The Boston Red Sox and young outfielder Roman Anthony are in business on an eight-year, $130 million contract extension that includes a $30 million team option and could keep Anthony under club control through the 2034 season, the team announced Wednesday. The deal will run through Anthony's age-29 season and his age-30 season if the club option is exercised. Escalators based on things like awards voting and All-Star selections could raise the total figure to up to $230 million.

"I couldn't think of a better city to play in for the next eight to nine years of my life," Anthony said during a press conference Wednesday. "It's truly just a special place to play and a special place to show up every single day."

The rookie Anthony, age 21, entered the 2025 season as the top prospect in all of baseball according to some evaluators, including CBS Sports. In 46 games since his call-up to Boston on June 9, Anthony has slashed .283/.400/.428 (132 OPS+) with a pair of home runs and 15 doubles. He's backed up the production with strong underlying indicators at the batted-ball level. Specifically, Anthony thus far boasts an average exit velocity off the bat of 94.1 mph, an average bat speed of 74.4 mph, and a hard-hit rate of 58% -- elite on all counts, albeit across a limited sample. As well, he's shown a mature approach at the plate, as he's worked an unintentional walks in an impressive 13.7% of his plate appearances. All of that adds up to strong Rookie of the Year consideration (+2000, per DraftKings).

A former second-round pick out of a Florida high school, Anthony in the minors put up an .879 OPS across parts of four seasons despite being significantly younger than his peer group at every stop. Here's what our R.J. Anderson wrote about Anthony coming into the current season: 

Anthony has a lot working in his favor. He won't celebrate his 21st birthday until the summer, yet he's already authored an impressive 35-game stretch in Triple-A, during which he recorded a .983 OPS and a walk for every strikeout. His advanced metrics, including his 90th percentile exit velocity and his in-zone contact percentage, line up with those posted by James Wood and Junior Caminero; his chase rate, meanwhile, was superior to both. (Wood and Caminero subsequently hit well in the majors.) If there's an area where Anthony could obviously stand to improve, it has to be with respect to pulling the ball in the air. He has immense raw strength, the kind that could eventually result in 30-plus homers annually; it's eyebrow-raising, then, that he pulled just 4% of his Triple-A fly balls (the MLB average last season was over 9%). This ranking is a bet on Anthony's youth and talent allowing him to figure out that component over the coming years.

This season, Anthony's arrival and emergence has helped the Red Sox surge back into contention. Three days before Anthony's arrival, Boston slipped to a season-worst five games under .500. Since that low point, however, the Sox have gone 35-17. At present, they occupy the top wild card spot in the American League and trail the first-place Blue Jays by just three games in the AL East race.

Looking further forward, Anthony is the latest member of the Sox's rising young core to commit long-term to the club. Center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela is signed through at least the 2031 season, and infielder/outfielder Kristian Campbell is also signed through at least 2031. As well, lefty ace Garrett Crochet, who's still just 26 years of age, is also signed through at least 2031. Anthony had been in line for free agency after that same season, 2031, but now that's been pushed back until at least the offseason of 2034-35. 

On another level, the signing of Anthony marks a positive bit of news after the June trade of the team's best hitter, Rafael Devers. Devers himself had been signed to a long-term extension, and the trade of him to San Francisco proved broadly unpopular with the Boston fan base. Since then, though, the team's surge and now the commitment to Anthony, the most ballyhooed of Boston's young talents, have turned that particular page.