Franklin Arias and His Cards on the Rise
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With the baseball season now heading into its third week, fans and collectors have gotten extended looks at some of the top prospects in the game both at the major league and minor league levels. So far players rookies and prospects in baseball have begun to establish themselves across all levels of the game. Collectors were already familiar with notable names such as Jacob Wilson, Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, and Bubba Chandler who have gotten off to strong starts at their respective levels. Now that the Bowman 2025 checklist is out I wanted to take a look at Franklin Arias, a prospect for the Red Sox on the rise who could be getting a lot of attention from baseball fans and collectors as the season goes on.
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Arias was signed by the Red Sox as an international free agent in 2023 from Venezuela. Initially thought of as a defensive first prospect, Arias proved that he’s more of a complete hitter than what scouts initially thought. Arias had a stellar 2024 season both defensively and offensively that ended with a promotion to high A.Arias also finished the 2024 season in the top 100 prospect lists for both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline checking in at 76 and 75 respectively with a great chance to rise up those lists by the end of this season.
Already tabbed as a fast riser, Arias continued to crush it with the bat so far in 2025 getting off to a tremendous start in low A. Through the first three weeks of the minor league season his batting average has hovered above .400 and he has only gone one game without a hit.
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As a fan and collector who follows baseball and the Red Sox religiously, I was looking forward to when Arias would make his product debut and have his Bowman First auto. Thankfully Arias is part of a loaded Red Sox Bowman 2025 checklist that includes super sleeper Conrad Casson and D’Angelo Ortiz the son of Red Sox legend and Hall of Famer David Ortiz. The reason for my excitement and why others should be excited as well is that Arias checks off a lot of boxes for collectors. He plays at a premium position, is signed to a high profile team, and is showing more potential offensively.
If there was one minor nitpick in his game, it would be that he has not shown a lot of in-game power yet which could hurt his ceiling with collectors. Conversely, Arias is still very young (in fact one of the youngest players in A ball) so he has plenty of time to develop that in game power. In terms of value, I would expect that Arias would fall into the tier of players just below Charlie Condon and Wetherhold as the top chases in Bowman 2025. However, should Arias continue to hit the ball the way he is, there is a good chance that Arias could end up joining the top tier of chases for Bowman 2025 by the end of season.
