When the Red Sox drafted Marcelo Mayer there was a sense within the game they’d just landed the best player in his class.
The high school shortstop was an elite talent in the mold of Corey Seager and Brandon Crawford, only Red Sox officials believed he was even more advanced at his age than those two All-Stars and World Series champions.
That’s a lot to measure up to, but two years later Mayer’s done everything possible to live up to the hype.
Since being selected No. 4 overall in the 2021 MLB Draft, Mayer has rocketed through the Red Sox minor league system, and last month the 20-year-old became the youngest Red Sox draftee to earn a Double-A call-up since 2009. He ranks as a top five prospect in all of baseball and recently was selected to the Futures Game over All-Star Weekend in Seattle.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Portland Sea Dogs manager Chad Epperson. “This kid, every time he steps into the box there’s a chance for something good to happen.”
From the moment he made his professional debut Mayer has impressed the Red Sox at every turn. Last year he earned a swift promotion from Low-A Salem to High-A Greenville in his first full season of pro ball, and so far in 2023 Mayer is batting .250 with 12 home runs, 47 RBI and an .813 OPS in 56 games between High-A and Double-A.
His initial transition to Portland has been a mixed bag — he’s batted .177 with five home runs in his first 21 games — but he’s also impressed coaches and teammates with his maturity and baseball IQ, both advanced for a player his age.
“It’s been good, I’ve been settling in, I love the guys in the clubhouse. We’re boys, we’ve been boys since last year’s spring training so it’s been a pretty smooth transition,” Mayer said. “On the field obviously my numbers haven’t been there, there are a few adjustments that need to be made but I think I’m playing well, been playing good defense and hitting the ball hard, so we’ll go from there.”
Epperson called Mayer “a complete package kind of guy” who has power to all fields and can make difficult plays look easy. Though Mayer is working to keep improving all aspects of his game, building on that power has been a priority and an area he feels he’s made the biggest strides so far.
“I worked on it in the offseason getting stronger, and I think that comes with age as well and maturity,” Mayer said. “It feels good to be hitting homers.”
“There’s a lot to be excited about this kid and really pleased with the way he’s gone about it in the three weeks or whatever it is he’s been here,” Epperson said.
Beyond his talents on the field, Mayer’s secret weapon might be his ability to bridge the gap between his English and Spanish speaking teammates. The bilingual Mayer considers Spanish his first language, and while he’s from the San Diego area his parents are both Mexican and his mother is originally from Nogales, Sonora, a city along the U.S. border across from Arizona.
“Growing up we spoke Spanish in my household. I still speak Spanish to this day in my house, that’s pretty much the only language we speak,” Mayer said. “Every time I start speaking Spanish the other Latin players — I always catch them by surprise.”
Players with Mayer’s unique gifts don’t come around often, which is why Mayer’s minor league career has played out under such an unusually bright spotlight. For his part, Mayer acknowledges the hype and attention but said he does his best not to let it affect him.
After all, what good is a top five prospect ranking if he never amounts to anything in the majors?
“It’s definitely an honor. It’s cool to look at but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter at all to anyone, especially the people in the front office,” Mayer said. “I know I still have to perform if I want to make it to where I want to be, so that’s why I go every time I’m out there, I just try to play hard, perform, work hard and hopefully everything will fall into place.”
Even in the most optimistic scenario Mayer likely won’t make his big league debut until next season at the earliest. Still, Mayer won’t be a stranger when he arrives, and this Tuesday he took advantage of Portland’s back-to-back off-days to make the trip down to see Boston play the Miami Marlins.
“It was a really cool atmosphere, really cool to see those guys, I know some of them on a personal level so it was cool to see them out there,” said Mayer, who said it was his third time visiting Fenway since being drafted. “The game didn’t go as planned but that happens, that’s baseball, so it was pretty cool and hopefully one day I can be in their shoes playing there.”
By the time the Marlins next return to Fenway in 2025, Mayer very well could be.