Sox Talk with Will Middlebrooks is a recurring content series on NESN.com. Middlebrooks, a former Red Sox player and current NESN analyst, gives his insight and opinion on pertinent Red Sox storylines throughout the season. You can read the latest stories from the series here.
Much has been made about Boston Red Sox 2023 top draft choice Kyle Teel making the massive ascent from college baseball to Triple-A in just a little over a year.
But another Red Sox prospect is on a similar meteoric rise as Teel, and it wasn't until recently that Kristian Campbell started to really get noticed.
"He's got not only the Red Sox fans and the organization's eyes, the whole baseball world is paying attention to him," Will Middlebrooks told NESN.com.
Campbell, who the Red Sox drafted out of Georgia Tech in the fourth round last year, wasn't in the same realm as Boston's "Big Three" prospects of Teel, Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony to begin the season. But in just a matter of months, he worked his way into that conversation, mostly by way of his powerful right-handed bat. Campbell is now Boston's fifth-ranked prospect by MLB Pipeline and he made his way on Baseball America's Top 100 prospect list last month.
The 22-year-old middle infielder/outfielder started this season at High-A Greenville, where he batted .306 with eight home runs and 25 RBIs. That earned him a promotion to Double-A Portland and he continued to tear apart opposing pitching at the higher level.
Campbell hit an eye-popping .362 with a 1.045 OPS to go along with eight homers, 35 RBIs, 35 walks and 17 steals during his time with Portland. It only took 56 games with Portland -- fewer than Mayer, Anthony and Teel -- to get called up to Triple-A late last week.
And Campbell hasn't slowed down at the plate since arriving in Worcester. He collected six RBIs in his first two games.
"This kid's the real deal," Middlebrooks said. "I think his swing has room to improve. I've done a little bit of breakdown on his swing and his path. He's one of the most athletic guys because he doesn't have a perfect bat path."
Middlebrooks saw that the 6-foot-3, 191-pound Campbell routinely gets out on his front side and steep with his swing, making it even more impressive the connection and power Campbell showed.
"He's able to still consistently square the ball up, which tells me he has elite hand-eye coordination," Middlebrooks said. "You got to think about something coming down toward the plate and you swinging slightly down, you have to meet it perfect, you have to be perfectly on time to square up a ball as often as he's squaring the ball up."
Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham told Middlebrooks that Campbell has worked hard on fine-tuning his swing. Middlebrooks saw improvement on film, too.
Those slight changes could carry Campbell to the big leagues by next season. He has somewhat come out of nowhere, but Campbell's emergence has made him just as much a part of the Red Sox future plans as Teel, Mayer and Anthony.
"The more he can stay behind the baseball and not get steep, not get over that front side, he's just going to be even better, which is insane to think about," Middlebrooks said. "And it's not a massive flaw, I just think it's going to make him more consistent in the long run and make him a more consistent player hitting over .300 but with pop and the speed."
