Is Rob Refsnyder a Better Option than Roman Anthony?

Who but Wilyer Abreu in right field?

Wearing that ‘B’ on your hat must be the epitome of “mama, I made it”

First, let’s look at the storyline(s) behind the call-up for, and I say this without hyperbole, Boston’s most anticipated minor leaguer since Ban Johnson’s reign.

Rob Refsnyder, according to Baseball Reference, has accumulated a Hall of Fame score of 6. The average Hall of Famer scores around 5…a 5 with a 0 after it, that is. 50. Refsnyder has 6. Anthony has 0. That means Refsnyder has an infinitely better chance of making the Hall of Fame than Anthony if both of their careers ended today.

That’s mostly a joke for this post, but bWAR is something else we can look at on Baseball Reference. As a MLB ballplayer, Refsnhyder has posted a positive bWAR (that is, he is markedly better than the average ‘replacement’ MLB-er) every season as a Red Sox (or Sock. I’ve been a fan for a quarter of a century and I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the singular Red Sox. It’s the same as me not knowing what to call us from Massachusetts besides Massholes. Massachusites? Massachusettsans? Minutemen? Who knows?).

And as I was typing that paragraph, Roman Anthony allowed a ball to roll between his legs in right field that led to a triple for the Rays. Would you call that better than replacement? Would Wilyer Abreu do that - even having been as thick as he used to be? I’ll let you come to your own answer to those questions, but I know my answers. And, by the way, Roman Anthony? His bWAR in MLB is zero (0). That means he has yet to help a ball club win (being wins above replacement). Refsnyder has scored anywhere from 0.4-1.2 while in Boston (circumventing the plurality/singularity problem from above).

“But John! But John! You’re not being fair! Rob Refsnyder is thirty-four and Roman Anthony is only twenty-one! Refsnyder joined MLB when Anthony was eleven! Refsnyder is entering the prime of his life in terms of age while Roman Anthony has so, so much to learn; you cannot be using cumulative statistics to showcase how a seasoned vet beats a rookie!”

I see you and I hear you. But, let me say this in response: I show the cumulative stats to show Refsnyder’s caliber, not necessarily to compare with Anthony, though I did compare every stat to Anthony. I wanted to first show that Rob Refsnyder (who has 12 RBI with 4 HR this season in only 27 G and 80 PA) is a serviceable replacement for Wilyer Abreu.

Here’s a short little nugget before we get into percentages: Rob Refsnyder rakes on lefties. He rakes. He destroys Yankee pitching and he pumps them against lefties - that’s the Rob Refsnyder scouting report. Meanwhile, what is Roman Anthony? A lefty!

For whatever reason (again, a quarter of a century and haven’t figured this out), lefty batters have an impossible time against lefty pitching. So, the right-handed Refsnyder already has and advantage without his now known elite prowess against southpaws. It doesn’t work the same with righties: a righty batter can face a righty or a lefty; there are no “righty specialists” in the bullpen like lefty specialists. And now let me ask: how does Wilyer Abreu bat? How about this: lefty. Putting Anthony in doesn’t give the advantage against left-handed pitching the way Refsnyder does being on the opposite side of the plate of Anthony and Abreu.

At the time of this writing (8:41 pm on June 9th), Anthony, to compare the stats with Refsnyder, has 0 RBI on 0 HR in 1 G and 2 PA.

Well, let’s get to the “fair” comparisons as some of you actuaries and accountants may be so numerically in-tune to point out. For this, we want to know “what can you do for me today?” with Abreu now on the 10-day IL as of today. I don’t care what Refsnyder did in his best season or how Anthony played at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (yes, that high school in Parkland).

This season here are their splits:
Refsnyder: .284/.375/.522/.897 (again, 80 PA in 27 G).
Anthony: .288/.423/.491/.913 (265 PA in 58 G).

Not too shabby, boys! Both of you have serious contention to even beat out Rafaela for center. Neither of you should play center and Duran would take over in Rafaela’s stead, but it’s nice to talk these things out out loud.

Now, let’s get into advanced stats, beyond just AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS

I’ll start by naming lots of things about Refsnyder this season: his average exit velocity is 92.4 mph, with a .381 wOBA (weighted On-Base Average), a .357 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play), an wRC+ of 143 (weighted Runs Created [where 100 is league average; so 153 is 53% better than average]), and a 148 OPS+. (8:55 pm on June 9th; Roman Anthony just struck out looking). And Refsnyder is doing all of this for $2 million this season.

In those same stats, I’ll tell you if Roman Anthony is better or worse. And I think these are all stats that we can agree tell a collective story of a batter. These stats show how well a player finds gaps with their hitting with how that adds wins to the season and runs to games with an encompassing stat of how power and on-base percentage intertwine with a batter. Now, some of y’all didn’t like the cumulative MLB stats and may be thinking that I’m dicking on the twenty-one year old who got a $2.5 million signing bonus when he was drafted.

So, here’s how Anthony stacks up against Refsnyder:
Avg EV.: 97.1 mph (better than Refsnyder; but was taken from a Reddit post made over a week ago, so this could be slightly different. If you find so, let me know and I’ll fix it)
wOBA: .413 (better than Refsnyder)
BABIP: .345 (worse than Refsnyder)
wRC+: 146 (better than Refsnyder)
OPS+: unknown/est. to be 140 by my loose calculations ([OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG - 1] x 100) ((if true, then worse than Refsnyder))

Ok, that was much messier (like Mark. Wait, that’s hockey) than I was intending it to be. But, it goes to show you that Rob Refsnyder is not so far removed from this second Christ-like figure in Roman Anthony (the first Christ-like figure, who was killed by Romans, would have been Christ).

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But, if we can get away from the satire for a paragraph - this is both how easily deceived one can be by baseball/sample sizes/stats and this does not reflect the real expectations of Roman Anthony; who is better than Rob Refsnyder at baseball. Anthony is the most hyped prospect in baseball and has been for a while. While Roki Sasaki was in the Dodgers’ farm system for a cup of coffee and formalities, Anthony was dropped to the #2 prospect in baseball behind Sasaki - and nobody even knows this happened: everyone thinks Anthony has been number one since last year.Now, being a prospect does not guarantee results. Lord do we know that with names like Henry Owens and Lars Anderson. I am very, very excited to watch Anthony especially with this new core of him, Marcelo Mayer, and Kristian Campbell reach Boston (and Kyle Teel reaches Chicago; who amongst us would have guessed 365 days ago that Roman Anthony would be the last of those four to be called up).

Roman Anthony will have bumps and maybe even some bruises (like the one I’m sure he gave Shane Baz as he hit Baz with a 111 mph comebacker). He’s going to strike out and let balls through his legs. He’s twenty-one. He’s in the major leagues. It’s going to be okay. Red Sox nation, these are the good ol’ days we’ve been promised. Let’s start to enjoy them. Go Sox, ked.

This may or may not be my new wallpaper (replacing the Jarren Duran one)

If you’re calling Felger and Mazz tomorrow with your “take,” have a coffee to make sure you can wake up early enough to beat Steve in Weymouth and Jim in Lowell to the phone lines.

If you think I’m serious,,,please.