Amid the bedlam that followed their arrival in Triple-A, there was a moment on Tuesday when Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony and Kyle Teel stopped and chatted with Triston Casas in the Worcester Red Sox clubhouse. While they spoke, Vaughn Grissom emerged from a meeting room and joined them at his locker a couple of feet away.

All five are on different timetables, but for a brief moment in time the pillars of the Red Sox future were all together again.

Each 24 years old or younger, the five young standouts are all expected to play pivotal roles in the Red Sox future. They first connected this past winter at the organization’s rookie development camp, and if all goes as planned they could reunite again sometime next year at Fenway Park.

Now that the Big Three have finally reached Triple-A, that day could be right over the horizon.

Because they didn’t move up until mid-August, Mayer, Anthony and Teel will almost certainly spend the rest of the season in Worcester. They’ll get to play a little over 30 games, compile around 100 plate appearances and get a feel for the higher level without the pressure of performing in the middle of a big league playoff race.

Since they won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, there’s also no need to add them to the 40-man roster. Better to preserve those spots for others over the offseason and hold off on adding them until 2025.

But once spring training begins, the question of when and how to bring up the Big Three will become a matter of pressing concern.

For Teel, the path to the majors is the most straightforward. The Red Sox have two right-handed hitting catchers on their roster, and one of them — Danny Jansen — will be a free agent at year’s end. Any stopgaps they bring in to compete for the backup catcher job next season won’t threaten to block him long-term, so Teel could realistically make the big league roster out of spring training.

Mayer’s situation is a little more complicated. As long as he’s healthy Trevor Story will be a starter, and Grissom will presumably be the favorite to earn the second base job out of spring training, with David Hamilton and Enmanuel Valdez both in the picture as well. Mayer would have to really force the issue to insert himself into that conversation, and the only way he’d make the team is if he can prove he deserves to start, similar to Ceddanne Rafaela this year.

If that happens, the club will have some interesting decisions to make. Would Mayer start at shortstop, bumping Story to second base? Would Story stay at shortstop and Mayer start his career at second for the time being, similar to how Xander Bogaerts began as a third baseman before shifting over to short later? How would Grissom, Hamilton and Valdez be affected?

Those would all remain considerations if the Red Sox opted to start Mayer in Worcester and call him up later, though by that point injuries or other roster moves could make the path clear.

The most interesting case is Anthony, who is the youngest of the bunch but might have the highest upside. The Red Sox already have an embarrassment of riches in the outfield, and presuming the club lets Tyler O’Neill walk in free agency they’d go into next season with a starting alignment of Jarren Duran in left, Rafaela in center and Wilyer Abreu in right.

That’s a strong group. Duran is already an All-Star and Rafaela and Abreu should both earn Rookie of the Year consideration this fall. They also aren’t going anywhere for a while. Rafaela just signed an eight-year extension this spring and Duran and Abreu won’t hit free agency until after 2028 and 2030, respectively.

Unless Anthony has an otherworldly spring training he likely won’t beat any of those guys out for a starting spot on Opening Day, but eventually there will come a point where the Red Sox can’t keep him down any longer. What happens then? Will the Red Sox have to trade someone? Who?

Ultimately that would be a good problem for the Red Sox to have, and like with Mayer a clean solution could present itself over time. Either way, the future of the Red Sox is coming into focus, and by this time next year it’s possible the core of what the club hopes will be its next championship team could finally be in place.

Grissom stays course

In a perfect world Grissom would have already established himself as Boston’s starting second baseman, but a series of injuries have hampered the young infielder since the moment he was acquired in exchange from Chris Sale this past winter.

While the Red Sox hoped Grissom could come back and make an impact this year, the club is now taking a longer-term approach towards his recovery and development.

Rather than add him to the big league roster upon the end of his rehab assignment, the Red Sox optioned Grissom to Triple-A so he could continue to work on building back up physically. He’s been limited since day one thanks to a groin injury, hamstring strains in each leg and a bad case of the flu, but without the pressure of trying to get back to Boston by a certain time Grissom has been able to come along at his own pace.

“The legs are feeling good, so getting comfortable,” Grissom said in Worcester on Tuesday. “The first time was a bit of a rush, let’s go, let’s get going, and this time it’s more about OK, we’re going to wait until you’re ready and you feel like yourself.”

Grissom’s time in Triple-A isn’t just about making up for lost time physically. WooSox manager Chad Tracy noted that Grissom is still quite young — at 23 years old he’s only a year older than Teel — and he’s still in a position to benefit from the club’s developmental infrastructure.

“He’s got strength gains to make, he’s immersed in the cage and the stuff we’re doing with bat speed and swing decisions and all the things we’re doing with these kids,” Tracy said. “He’s diving into that stuff and we’re going to try to make him a better player.”

Unlike most players his age Grissom already has a proven track record of performance. Last year he had a .330/.419/.501 slash line with 36 doubles in 102 games with Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate, and Tracy said the key now is to get that version of Grissom back before worrying about anything else.

“You don’t do that stuff if you’re not a really talented player,” Tracy said. “He spent most of the year hurt from spring training on and he’s still trying to find his way and get his rhythm, but he’s already done some special things at this level so we’re trying to get that out of him first.

“He’s a heck of a lot more than he’s shown so far but I think a lot of it is he’s still trying to get at bats accumulated under his belt.”

This certainly isn’t the way Grissom would have preferred things play out, but even if he spends the rest of this season in Worcester he’ll still have every opportunity to impact the Red Sox in the years to come. Patience is the name of the game now, and Grissom understands that if he keeps working hard, his time will eventually come.

“It’s been a long, wild year, all the time I’ve spent out, that takes some time to get back,” Grissom said. “One of those things where you’ve got to stay the course.”

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge reached 300 career home runs earlier this week. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Judge on historic pace

Earlier this week New York Yankees star Aaron Judge hit his 300th career home run, becoming the fastest player in MLB history to do so by reaching the milestone in only 955 career games. He’s also well on his way to recording his third career 50-homer season, and as long as he stays healthy there’s no reason to expect he’ll slow down anytime soon.

Given how good Judge has become, how many home runs could he realistically hit by the time his career is done?

Judge is 32 years old, and most players typically begin to experience a decline in production by their mid-30s. If Judge continues to perform at a high level for another three seasons he should clear 400 home runs at some point in mid-2026. At that point he’d be 34 with another five years remaining on his current contract, so even if he does start averaging closer to 20-30 home runs in his later years as opposed to 40-50, 500 career home runs should be well within reach.

And if he remains an MVP-candidate popping 40-plus per season into his late 30s, then 600 or beyond might not be out of the question.

Judge isn’t the only one who could realistically achieve some major milestones. Yankees teammates Giancarlo Stanton and Juan Soto are both in position to do so as well.

Stanton has battled injuries frequently over the last few years, but he is still only 34 years old and is on pace to finish the year with over 430 career home runs. He’s topped 20 homers again this year for the fourth straight season since the pandemic, and he has three more years left on his 13-year contract plus a team option for 2028. It’s not a sure thing, but Stanton could realistically top 500 before all is said and done.

Soto has a lot farther to go, but the sky is the limit for the super-talented outfielder. At age 25 Soto is already on the verge of 200 career home runs, and his next contract will run for at least a decade, if not longer. Soto would only need to average around 30 home runs over the next 10 seasons to reach 500, and even then he’d still only be 35, potentially giving him even more runway to run up his numbers.

How about Rafael Devers? The Red Sox star already ranks among the most productive players through his age 27 season in franchise history, but how does he project out into the future?

Like Soto, Devers is on the verge of reaching 200 home runs, and over the course of his career he’s averaged 34 home runs for every 162 games. He has nine more seasons remaining on his current long-term deal with the Red Sox, so if Devers averages approximately 30 homers a season over that stretch, he could near the end of that deal in range of 500 while still being just 36 years old.

There’s a lot of baseball left to be played between now and then, but it will be fun to see how high in the all-time leaderboards today’s stars can ultimately climb.

Cubs coach returning to Andover

Before he left Phillips Andover to become a minor league coach in the Chicago Cubs organization, Kevin Graber led one of the most prestigious high school baseball programs in New England.

Now after two years on the road, Graber is returning home.

After coaching Phillips Academy baseball for 14 years, Kevin Graber worked for the Chicago Cubs. Now he’s set to return to Phillips Andover. (Courtesy of Kevin Graber)

Graber is set to return to Phillips Andover this fall after his contract with the Cubs runs out, he told the Herald this week. He will assume his old position as head baseball coach while also serving as senior associate director of admission and financial aid, academic advisor and dorm house counselor.

Graber previously spent 14 years at Phillips between 2008-22 before joining the Cubs, and upon making the transition to the professional game he found fast success, earning multiple promotions before leading the Double-A Tennessee Smokies to their first outright league title in 45 years as interim manager.

But the move also forced him to uproot his family, and throughout his time with the Cubs he’s spent the majority of his time traveling. Now he’ll return to a place where he and his family were campus fixtures, and where Graber helped develop numerous future professionals like Thomas White and Jonathan Santucci.

White ranks as the Miami Marlins top prospect and the No. 46 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, and Santucci was a second-round pick by the New York Mets this past July who ranks as the organization’s No. 11 prospect.