4:23pm: MLB has now officially announced the move, with Mead replacing Anthony.
4:15pm: It will be Mead replacing Anthony, per Jorge Castillo of ESPN.
3:34pm: The Red Sox are going to remove outfielder Roman Anthony from their roster due to his hand injury. He has multiple new strains in his hand and a re-aggravation of the injury he dealt with earlier this year. Curtis Mead and Anthony Seigler are candidates to replace him. The league has not yet approved the transaction. By rule, a player removed from a playoff roster during a series has to miss the subsequent series as well, so Anthony won’t be eligible for the ALDS if the Sox advance. Rob Bradford of WEEI, Chris Cotillo of MassLive, and Ian Browne of MLB.com were among those to relay the details.
The hand injury has really soured Anthony’s sophomore season. He debuted last year and put up an excellent .292/.396/.463 line in his first 71 big league games. Along the way, the Red Sox signed him to a $130MM extension. Ideally, he would have been even better in his second big league campaign but that hasn’t come to pass. His wrist/hand issues put him on the IL for almost four months of the regular season. He was only able to play in 55 regular season games and hit .245/.339/.396 in those.
The official diagnosis for his IL placement in May was a right wrist sprain but Anthony said it was actually a torn ligament in his right ring finger. It was initially thought to be a fairly minor issue but it lingered for most of the season. He was back on the field in September and made the Wild Card roster but departed last night’s game with more soreness. It now appears he might be in a worse spot than he was in May.
“He was sent back last night after leaving the game,” manager Chad Tracy said today, per Cotillo. “We sent him back to Boston for extra, additional imaging which actually revealed some new strains to different muscles in his wrist in addition to exasperating the old injuries. It’s not great.”
For now, the Sox will be focused on staying alive. They lost last night’s game and are now on the brink of elimination. Anthony was the designated hitter last night and the Sox had an outfield of Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Jarren Duran. With lefty Max Fried on the hill for the Yankees, Nate Eaton has subbed in for Duran to start tonight’s contest. Jahmai Jones is in the DH spot. Mead or Seigler will be added to the bench once the transaction is formally approved.
Perhaps Anthony can be a factor for the ALCS and the World Series if the Sox survive but the injury sounds fairly ominous. Since his previous absence was for several months and this one seems worse, it would be a surprise if he were healthy enough to play in a few weeks, though the Sox haven’t explicitly ruled him out for the season yet.
At some point, whether it’s due to Anthony being shut down for the year or the club’s season ending, the focus will shift to the future. The Sox and Anthony will have to figure out how to get his hand back to normal, whether that involves surgery or some other path forward.
Photo courtesy of Eric Canha, Imagn Images