Kristian

Campbell

Campbell took former big-league southpaw Manny Bañuelos deep to straightaway center field in the opening frame. The 22-year-old top prospect will open the regular season as Boston’s starting second baseman and offers immediate fantasy appeal as a stolen base source. There’s five-category impact potential here, but we’re not expecting Campbell to reach his lofty ceiling right out of the gate, especially as he adjusts to life in the big leagues.

MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo also confirmed that Campbell has made Boston’s season-opening roster as their starting second baseman. That’s certainly the direction that this position battle was trending for the past few days now, but it’s nice to hear official confirmation. The Red Sox will still need to make an official roster move, and clear a spot on their 40-man roster, but the 22-year-old phenom looks like he should be the starting second baseman when the Red Sox kick off their 2025 season on Thursday. He could wind up being an impact contributor immediately from a fantasy perspective given his stolen base upside. He showed some immense promise at the dish last year in the upper minors, but we’re anticipating some initial turbulence as he acclimates to facing big-league arms for the first time.

Campbell also walked once in his five plate appearances. This elevates his spring line to .174/.304/.283 in 56 plate appearances. David Hamilton has been far better than that, but it looks like Campbell will probably be Boston’s second baseman anyway. The Red Sox seemingly envisioned it that way all along.

Boston’s second base competition is down to Campbell, fellow top prospect Marcelo Mayer, and utility infielder David Hamilton. Campbell remains the odds-on favorite given his offensive upside, but the Red Sox are probably going to take this decision down to the wire prior to next Thursday’s season opener. If he makes the Opening Day roster, Campbell projects as an immediate impact fantasy contributor, thanks to his stolen base upside, even if he gets off to a frosty start at the dish. The 22-year-old is universally-regarded as one of the top prospects in the entire fantasy landscape after last year’s sublime performance in the upper minors.

The move comes as zero surprise since Grissom has batted .176 (6-for-34) with zero homers this spring in 13 Grapefruit League contests. He’s been surpassed by top prospects Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer in Boston’s second base competition and the Red Sox clearly prefer speedster David Hamilton to him in a versatile utility role.

This is notable because the entire rest of the lineup is filled with regular Red Sox starters. The indication had been that Kristian Campbell was the favorite to win the second base job, and this is Mayer’s first start at second base this spring, so perhaps this is much ado about nothing. However, Mayer has also gone 10-for-28 (.357) this spring with one home run and nine RBI, so it wouldn’t be shocking for the Red Sox to be considering whether he is the member of the Big Three prospects who could start the season on the Opening Day roster. “The baseball player is real,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “He’s not just a prospect. He’s a baseball player.”

Campbell surely hasn’t seen many pickoff moves like Max Fried’s during his time in the minors. He did hit the ball hard twice today, but his spring line dipped to .158/.289/.211. He’ll be a better bet to make the Red Sox if Romy Gonzalez winds up on the IL. He’s definitely being outplayed by David Hamilton at the moment, though.

Cora added that Campbell, who went 1-for-3 with a double and also made a handful of strong defensive plays at the keystone on Tuesday against the Orioles, will start at second base again on Tuesday against the Rays. The 22-year-old top prospect’s speed potential will make him an immediate impact fantasy contributor, even as he acclimates to everyday life in the majors. His spot on Boston’s season-opening roster would push David Hamilton to a utility role and send Vaughn Grissom back to Triple-A Worcester. It’s a developing situation fantasy managers should closely monitor over the next week in the lead up to Opening Day.

Specifically, Devers said he would be “OK” if he was starting at designated hitter on Opening Day. There had been some hand-wringing about Devers not wanting to move off of third base with Alex Bregman in town, but it was always expected that Devers would do what the team wanted him to do. We should expect to see Devers at DH a lot this season, which should also help his throwing shoulder to stay healthy, while Bregman mans third base and leaves second base for David Hamilton, Vaughn Grissom, and Kristian Campbell. In other news, Devers hit a mammoth home run off of Walker Buehler in live batting practice Thursday as well.

Campbell is 1-for-17 with nine strikeouts through eight games, dimming his chances of opening up as Boston’s second baseman. The Red Sox are still being tight-lipped on the Alex Bregman-Rafael Devers situation, but with Bregman yet to play second base in a game, it would seem to be becoming more likely that the Red Sox open up with a David Hamilton-Romy Gonzalez platoon at second. Vaughn Grissom remains in the mix as well.