Player Spotlight: Roman Anthony — A September Power Surge Arrives
Roman Anthony closed the 2026 season with 8 home runs and a 1.142 OPS over his final 14 games, posting a 94.1 mph average exit velocity that ranks in the 97th percentile league-wide.
Why Roman Anthony, Why Now
Roman Anthony has hit 8 home runs in his last 14 games with a 94.1 mph average exit velocity — the hottest two-week stretch of his young career, and the loudest closing statement any hitter made in September 2026.
The 22-year-old Red Sox outfielder didn't just finish strong. He dragged Boston's offense through the season's final fortnight, going 21-for-54 with 12 extra-base hits while the rest of the lineup scuffled. Every underlying metric says this is real. The tape says it's the arrival.
The Last 14 Days
| Stat | Anthony (Last 14) | MLB Average |
|---|---|---|
| PA | 62 | — |
| AVG | .389 | .248 |
| OBP | .468 | .318 |
| SLG | .889 | .412 |
| HR | 8 | — |
| RBI | 19 | — |
| K% | 17.7% | 22.4% |
| BB% | 14.5% | 8.4% |
That .889 slugging percentage is more than double the league mark. The strikeout rate — 17.7% against a league average of 22.4% — is the number that separates this from a fluky heater. Anthony is hitting for massive power while making *more* contact than the average big leaguer. That combination almost never appears in small samples by accident.
Statcast Breakdown: The Arrival Is Mechanical
The shift versus his career baseline is stark. Anthony's average exit velocity over this stretch sits at 94.1 mph — up from 90.8 mph across the first five months of the season. His barrel rate has spiked to 19.4%, which would rank in the 98th percentile on Baseball Savant if sustained over a full season. His hard-hit rate (95+ mph) is 58.1% over the last 14 days, against a season-long figure of 47.2%.
The mechanism is a swing-path adjustment Boston's hitting staff installed in early September. Anthony flattened his attack angle by roughly 4 degrees, trading some of the lofty launch that produced harmless fly balls in June and July for the 18-28 degree window where barrels live. The result: his pulled-fly-ball rate jumped 9 percentage points, and 6 of his 8 homers in this stretch went to right or right-center — his natural power alley, now being accessed on purpose instead of by accident.
His 90th-percentile exit velocity — 107.3 mph in September, up from 104.9 mph through August — confirms the top-end bat speed was always there. What's new is the consistency of contact quality. Anthony's sweet-spot rate has climbed into the 92nd percentile. He's not swinging harder. He's squaring the ball up more often.
Will It Sustain? The xwOBA Verdict
The expected stats endorse nearly all of it. Anthony's xwOBA over the last 14 days is .441 against an actual wOBA of .472 — a gap of 31 points, well within normal variance for a two-week sample. His .405 BABIP is elevated, but a hitter barreling 19% of his batted balls *earns* a high BABIP; this isn't a string of seeing-eye singles.
The one caution flag: Anthony chased slightly more in this stretch (28.6% chase rate vs. 25.9% season-long), and pitchers had little reason to pitch around him in games that no longer mattered. Expect a small regression in walk rate once advance scouts rebuild the book this winter. But the exit velocity gains, the barrel spike, and the attack-angle change are all sticky, skill-based indicators. This is a breakout, not a streak. Projections for 2027 should treat his September as the new baseline.
In Legends Deck
Anthony's Legends Deck card has already repriced. His Power attribute jumped from 78 to 86 on the back of the barrel-rate spike, and his Contact rating ticked up three points to 81 as the strikeout rate fell below 18%. The card's overall rating now sits at 87 — up from 82 at the start of September — making it one of the biggest single-month movers on the marketplace. With the 90th-percentile exit velocity feeding the Power formula and the sweet-spot rate feeding Contact, another strong week would have pushed him into the 90s. He's a hold, not a sell, heading into the offseason.
See his current card on the Legends Deck marketplace — the rating just moved with the tape.
Related Reading
- What Is Barrel Rate? — the Statcast metric behind Anthony's Power jump
- What Is xwOBA? — why the expected stats say this breakout is real
- What Is Exit Velocity? — how raw batted-ball speed drives card ratings