Is Roman Anthony Ready For The Majors? Here’s What The Statcast Data Says

Image credit: Roman Anthony (Photo courtesy of Ashley Green/Worcester Red Sox)

With every passing day and crack of the bat reverberating through Polar Park, the calls for the Red Sox to free Roman Anthony only grow louder.

Baseball’s top prospect has reached base in 24 consecutive games for Triple-A Worcester and owns a .995 OPS this month. That includes two homers in his last four games. And his success comes while Boston’s big league club is mired in a season-high five-game losing streak as it dropped to 27-31 and fourth place in the AL East while its offense sputters.

Naturally, calls for Craig Breslow to call up Anthony to the majors have reached a crescendo, even if Breslow told the Boston Globe this week the team still believes Anthony has things he can improve in Triple-A. But is he ready for the majors? Let’s dig deep.

All data in this article are through May 28th. Eli Ben-Porat publishes a weekly Statcast Standouts column exclusively for Baseball America subscribers. Sign up today for more insights like this.

Roman Anthony’s Statcast Metrics

Hitting a fastball is critical for any prospect. Anthony’s 95.8% zone contact against four-seamers is easily elite. He’s also chasing pitches at an absurdly low rate of 19.7%, more than 10% lower than a typical major leaguer. Anthony is extremely selective about which pitches he attacks. When he does choose to swing, he hits the ball as hard as nearly anyone in baseball, at any level. His Statcast metrics fully support his .318/.450/.466 slash line, perhaps even suggesting that he has more in the tank.

The only nitpick on this would be him being perhaps a little too passive on in-zone fastballs, as well as substandard contact rates when he chases, though that’s much improved from early in the season. He also doesn’t lift the ball as much as you’d want for a guy who hits the ball this hard.

With most lefthanded prospects, the question becomes how they fare against lefthanded pitchers. Let’s take a look at what Anthony looks like when he has the platoon disadvantage:

Anthony chases even less against lefties and makes even more contact, in and out of the zone. He does sacrifice some of his other-worldly exit velocities to accomplish this. However, overall, his metrics against against lefties look better than they do against righties, especially the average launch angles. That lends tremendous confidence toward projecting Anthony as an everyday player that won’t need to be taken out of the lineup when a lefty is on the mound.

These metrics are but the tip of the iceberg. Let’s go even deeper, doing a deep dive on how Anthony fares against various pitch types. Let’s begin with fastballs:

Anthony vs Four-seam Fastballs

On the left we see the pitches that Anthony swings at, while on the right, we see the pitches that he takes. It’s easy to see how selective he is, with very few swings at pitches in the bottom third of the zone, or lower. We also see that the majority of his whiffs come when he attacks pitches above the zone, where he isn’t quite as selective.

If we dig deeper, we see that he’s not selective to a fault, only letting one pitch taken for a strikeout. He also demonstrates the requisite strike-zone judgment to lay off pitches just out of the zone, even with two strikes. This is an intentional approach from Anthony, swinging at just 18% of first-pitch fastballs, but offering at 54% of fastballs in two strike counts. This approach works extremely well when you can run a zone-contact rate north of 90% against fastballs.

This brings us to our final chart for four-seam fastballs:

Large gold bubbles indicate hard contact in the air, with the numbers indicating the exit velocity of balls that were hit for home runs. We see three total whiffs for strikeouts in the zone, and many more barrelled baseballs in the same area. Anthony’s only hole is above the zone, where he struggles to do damage, however, he’s dangerous everywhere in the zone and will only chase one in five pitches out of the zone.

There is no question that Anthony can handle a Triple-A quality fastball. He makes excellent decisions, rarely whiffs, and makes thunderous contact quality.

Anthony vs Sinkers

Anthony is perhaps too passive against sinkers, offering at only 25% of the sinkers he sees overall, including just 31% when he has two strikes. We see this reflected in the four strikeouts he took from called strikes against sinkers.

However, when he does choose to swing, he has no issues making great contact, and rarely missing. This is likely a decision to hunt the four-seam, which is easier to lift and do damage against.

Anthony vs Breaking Balls

Here we begin to see an area where Anthony has room for improvement. While he still rarely chases, he struggles to make contact when he does. More importantly, he isn’t as dangerous against breaking balls in the zone:

We see a cluster of well-struck balls middle-in, with weak contact elsewhere, as well as some bad chases for whiffs and strikeouts. Given how dangerous he is against fastballs, major league pitchers might look to challenge Anthony with breaking balls in the zone, on the outer third. It stands to reason that the Red Sox might be looking for Anthony to be more dangerous against curveballs and sweepers. His 91.7 mph average exit velocity against these pitches, while still easily plus, is significantly lower than his average against all other pitch types. Further, his -1 degree average launch angle is also the lowest as compared to all other pitch types.

Lest we leave you with the impression that breaking balls are a weak point for Anthony, it behooves us to point out that he makes impeccable take decisions, especially with two strikes. We see many two-strike pitches taken just below the zone, many for walks. While he may not yet be a damage king against breaking balls, he still makes excellent decisions.

Anthony vs Sliders

Anthony is seeing a lot of sliders this season, almost 21% overall, and over 24% against lefties. As with all pitch types, we see very few chase swings. However, we do see some swing and miss, where he’s missing sliders slightly more than the average major leaguer, both in the zone and out. However, because he almost never chases (an elite 16.8% chase rate), his overall contact rate against sliders is actually above-average.

It’s important to stress that the above whiff metric concerns should not be overblown. In essence, we’re slicing Anthony’s data into rather small pieces. His damage profile against sliders is quite promising, despite the surface level results. He’s making plenty of hard contact, in the air, all over the zone. His swing and miss is mostly on chase pitches, or pitches down in the zone. He won’t miss many hanging sliders in the middle of the zone. Anthony averages 10.1 degrees of launch angle on sliders, his highest mark against any pitch type, as well as a superb 95 mph average exit velocity. He can mash a slider, there’s no question about that.

Looking at these charts suggests Anthony is well prepared to hit sliders. He once again demonstrates impeccable swing decisions, with more than enough hard contact to offset the roughly-average whiff profile against the pitch.

Anthony vs Offspeed Pitches

We see a far more aggressive version of Anthony against offspeed pitches, where he’s attacking changeups and splitters more often than four-seam fastballs. This may indicate that he’s seeing the pitch as a fastball sometimes, though we wouldn’t recommend reading too much into the data. While his zone-chase rate is elite against offspeed pitches, he does appear to have a hole down and away.

This is perhaps a much clearer picture. We see that the whiffs are all clustered down and away, precisely where a right-handed pitcher will want to locate his changeup. If we merely look at results, specifically Anthony’s .353 slugging on pitches in the zone, we may be tempted to classify him as unable to do damage against changeups. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Anthony’s average exit velocity of 95.4 MPH against offspeed pitches is his best mark against non-fastballs, and well above the major league average, regardless of pitch type. The results haven’t been there, but he’s making a ton of high-quality contact.

Is Roman Anthony Ready For The Majors?

That’s a lot of words and charts dissecting Anthony’s game. Is he ready to tackle major league pitching? First, let’s summarize what we’ve analyzed:

• Anthony, a lefty, is perhaps more dangerous against lefties
• Anthony already possess elite raw power
• Anthony is elite at handling Triple-A fastballs by every lens (power, patience, eye, bat-to-ball, approach). He appears passive, but not when it matters (i.e. two-strike counts).
• There is perhaps some room for improvement against breaking balls. He posts his lowest launch angles and exit velocities against these pitches, limiting his damage output.
• We see some swing and miss against sliders, but his damage quality is sublime, with his best launch angles, and a 95 mph average exit velocity.
• We also see some whiffs against changeups down and away. However, he makes a lot of hard contact when pitchers don’t locate perfectly. His elevated aggression may indicate that he sometimes gets fooled on the pitch. As with all pitch types, he rarely chases. Not mentioned above, but he crushes same-handed offspeed pitches (tiny sample of 20 pitches).

This paints a picture of an extremely mature hitter with an advanced approach. Anthony has a clear plan and executes it like a seasoned professional. While he might struggle a tad against major league quality non-fastballs, he’s still dangerous against all pitch types in the zone. His approach will force pitchers to attack him with a fastball, where he might be one of the most dangerous hitters in all of baseball.

Anthony appears quite ready for major league action, with very few exploitable holes in his game. There are very few prospects that come along with this blend of elite approach, swing decisions and damage on contact. We’d love to see him elevate the ball more often, but even if he’s exactly this version, that’s still an exceptional player.