run home run in the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium — giving the Sox a 6-3 lead – approximately a week before — is another. It was amusing to watch Yankees fans’ realization that the next Red Sox homegrown superstar had just introduced himself.
(The third one that comes right to mind? Cedanne Rafaela’s walkoff home run at Fenway against the Rays in July. Anthony was standing on first base on that one, so I suppose he was at least a little involved.)
Roman Anthony rounds third after homering off the Pirates’ Paul Skenes on Aug. 29, 2025. – Barry Chin/Globe Staff
2. I bring those memories up in advance of saying this: There’s nothing with the Red Sox — heck, there’s nothing in baseball — that I’m looking more forward to this season than seeing what Anthony has in store in his first full big-league season.
It was a total bummer last season when an oblique injury suffered Sept. 2 abbreviated his season. His arrival, rather than Rafael Devers’s departure, was the spark that turned the Red Sox into a force to be reckoned with through the summer (they went 34-18 in July-August).
Now he’s healthy, stronger, and held in such high regard that he was added to Team USA’s World Baseball Classic roster as Corbin Carroll’s injury replacement, it is plausible — and perhaps even likely — that he’s one of the best offensive players in the game this season.
He doesn’t even have to make the proverbial “leap,” but just progress naturally from what he was shortly after arrival last year.
3. The news that Fangraphs’ Zips projections determined that the Red Sox would not have a 20-home run hitter this season proved perfect sports radio fodder: It offered hosts another chance to dump on the Sox for failing to add a power bat, while also having no clue about how the projections actually work.
So here’s the layman’s explanation: Zips runs thousands of simulations using multiple seasons’ worth of data to come up with projections for each player. The number we see is a median projection from those thousands. It’s the midpoint of what they might do. That doesn’t mean that, say, Wilyer Abreu won’t hit 25 home runs just because his median projection says he’ll hit 18. Some players will have better seasons than that median projection, and others will have worse.
In other words: the Sox will almost certainly have a 20-home run hitter, and probably multiple 20-home run hitters.
Completely untrustworthy Finn projection: They’ll have four.
4. I like this Red Sox team, believe they have a chance to be very good, and completely agree that it’s frustrating that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow didn’t do more to improve them in the offseason. None of that is a contradiction.
The Red Sox should play a much crisper, run-prevention-focused style, with arguably the best starting rotation in the American League and a much-improved infield defense.
But failing to secure a genuine, top-notch, middle-of-the-order hitter leaves them a bit short of what they could be offensively. Hopefully its something that is addressed in-season.
Is new Sox infielder Caleb Durbin a new fan favorite in the making? Sure seems like it. – Barry Chin/Globe Staff
5. If Caleb Durbin can repeat the performance from his strong rookie season with the Brewers, he will be a fan favorite at Fenway. He’s an above-average defender at third base, puts the ball in play, and likes to pull the ball, which should make him copacetic with his new home park.
I do wonder, though: What do the Brewers see in Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan, the two pitchers acquired in the deal that sent Durbin to the Sox? As Quinn Priester can tell you, they have a knack for getting the most out of their pitchers.
6. Skeptic’s Corner, Item 1: There’s no way that Trevor Story plays anywhere near 157 games again, right? He played 163 games over the previous three seasons combined, and turned 33 in November. He also seemed to wear down, at least defensively, late last season.
7. Skeptic’s Corner, Item 2: There needs to be some evidence soon that Kristian Campbell is going to adjust to pitchers’ multiple ways of consistently getting him out following his fast start last season. His swing is so unorthodox that I fear he’s not going to be able to make the permanent adjustments necessary to live up to his vast promise.
8. At the moment, Tony Clark is known as the recently resigned executive director of the MLB Players’ Association. To me, he’ll always be the inept hitter (.207, 3 home runs in 298 plate appearances in 2002) that Grady Little kept running out there for far too long as the top-heavy Red Sox ultimately missed the playoffs.
9. We’ll sign off with a random baseball-reference.com discovery that may interest only me: Fred Lynn and Reggie Smith are each other’s most similar player statistically in baseball history. Feels fitting. Lynn and Smith are two not-quite-Hall-of-Famers who were crucial parts of beloved Red Sox teams, and both got more grief here than they deserved. Also fitting: Ellis Burks is pretty close stat-wise to both of them.
Chad Finn
Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.
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