The Red Sox believe Marcelo Mayer has what it takes to be The One, but reaching the big leagues is only the first step. Actually performing requires another leap, and let us introduce Anthony Volpe as a cautionary tale.
The Yankees shortstop hit spring training like a sledgehammer and sent the hype machine spinning off its axis. He made the club at age 21 and became the team's youngest opening day starter since Derek Jeter in 1996. It turns out that comparing any shortstop to Jeter, let alone a Jersey kid like Volpe, stirs the loins of Yankees fans and media. Volpe was a massive story.
And he actually started OK, stealing a base in his debut, recording his first two hits a day later, and launching his first homer a couple of weeks before his 22nd birthday.
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But Volpe has since endured an extended slump. He ended both losses to the Red Sox this weekend, including Sunday's 3-2 finale in 10 innings, when he struck out on three pitches vs. Chris Martin with the tying run on third. He's now batting .186 with a .605 OPS, abysmal numbers that rank among the worst on the team.
It got to the point where manager Aaron Boone benched Volpe on Sunday against right-hander Brayan Bello in an attempt to overload his lineup with left-handed hitters. New York's offense without Aaron Judge is frankly trash, and so the gambit failed. If not for a seeing-eye single off the second-base bag, the Yankees might've been shut out.
Instead, they found themselves in extra innings, where Volpe stepped in with New York down to its last out. He went meekly, swinging over a slider well off the plate.
The Yankees are standing by the youngster, especially with holes all over the lineup, but his struggles should give the Red Sox pause as they celebrate Mayer's ascension to Double-A at age 20, where he's hitting only .154 through 10 games.
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"I do think (Volpe's) very much equipped to deal and handle it all in a lot of ways," manager Aaron Boone told reporters in New York. "Even in his minor league career, for all the success he had, he struggled, too, along the way. It's all part of this game, even for great players, dealing with ups and downs you inevitably face."
Part of what makes the overall Red Sox timeline so hard to ascertain is that arriving and thriving are two different beasts. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom clearly has his eyes on the future, but it requires patience. Braves fans had no idea in 1988, for instance, that they were watching the seeds of a World Series winner when young starters Tom Glavine and John Smoltz combined to go 9-24.
Closer to home, Xander Bogaerts made an immediate splash by starting World Series games in 2013 just days after his 21st birthday, but it took him three years to make his first All-Star team and six to record his first top-five MVP finish. Even the great Mike Trout hit just .220 as a 19-year-old.
Volpe began the year rated a little ahead of Mayer in most prospect rankings, generally slotting somewhere in the fifth to seventh range, with Mayer more like 10th to 12th. So just as Volpe's struggles come as no surprise, the Red Sox should prepare themselves for Mayer to make a bumpy transition, because the big leagues aren't easy.
"I look at it as, he's still productive," Boone told reporters of Volpe. "He has nine homers, a lot of big hits. He's done a lot of big things, a lot of winning things. Even if he's hitting under .200, offensively speaking, he's been in the middle of a lot of winning games. While he's taken his lumps and had his struggles, he's also had some massive success."
No matter how good they are, prospects usually struggle. Volpe is learning that lesson now, and sometime in the next year, it will probably be Mayer's turn.