How concerned should the Red Sox be about Roman Anthony’s arm?

Among all the disasters baked into the Red Sox’ cake of calamity that’s defined the early part of this season, there’s one reoccurring theme that has me shook. This level of concern should probably be reserved for things like the “give a damn about baseball” vs. “give a damn about what the private equity folks have to say” balance that runs from the top down in this organization. Or perhaps it should targeted towards the struggles of the starting rotation, which is supposed to be the strength of the team. Or maybe even the constant low IQ baseball plays we see from a seemingly new character on a daily basis.

But you know what horrifying development just won’t leave my mind after these first ten games? Roman Anthony’s anemic arm. Everything about this situation feels disquieting, and the somber reality is it has the potential to cut deep into both the present and future of the Red Sox if the issue isn’t fixable.

Simply put, Roman Anthony is the embodiment of where the Red Sox are going as a franchise. Fans already adore him, ownership hitched their wagon to the tantalizing upside and gave him an eight year extension, and he’s rapidly becoming a household name on a national level. Just last night, the Sox were giving out Roman Anthony bobbleheads, and they were gone almost two hours before first pitch.

So given who he is and what he already means to this organization, we need to take a closer look at what’s going on with Roman Anthony’s arm. To keep it bearable (because this is hard stuff to watch), we’ll look at one throw from each of the first four series of the year, starting with this one against the Reds when Cincinnati walked off game 2 of the season:

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On one hand, this was a horrible throw. But at the same time, it didn’t raise any alarm bells. It would have taken an absolute cannon to get the speedy TJ Freidl, and Anthony probably had to rush it given the do-or-die nature of the situation. It was one bad throw in one bad game that wasn’t going to define the player or the season. Move on, right?

Right?

………. RIGHT!?!

Well …..

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So this throw wasn’t nearly as bad as the weak, wobbly worm ball from the weekend, but something about it really bothered me. In the context of the game, it represented a missed opportunity to throw a guy out at the plate, and given the fact the Red Sox were on their way to losing their fourth straight, they really could have used a highlight reel play from their young superstar to change momentum. It would have been yet another version of “Wow! Roman Anthony saved Boston’s bacon again. This guy’s awesome!”

But in the grand scheme of things, it’s more than that. This throw still wasn’t even close, and it got me thinking “Roman Anthony just made two of the worst throws I’ve ever seen him make in the last four games. Something’s wrong here.” So since it’s Freak-Out season, I went to the most rationale place on Earth to share my thoughts: Twitter!

At first I thought the reason might be an injury. I spent A LOT of time watching Roman Anthony’s journey through the minors, and I could never remember him making a pair of such poor defensive plays so close together. He never struck me as a gold glover, but he was always more than adequate regardless of where you put him in the outfield. Good Ol reliable Roman!

Hell, even now he has a +8 career Defensive Runs Saved number in just 58 big league games in the outfield. That’s great stuff!

Knowing that, something clearly had to be clearly wrong. And the Red Sox took notice, too, because in each of the next four games, Anthony didn’t start in the outfield. In the series finale against the Astros, he started the day on the bench, and despite a pinch hit homer in the late innings, he never took the field. Then against the Padres, he started at DH all three days, which is extremely noteworthy because, since being called up last June, this is the first time the Sox had ever done that with Anthony. In fact, they only even started him at DH in back to back games twice last season.

But of course, starting at DH doesn’t mean finishing at DH, and Anthony ended up in left field for one frame during the crucial ninth inning after Andruw Monasterio pinch hit for Jarren Duran in the 8th. Right away, the baseball gods found his arm and inflicted more punishment:

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If Anthony’s arm issues are a mental and mechanical thing, this could not have gone any worse! The Sox tried to work him out of the role for a few days to steady the ship behind the scenes, and instead he gets shuffled into the deck for one critical inning and immediately gets a throwing error attached to his name.

To take this one step further, it doesn’t appear to be an injury thing. As Red Sox Stats pointed out on Monday, Anthony’s strongest throw of the season is right up there with Wilyer Abreu’s.

Instead, this appears to be a bug that’s crawled right inside Anthony’s head, and now, he can’t shake it. Even worse, other teams have noticed and are picking on him like a wounded animal, ready to drown the distressed star his own nightmare. All of this culminated in last night’s game against the Brewers when Anthony unleashed whatever this hideous thing was during a tied game in the eighth inning:

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This is what a complete meltdown looks like. Anthony started fielding this ball when the runner was three steps from third, and the Brewers said we don’t think you can make that throw with whatever it is you’ve got going on right now — and boy were they right! This challenge rattled Roman Anthony to his core in a way I just can’t remember him ever getting rattled since he put on a Red Sox uniform. He just completely locked up and couldn’t make a competitive thrown. His footwork fell apart, his body was pointed the wrong direction, and I’m sure his head was filled with demons.

If you’re able to take your eyes off the ball on that reply in the second shot above, you can vaguely see Anthony put his hand in front of his mouth as the ball rolls to the backstop as if to say “I can’t believe I just did that.”

So now the question is where do we go from here, and unfortunately, there are no easy answers. If it’s the yips, and that’s clearly what this looks like given the wide variety of velocity on all of his throws, we just have to hope Roman can fight through it and beat this thing. If he can’t, it severely damages what he can become as a player, instantly sabotaging the above average jumps he gets and routes he takes on fly balls. You go from Anthony’s ceiling being an above average outfield defender as a top notch bat to a really, really good DH. I don’t even want to think about that right now.

But man, sometimes these gremlins get guys. Remember how Jon Lester completely lost the ability to throw accurately to first base despite displaying pinpoint control when firing the ball 60 feet, six inches? He was at least able to battle through that, but for an outfielder, there’s really no way to deal with it besides beat it.

Worse yet, it’s something that’s incredibly difficult to prepare for. You can’t build up a routine leading up to the moment like you would for a plate appearance when you’re 0-20 or something. You just need to be ready to fix it all of the time when you can go days needed the skill none of the time. You have to wait when the ball is hit to you with an opportunity for an assist, which can be multiple times in one inning or no times in a week. It’s not easy!

And if this thing does get our golden boy, I’m going to be furious at this organization, even though there’s no way to definitely prove how the yips start. The Red Sox have anointed Roman Anthony the savior. They’ve put him at the top of the lineup, they’ve given him absolutely no help in the No. 2 spot behind him, they’ve marketed him as the guy, and they just keep stacking more and more stuff on his plate.

So I can’t help but wonder, what if this is how it’s all manifesting itself? What if Roman Anthony in working his tail off to balance his role at the plate and in the clubhouse as a 21-year-old managed to hold it all together for that, but then cracked in this manner because they want him to be Mr. Everything? Ideally, he’ll fight through it beautifully, like he has everything else up to this point, and we’ll be able to look back on this in a few years and joke about it. But at this point, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t concerned. The Red Sox need Roman Anthony to be the best version of himself, and for the first time, there’s a legitimate and obvious obstacle in his way he’s struggling to negotiate.

So how concerned should we be about Roman Anthony’s throws? I honestly don’t know, and that’s kind of the scariest thing of all.

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