Kristian Campbell named to Red Sox Opening Day roster
Kristian Campbell was one of Minor League Baseball’s top prospect risers in the 2024 season, and his hard work payed off as it was announced on Sunday afternoon that he would make Boston’s 26-man Opening Day roster. Campbell is ranked as the seventh overall top prospect both here on Baseball Focus and MLB Pipeline while he comes in ranked fourth overall on Baseball America.
Kristian Campbell’s quick ascension through the minors
Campbell was a fourth round pick out of Georgia Tech in the 2023 MLB Draft. Upon entering Boston’s farm system, Campbell has done nothing but outperform his fourth round expectations, and has played like a first overall draft pick. In his 84 plate appearances across the Complex League and High-A Greenville, Campbell posted a 152 wRC+. He managed to get even better in 2024 as he advanced as high as Triple-A Worcester and logged a Minor League best 180 wRC+ (minimum 400 plate appearances). His performance at the plate earned him Minor League Hitter of the Year and Minor League Breakout Player of the Year honors.
It didn’t come as a surprise that Campbell had been given a non-roster invite to Red Sox big league camp, but there was immediate speculation on whether or not he would break camp with the team. His numbers at Spring Training haven’t been great, but the Red Sox believe he has gotten enough experience under his belt to earn a spot on the 26-man. After all, the Red Sox are pretty weak at second base with the options being Romy Gonzalez, David Hamilton, and Vaughn Grissom outside of Campbell. There wasn’t much of a reason not to give Campbell the shot at second. If his bat takes a while to come around, Campbell will still provide defensively from day one. He has split time between second and shortstop throughout his Minor League career thus far with some time out in center field as well. The versatility of course helps his profile and should give him a better shot at sticking around if his bat is struggling.
Given the expectation is that Campbell will be the everyday second baseman, it’s hard to leave him out of any American League Rookie of the Year predictions. In my first rookie power ranking of the year prior to Spring Training, I ranked him third only behind Roki Sasaki and Dylan Crews. With that being said, he came into spring as my top ranked American League Rookie, and I don’t see anyone surpassing him on the next edition of my power rankings (set to come out on Wednesday).
Fangraphs’ has Campbell projected to make 399 plate appearances in 2024 with 11 home runs 10 stolen bases, and a .266/.348/.428 slash line - good for a .776 OPS and 117 wRC+. Here is his ZIPS three year projections:
Via Fangraphs.com
