In Limbo: A Post-Prospect Look at Kristian Campbell
We’re putting a bow on Prospect Week with a post-hype look at one of last season’s top farmhands, Kristian Campbell. This time last year, Campbell was the biggest riser on prospect lists across the industry, a consensus top 10 player who had gone from relative obscurity to the cusp of the big leagues in just a year. Now, as we head into the spring’s first contests, he’s fallen out of the lineup and is likely to begin the 2026 season in Triple-A. His career path serves as a good reminder that growth isn’t linear, and that a player’s development path doesn’t conclude when he reaches the majors or exhausts his status as a rookie.
After playing just one season of college baseball, Boston selected Campbell in the fourth round of the 2023 draft as a toolsy player with contact skill but also a quirky, choppy swing. He put on 15-20 pounds of muscle that offseason, which helped spark an offensive explosion. His power shot from average to plus overnight, and he started lifting the ball more, both of which he managed without ballooning his whiff rates out of proportion. He posted a 178 wRC+ across three levels that season, with 20 homers and a sub-20% strikeout rate. Though little about his operation in the box looked conventional, plenty of evaluators — including, critically, the Red Sox brass — fully bought in. The Red Sox put Campbell on the Opening Day roster and then inked him to an eight-year, $60 million extension less than a week into the season.
Initially, all went well. Campbell won AL Rookie of the Month honors in April after hitting .301/.407/.495 with four homers. His strikeout rate crept north of 25%, which wasn’t itself alarming, as it came with power and a 15% walk rate; it’s perfectly normal for rookies to swing and miss a bunch as they adjust to the league anyway. Defensively, Campbell was primarily playing second base while also filling in left and center. He didn’t look great at the keystone, and the jury was still out on his long-term defensive home, but if nothing else, his versatility was itself a boost for the ballclub.
On April 30, Campbell went 0-4 in a game against the Blue Jays, and then missed the next three games with rib discomfort. We can’t know to what extent that injury bothered him. Campbell, for his part, said it wasn’t an issue by late May: “No. That’s all clear. There was just a little side discomfort, but it’s all good.” Regardless, it was a turning point in his season:
| BA | OBP | Slugging | K% | BB% | ISO | wRC+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March-April | .301 | .407 | .495 | 26% | 15.4% | .194 | 150 |
| May-June | .159 | .243 | .222 | 28.5% | 7.1% | .063 | 30 |
By mid-June, the Red Sox had seen enough and sent Campbell to Triple-A for the remainder of the season. Critically, his dip in production coincided with a sudden and complete inability to pull the ball.
April:
May:
Campbell wasn’t mauling good velo over the Green Monster even in April, but he did hit some heaters hard to the left of second base and had no trouble driving spin out to left. He got back to that in Triple-A, though somewhat troublingly all of his pull-side damage came on hanging breaking balls. As Campbell gutted through an unspectacular summer in Worcester — 118 wRC+, 26.7% strikeout rate — the Red Sox lineup hummed without him. A mix of players capably filled in at second, Romy Gonzalez most notably among them, while Boston had more good outfielders than room to play them. All over the headlines in March and April, Campbell ended the 2025 campaign a forgotten man.
Even at his peak, Campbell was a somewhat divisive player. While some scouts were willing to overlook his unorthodox swing, others were apprehensive about his mechanics. He had a double toe tap and then a big front hip leak that worked in part because he has huge hip-shoulder separation and was able to keep from flying open even as his lower half crept toward third base. The upper half was also concerning for some evaluators, as Campbell’s violent and rotational hack came with a lot of head movement and often left him off balance. Plus bat speed and good hand-eye coordination helped, but not everybody loved what they saw.
Having literally bought the breakout, it’s fair to wonder if Boston is now taking the collapse at face value as well. There are signs, if you want to look at it that way. The Red Sox sent Campbell to winter ball this offseason, hoping that quieter movements in the box will again let him get to his power. Between those adjustments, the trade for Caleb Durbin, and unsettled defensive plans that initially seemed to focus on the outfield but then made room for him to take groundballs once back in camp (all of this just a few months removed from when he started working in at first base), you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s not in the club’s immediate plans. Fair enough, given last season’s production and this season’s lineup.
But all of the tinkering raises more questions than it answers. Were Campbell’s struggles last May and June really the inevitable result of an unconventional swing? Is it possible that the league’s adjustments to the young upstart, possibly combined with a nagging rib issue, did a number on a rookie already shouldering a difficult defensive load after very little collegiate and minor-league seasoning? You can make arguments for, against, or in between on those questions; the guy is in limbo, after all.
Last year, just after Campbell’s demotion, Eric wrote, “I, like most everyone, entered 2025 convinced that this weirdo swing would work for Campbell even though it’s unconventional. Though he was demoted shortly before [list] publication, I still think it will… two years ago, this guy was playing in his lone college baseball season and now he’s facing the best pitchers in the world. He deserves time to adjust and hopefully get stronger so it doesn’t take his entire body winding up for him to swing hard.”
I’ll sign on to that idea, and the comment about increased strength in particular. It’s a long season, and all the moving parts in Campbell’s swing mean that a minor disruption to one area of the body might just throw off the whole operation; having the strength to withstand the rigors of the schedule is important for everyone, but perhaps him especially. And let’s not lose sight of the talent here. However unusual, Campbell’s bat speed, short swing, and good approach were, for a time, effective. The history of this sport is full of guys who went the other way with fastballs and tugged breaking balls, and for a month it looked like Campbell had found a way to follow those footsteps. I still think he can; whether or not he will is for us to find out.
Brendan covers prospects and the minor leagues for FanGraphs. Previously he worked as a Pro Scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Why is the post-hype article always shelved?
Seconded. I was really looking forward to it.
Post-hype guys and recent grads are really the forgotten demographic on FanGraphs generally. There are a ton of really good reasons for that, but it’s a niche I find really interesting because it opens the door to a couple other topics (advance scouting and player dev in the majors) that generally don’t get much coverage either. But since they usually involve guys who are tweeners, those types of articles seem like they’re the easiest to squeeze out when push comes to shove
I assume that after pushing to get everything, Eric is just toast. I don’t think that anyone else works himself as hard as he does. When you compare the depth that he goes into on each system to what you get from other sites, it’s astonishing. I’d love the post-hype article, but there was a lot of great content over the last week and change, so I’m okay with it.
Agreed. Look at how much info/data is in the Top 100 article.
Probably just the easiest thing to drop when they get to the end after dropping 6-7 articles in 5 days.
I wonder if it would be better to push that til the end of spring training? Gives Eric/Ben a break & gives us a chance to see how the players have changed/adjusted in that offseason after struggling in their rookie year & what the new season portends.
He’s on TV right now. NESN says:
Stance different
Put on 20 lbs
Outfielder only, now (CF today, but LF going forward)
Late on two slow FBs today (92 mph)
If Romy can’t be the RH bench bat, maybe it will be Campbell, though if it’s Campbell you wonder if Yoshida will be traded. My guess is Campbell returns to the minors unless he absolutely blows up spring training and does well on defense.
I watched today’s game and anyone who saw his complete inability to catch up to heat last year couldn’t help but notice that he was unable to pull fastballs from college pitchers. The bat head always lags and never gets out in front of his hands. After the first month he, quite honestly, played some of the worst baseball I have seen in the major leagues in over 75 years. I am not exaggerating that his defense at 2nd would have looked bad at the high school level and he wasn’t much less bad at the plate. I hope I am wrong but put me down as doubting if he will be a contributor at the major league level.
I called it in the Top 100 Prospects article a year ago:
&
Good analysis, jdbolick. What are your thoughts on Joshua Baez’s unusual swing? It’s similarly controversial amongst prospect analysts
I really like the changes that Baez made to his swing in Springfield this past season. If you look back at his PAs for Peoria in 2024, his body is crouched and his bat is fairly flat, sort of pointing toward the third base stands. That amount of bat wrap makes the swing path unnecessarily long. That not only makes a hitter extremely vulnerable to velocity, it also impedes your ability to adjust to offspeed, especially on the outside edge.
For Springfield in 2025, both his body stance and his bat placement are much more vertical as the pitch is delivered. That allowed him to get around on fastballs and pull them consistently. In some of the PAs I saw, he was able to slow down his swing and poke at curves on the outside edge to right field.
So, yes, I am absolutely buying his 2025 breakout. These are meaningful swing changes that dramatically improve his chances of hitting at the major league level as long as they don’t regress.
Sometimes it seems like analysts (and teams) mistake “versatility” for “not being able to play any position.”
This seems to be what has happened with Campbell.
Worse, it seems that the interest in his “versatility” has prevented the team from letting him actually get good at a single spot. He really hasn’t played much baseball. He needs a ton of reps in one spot, maybe two if they’re both in the outfield.
I think there’s a decent comparison here to Ian Happ, who has actually been decent in left field once they just let him stay there. He’s been a 3-win player since they just set him down in left and didn’t move him. Campbell might be able to fake it in CF better than Happ too.
Agreed. Being willing but *unable* to try different positions is not versatility.
If someone is a 40 defender at two or three spots that is useful. If someone is a 30 defender at two or three spots they are not, and Campbell may not have even been a 30 defender at second base last year.
I don’t quite understand how we got to a place where someone who can’t play any position adequately is somehow labeled as being able to play multiple positions. Just because a guy plays all positions at an equal level doesn’t mean he is functional at them.
I will reiterate what I said above, If ever there was a major league player who played at the 20 level, it was Campbell’s defense at second base last season.
He moved around between positions a ton the past two years. In 2024 he played every infield and outfield position except 1B, which the Red Sox asked him to learn midway through 2025.
Hopefully they let him focus on LF this year, and maybe 2B. He has athleticism to be a good fielder, I think he just needs time to improve the skills.
It’s not like he’s young. It’s like he’s never had to learn how to field. It’s really strange.
He probably hasn’t had enough reps.
If you added up every plate appearance he has had across the minor leagues, college, and wood bat leagues before he debuted in the majors in 2025 you would get to less than 1000 PAs.
To add to that he is not a good fit in the middle infield. And that is most of what he had played. So you can imagine that he has virtually no experience in the outfield.
While there’s no real evidence that he can play the outfield right now he also hasn’t been given much of a chance. If he is a full time outfielder who is being taught to play a maximum of two spots there is a decent chance that he will work his way to being average, maybe even plus in a corner.
I would let him try that before making any judgments that he can’t play any position adequately. Maybe he is a guy with no instincts anywhere but first base but we don’t know that yet.
That’s not it. Campbell made 34 of his 45 collegiate appearances at second base, then after being drafted, played 110.1 of his 159.1 innings in 2023 as a second baseman. It was obvious at that point that he was never going to be a competent second baseman even if they gave him infinite reps. I told people as much.
Boston tried him at shortstop and third base not to increase his versatility, but rather to see if there was a position where he would be passable. Realistically, the guy just isn’t any good in the field anywhere. Left field is his least worst position, but with Boston being so stacked in the outfield, they stubbornly shoved him back into second base a year ago after signing Bregman and stunted his development.
Realistically, I think Campbell is a DH who doesn’t hit the ball hard enough to be a DH. I’m glad the young man got paid before the Red Sox figured that out.
How long does it take for someone who has barely played the outfield to show he can’t do it? Because he basically hasn’t played out there at all. He’s athletic enough to do it. I don’t think it’s guaranteed at all but he could definitely be average or even plus in a corner and might be able to fake center.
He’s not going to hit like Ryan Braun (because who does?) but he had a similar trajectory of being a cover-your-eyes bad infielder who turned out to be fine in the corner outfielder. Of course Miguel Andujar struggles everywhere so that is a possibility too, and maybe that is even more likely.
That’s where I strenuously disagree with you. Campbell has straight line speed but it’s not immediate. He has to build to top speed instead of exploding from a dead stop. He’s also really stiff and awkward when he changes direction. He’s better in the outfield than the infield because he doesn’t have to bend, which he really seems to struggle with, but he still moves like a giraffe.
The bigger issue is that the problems he had with throwing at second base become far more pronounced in the outfield. His right arm has the strength and accuracy of a water gun.
I feel bad for being so negative because the kid clearly works at trying to improve and you can see him get frustrated over his mistakes. I just don’t see a path to him ever being an average fielder at any position.
Strenuously disagree? Lt. Commander Joanne Galloway has entered the chat!
Campbell, at this point, is a perfect example of a player who should be developed strictly as a DH. I do not see 30 qualified DH’s playing in the majors today which, of course, makes the claim that there is a huge pool of potential DH’s ridiculous. The value of having a hitter in the lineup every day with a 115-120-125 WRC+ seems to escape many of today’s front offices. I have serious doubts whether he is capable of being such a player but that is his best chance of contributing at the major league level.
Not every single team has a lineup that lets them rock a true DH-only bat. It’s the kind of role that contending teams with established stars and everyday guys should aggressively seek out. However, a ton of teams with bubble players getting major league cups of coffee find themselves prioritizing roster flexibility.
That is my point! It is in all teams best interest to adjust their roster to accommodate a good hitter whose sole duty is to DH. They should try to find the best available hitter they can and put him at DH. Even if he isn’t Big Papi, Edgar or the Boomstick, a Yoshida, or the player I am very interested in seeing how he performs, Miguel Andujar, is a big improvement over just putting some cipher in that spot.
Why on earth should a young player be ever be developed as a DH?
Because they can hit and may not be able to play major league level defense. Anybody who watched the clips of Augustin Ramirez trying to catch or Kristian Campbell play 2nd base last year would be wise to abandon trying to make them ever play defense and try to develop them as hitters. David Ortiz and Edgar Martinez were fulltime DH’s at age 27.
He may not be able to play major league quality defense, but that does not mean he should stop trying. For professional baseball players, I think there’s enough time in the day to practice both fielding and hitting. I don’t think giving up fielding would make him a better hitter.
Ortiz and Martinez do not prove your point – they were both developed as fielders before transitioning to DH.
Of course I agree that they should try but as soon it becomes clear that they have offensive talent but are likely to be limited on defense it is foolish to abandon them as prospects. Let us not forget that David Ortiz was tossed on to the scrap heap by the Twins and was only rescued because Pedro Martinez pleaded with The Red Sox to sign him and the rest, as they say, is history.
I am a strong proponent of keeping a guy at the hardest position he can hack defensively as long as possible. Sometimes you figure out pretty damn quick that a guy’s best position is “hitter”, and often, it’s just best to let those dudes DH and go rake. I think that’s where eyeball scouting comes in, because a guy can have terrible defensive stats and be salvageable (my personal opinion on Dominguez, for instance) or not worth trying (it’s really hard to be a catcher if you can’t catch the ball).
I see his biggest problem in the outfield as a very slow reaction time and bad routes. He plays tentatively when he should be more aggressive.
Those problems can be fixed with practice and coaching.
‘Athleticism’ is tough to measure, but he is as quick and fast as plenty of other corner outfielders
I think this is a lot closer to what happened. They were playing him at 2B and he looked terrible so they scrambled to find a defensive position for him.
This doesn’t make sense to me. He was terrible at 2B, so they tried him at SS? His arm was a water cannon, so they tried him at 3B? He was terrible at 2B in 2023, so they spent all of 2024 trying to find another position for him, then he became the opening day 2B in 2025? No way.
It’s more likely that they envisioned him being a light hitting utility player when he was drafted, so they tried to figure out how much they could move him around.
It’s is also likely that the Red Sox (and many other teams) don’t care much about minor league defense because the metrics are much less useful than hitting metrics.
Yeah, I was thinking more of his Major League stint at 2B, followed by him being moved around. My mistake.
I still agree with jd that him being moved around wasn’t a case of them thinking he was versatile, but an attempt by the team to find a position for him.
Yes. Eric noted in one of his writeups that Campbell “is at his most comfortable when he is moving from right to left while making the play, which you do less of at second base.”
Campbell had a 148 wRC+ in 2023 when he was playing the vast majority of his games at second base. They moved him because he was bad there, which is the same reason that he fell to the fourth round in the draft after being bad defensively at Georgia Tech. They only moved him back to second because they signed Bregman and there was a logjam in the outfield.
I’m sorry, but your history is wrong. He played plenty of 2B in 2024 and was the opening day second baseman in the major leagues in 2025.
The Red Sox did not decide in 2023 that Kristian Campbell was so bad at second base that he couldn’t play there any more. Which is obvious, because he kept playing second base for the next two years.
Honestly though, who cares how the Red Sox evaluated his defense in 2023? The Red Sox probably don’t even care at this point.
In 2023, Campbell played 69.2% of his innings at second base.
In 2024, Campbell played 36.2% of his innings at second base.
Let me be as clear as I possibly can. You said that in 2023 it was obvious that Campbell was never going to be a competent second baseman.
It may have been obvious to you, but it was not obvious to the Red Sox because he continued to play second base in 2024 and 2025.
Let me be as clear as I possibly can. If a team believes in a prospect’s defensive position, they don’t have him play dramatically less of that position.
Going from playing 69.2% of his innings at second base in 2023 to just 36.2% in 2024 shows that Boston lost confidence in Campbell’s ability to play there, and they tried to find somewhere else where he would be acceptable.
I’d send him to complex and make him learn 2B from scratch. They can try to fix his swing to make it quicker at the same time. He shouldn’t play tin AAA until May. He shouldn’t play in the majors until September if at all in 2026. If they’re not going to fix him then they need to trade him for whatever.
I think if they traded him there would be a team out there who would value him at FV50. But I bet there are other teams who would be a lower. Might not be easy to find a match.
I think the fact that you have to pay him despite being a gamble significantly dampens his value
I would be stunned if any team would value him anywhere near FV50. Maybe he can play the outfield but he, quite simply, showed no signs whatsoever of being a being major league player after April. The rest of baseball knows what happened and isn’t going to be fooled. 2024 is looking like a mirage
You might be right about teams being scared off by him, but that’s a comment more on how easily freaked out teams can get over a bad stretch.
I think that everyone is a little too quick to give up on him. He’s clearly not an infielder, he was playing hurt for at least part of the year, and he barely played baseball above the high school level. Before debuting in MLB he had less than 1000 PAs above the high school level. He isn’t anywhere close to being a finished product.
But I think Franceourstein is right and it is something I hadn’t fully processed. If he’s an FV50 and he plays to that, his contract isn’t giving a lot of surplus value.
An FV50 prospect is about $25M in surplus value, and an FV45 is at about $5 in surplus value. Even if someone has him graded as an FV50 that makes him closer to the value of an FV45.
For that, I think I’d hold on to him. There’s some Randy Arozarena in him, maybe some Justin Upton if we’re feeling especially optimistic. He probably winds up more like Glenallen Hill, but he was pretty good when he wasn’t crashing through glass tables.
Campbell has no defensive home and has an awkward swing that makes it difficult for him to catch up to MLB fastballs. While his bat control and contact quality are excellent, he doesn’t pull the ball in the air. I don’t see why people were so high on him in the first place, and I said so at the time.
If he didn’t have that massive contact, maybe a team with a history of successful swing changes would take a chance on him, but he does have it. That puts him in the Yoshida zone as someone with negative trade value.
It is not possible to ever make Campbell into a passable second baseman. He also has negative trade value at this point due to his sixty million dollar contract.
Seems like that ship has sailed. He’s going to be 24 and has played a good amount of 2B already and he isn’t close to being passable.
As for trading him, they would have to eat a big chunk of the ~$57 million he’s still owed. Seems like it’d be better to hold onto him and hope he can improve as an outfielder.
The very early career deals for guys who busted like Scott Kingery and Jon Singleton were for relatively small amounts. Campbell’s is substantially more and even if he improves as an outfielder and he has a long way to go, the bat hasn’t looked too good either. It appears that the Red Sox are stuck with this deal.
Saying that Campbell “didn’t look great at the keystone” is a massive understatement. At the time that he was demoted, he was the worst player in the majors by both OAA and DRS. Campbell’s -16 mark in DRS over just 471.2 innings was worse than Rafael Devers produced over any full season of his career.
In fairness, Devers was always functional at 3B, even as he was definitely below average.
Boston’s excuse for moving Devers off of third base was his defense. Then they put someone into the infield who was dramatically worse.
The way Boston handled Campbell is bewildering. During 2024, he dominated A+ and AA and ascended quickly from borderline prospect to top prospect. If I recall correctly, he was only promoted to AAA after Mayer got hurt. He played well there, too, though not as well as he did at lower levels.
At this point, he is one of four top prospects–along with Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kyle Teel (to a lesser degree)–that seem to be basically untouchable. But the Red Sox eventually realize they’ll need to trade one and settle on Teel, despite:
So the deal gets done. The White Sox not only get Teel, they get Chase Meidroth, a middle infielder who outplays Campbell in 2025. The Red Sox go into Spring Training with both Mayer and Campbell trying to make the team. Mayer seems to outplay Campbell both offensively and defensively. But Campbell makes the team.
And then comes the extension (not coincidentally?) for a player who:
Every step here seemed really questionable and pulling back a little at any point would have prevented them from being in this situation.
I think the big problem was the Red Sox inability to evaluate his defense. How could he have been so bad defensively and none one thought to do anything about it? The Red Sox just don’t seem to care about minor league defense.
That seems like the most obvious issue for sure. But figuring out he either can’t hit at this level or wasn’t ready to would have helped too.
I don’t know anything about Boston’s negotiations with Chicago, but I do know that in Baltimore’s negotiations over Crochet, Getz was adamant about getting Basallo and would not consider alternatives. Previously, when Elias tried to trade for Cease, Getz was adamant about getting Holliday and would not consider alternatives.
It may not have been that the Red Sox decided to trade Teel so much as that’s who Getz fixated on, and Boston correctly concluded that Crochet was worth it.