Understanding this year’s Oscars is as simple as learning your ABC – so here’s an alphabetical run-down of this year’s Academy Awards.

A is for Anora

Funny and smart, Anora has been described as a modern-day Pretty Woman and has had a lot of buzz since taking home the biggest prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It tells the story of a young woman, a sex worker, who ends up falling in love with a very rich man; this time round, he’s the son of a Russian oligarch. It’s one of this year’s 10 best picture nominees, with 25-year-old Mikey Madison in contention for best actress.

B is for The Brutalist

Largely set in America following the Second World War, The Brutalist has been described as a cinematic masterpiece by some critics – albeit one with a bum-numbingly long three-and-a-half-hour run time. Star Adrien Brody has won plaudits (and a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and other awards) for his portrayal of Hungarian architect Lazlo Toth and is up once again for best actor here. The film is also in the running for best picture; it missed out on that one at the BAFTAs, but filmmaker Brady Corbet was named best director – so the pair will be hoping to at least repeat that success.

C is for Conclave

This is a frontrunner for best picture after winning best film at this year’s BAFTAs. Based on Robert Harris’s 2016 novel of the same name and centred around the selection of a new pope, the film has earned star Ralph Fiennes – who plays Cardinal Lawrence, the Vatican’s most powerful figure after the pope  – his third Oscar nomination. The nods before were in 1993 for Schindler’s List and in 1996 for The English Patient; but while he’s long overdue a win, going up against Brody in the Brutalist is likely to be the reason this won’t be his year.

D is for Dune: Part 2

Timothee Chalamet stars in two of this year’s best picture nominees. We’ll come to his portrayal of Bob Dylan a little later, but in this one he plays Paul Atreides in the second part of director Denis Villeneuve’s reimagining of Frank Herbert’s highly acclaimed 1965 novel. His is a character seeking revenge against those who decimated his family tree - tackling politics, religion, the fight for precious resources – and, more importantly, giant sand worms. It’s epic in scale, but not the Chalamet film everyone’s talking about this year.

E is for Emilia Perez

Set in Mexico but mostly filmed in France, Emilia Perez is an operatic Spanish-language musical which tells the story of a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery. It leads the race with 13 Oscar nods, and broke the record to become the most nominated non-English language film in the history of the awards – with star Karla Sofia Gascon making history as a trans woman nominated for best actress. After winning several Golden Globes at the start of 2025 it was one of the frontrunners, but faced scrutiny of its themes and stars from the trans community and Mexican critics. The nail in the coffin came after offensive tweets posted by Gascon were unearthed.

F is for Flow

A dialogue-free environmental fable about a cat cast adrift on a boat, forced to overcome its differences with a capybara, lemur, stork, and a golden retriever in order to survive a flood. With Flow, visionary animator Gints Zilbalodis has secured Latvia its first-ever Oscar nominations for best international feature film and best animated feature film. In the latter there’s some stiff competition this year, see…

G is for Gromit, as in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

…the return of Feathers McGraw. First seen in ’93’s Oscar-winning short The Wrong Trousers, he’s back to get his revenge on inventor Wallace and his trusty beagle Gromit. The return of Nick Park’s immortal creations after a 16 year break saw creators Aardman win two BAFTAs a few weeks ago, and despite being unapologetically British – reportedly there was a bit of back-and-forth with Netflix over the phrase “Flippin’ Nora!” – its proven a surprise hit in the US over the years. An Oscar win for Gromit would of course be “absolutely cracking, lad”.

H is for Heartbreak of I’m Still Here

Based on a true story, this film depicts the horror and heartbreak of a mother of five fighting Brazil’s authoritarian military regime in the 1970s after her husband is forcibly “disappeared”, leaving her to search for the truth and rebuild her life. This Portuguese-language film is nominated for three Oscars, including best actress for Fernanda Torres as well as best Picture, but the Brazilian drama’s chances in the international category are probably its best bet at taking home a statuette.

I is for Inside Out 2

Following the success of the first film, released in 2015, the sequel introduces new emotions into the mix – Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment – as Riley becomes a teenager. As the second highest-grossing animated film of all time and one of the most beloved family movies of 2024, it’s hardly surprising that Inside Out 2 was nominated in the best animated category this year. But while it was a commercial and critical success, its not a frontrunner with the bookies to win as the competition is just so good this year. We’ll get to the frontrunner later on.

J is for Jeremy Strong… and Sebastian Stan

They’re the stars of the contentious biopic of newly inaugurated president Donald Trump and have both received acting nominations. The Apprentice concentrates on Trump’s early years as an aspiring real-estate mogul in New York – and while the president described it as a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job”, the Academy did not agree. Stan gets a nod for his portrayal of Trump, while Strong is recognised for his performance as mentor Roy Cohn. He finds himself up against his former Succession Roy brother Kieran Culkin in the best supporting category. May the best Roy win.

K is for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (and other monkeys)

This film is nominated for best visual effects, a category that’s awash with simian representation this year as no less than three of the nominees prominently feature CGI monkeys. As well as the latest instalment in the acclaimed Planet Of The Apes franchise, there’s also the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, which sees the singer depicted as an ape, and the creepy winged monkey guards of Wicked, who will probably fly off with the prize.

L is for Late… which Elton John probably will be to his own party

Sir Elton John, who recently retired from performing live, is up for best original song for Never Too Late, from the documentary about his life. He already has two Oscars in his awards cabinet – for Can You Feel the Love Tonight from The Lion King in 1994, and for (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again from Rocketman in 2019 – but can he make it a hat-trick? While no doubt he’s chuffed to be nominated, from a party-planning perspective it’s a tad awkward – as it means he’ll have to miss most of his annual charitable Oscars party, which takes place at the same time.

M is for Memoir Of A Snail

Another best animation nominee, this stop-motion offering is way more bleak than Wallace And Gromit. Succession’s Sarah Snook lends her voice to Australian animator Adam Elliot’s tragicomic tale of loneliness, playing a woman called Grace who’s plagued by so much misfortune she wants to crawl into her shell, just like her snail pet.

N is for Nickel Boys

Telling a story of abuse at a US reform school in the 1960s, this best picture nominee is the film with perhaps the most unique visual style, shot almost entirely from the point of view of the two lead characters. It’s a disorientating drama that will stay with you long after the credits roll.

O is for O’Brien

The comedian and former late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien takes over from four-time veteran Jimmy Kimmel. It’s not always an easy gig, and after California’s devastating wildfires it might be especially tricky to get the tone right this year. While he’s said he’ll be keeping in mind what the Los Angeles area has been through, when it comes to making fun of the stars in the audience he’s joked he intends to “go after the ones that have personally been cruel” to him over the years. Fair enough.

P is for A Real Pain

The story of two cousins who travel to Poland to retrace their family’s history, A Real Pain is written by and also stars Jesse Eisenberg. However, it’s his co-star Kieran Culkin who’s stealing the limelight this awards season. He’s enjoyed a best supporting actor winning streak at ceremonies including the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, giving show-stealing speeches that have livened things up a bit.

Q is for Queer (and other snubs)

When you have so many films, so few nomination spaces to fill, there are always going to be those that miss out. Many felt Daniel Craig should have been up for best actor for his performance in Queer, in which he plays an American expatriate in 1950s Mexico City who becomes infatuated with a younger man. Elsewhere, Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of opera singer Maria Callas in Maria also failed to make an impact with the Academy, as did Hugh Grant’s performance in the horror Heretic. London-born actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste also missed out, despite a BAFTA nod and critical acclaim for her performance in Hard Truths. Others who were considered contenders include Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Selena Gomez (Emilia Perez), Denzel Washington (Gladiator II) and Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl).

R is for Robots (of the wild variety)

Lupita Nyong’o plays the ROZZUM unit 7134, otherwise known as Roz in the adaptation of Peter Brown’s New York Times bestseller Wild Robot. This best animation offering follows Roz the android as it washes up on a remote island and becomes an adoptive parent to an orphaned gosling. This one’s a real tear-jerker and while much has been written about the film’s animated artistry – with some critics claiming it’s the best animated film of the year, if not the decade – its music, written by Kris Bowers, is equally as impressive.

S is for Sing Sing

This is the true story of an arts programme for men incarcerated at a prison in New York State. Alongside Colman Domingo, who’s up for best actor, and Paul Raci, most of the cast is made up of former prisoners playing themselves, who attended the group during their sentences. While Domingo isn’t the frontrunner to win in his category, he has, once again, been setting the bar for men’s fashion on the red carpets this year, so look out for his outfit.

T is for The Substance

Body horror movie The Substance has given its star Demi Moore a career reboot like no other. The timely narrative about an older actress refusing to fade into obscurity, with horrifying consequences, is one voters are likely to lap up. It saw Moore take best actress in a musical or comedy at the Golden Globes, giving an acceptance speech in which she spoke about being written off as a “popcorn actress” early on in her career – which has laid the ground for further wins, including a Critics Choice gong. Can she add an Oscar to the shelf?

U is for Unknown

Chalamet’s second punt at best picture sees him pick up the guitar and give it some mumbling Bob Dylan energy in A Complete Unknown, playing the Nobel prize-winning folk hero. The star spent five years working on his singing, harmonica and guitar skills. Could the Academy reward him for his efforts with the best actor gong? Interestingly, if he beats Adrien Brody, he will also steal the actor’s current record as the youngest ever best actor winner; Brody was 29 years and 343 days old when he won in 2003 for his performance in The Pianist, while Chalamet will be 29 years and 65 days old on Oscar night.

V is for Vampires

Based on the 1922 film Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robert Eggers’s film sees Bill Skarsgard transform into vampire Count Orlok in a nod to classic cinema. Skarsgard, who also played Pennywise the clown in 2017 horror IT, says it took a while for him to distance himself from the eerie feeling he embodied as Nosferatu. The film is up for cinematography, production design, costume, and make-up and hairstyling awards.

W is for Wicked

The Wizard Of Oz prequel starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo is one of the highest-grossing musical adaptations of all time – and its stars press interviews have been just as box office. But will it have the same magic touch at the Academy Awards? Its up for best picture but faces tough competition, so is more likely to claim victories in the costume, make-up, score and sound categories.

X is for The SiX Triple Eight

X is always the tricky one, isn’t it? This mention is actually less about Tyler Perry’s Second World War drama but about songwriter Diane Warren, the woman responsible for its one Oscar nod. Despite being nominated 16 times she has never won an Academy Award – not even for Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (Mannequin, 1988), Celine Dion’s Because You Loved Me (Up Close & Personal, 1997), or Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing (Armageddon, 1999). A travesty! This time, Warren is up for best song for The Journey, performed by H.E.R. Warren does have an honorary Oscar, awarded in 2022, just not a competitive one, and she told Variety: “Yes, I would like to break my decades-long tradition and win.”

Y is for Yuck!

A 13 minute French animated short about childhood and the discovery of love, centred around a boy called Leo who thinks kissing is the grossest thing ever. While the big hitters get most of the airtime and attention, if you can’t face sitting through another lengthy indie offering it’s worth taking a look at the 15 short films competing across three categories (animated, live-action, and documentary).

Z is for Hans Zimmer

And finally, spare a thought for the two-time Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, who isn’t in the running for best original score this year as his was disqualified. While the music for Dune 2 was as epic as the film itself it did not meet the Academy’s eligibility criteria; the rules are that a nominee must have at least 80% original content in their composition, and although Zimmer composed new pieces for the second instalment it was decided that too much of the score was derived from the first film. Bad luck, Hans.

The Oscars ceremony takes place on Sunday night. Check the Sky News website from Sunday afternoon to follow the entire event on our live blog

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Inside the batting cages at the Boston Red Sox‘s spring training complex, where the future of hitting is playing out in real time, the best trio of position prospects in a generation blossomed.

Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer have spent hundreds of hours in the building, rotating around its 10 tunnels, though their best work always seems to happen in Cage 4, right inside the main entrance. When they walk through the door, underneath a sign with a Ted Williams quote in big, capital letters — “WE’RE GOING TO LEARN HOW TO DO TWO THINGS … WE’RE GOING TO HIT IT HARD AND WE’RE GOING TO HIT IT IN THE AIR” — they enter a hitting laboratory. Every cage is equipped with a HitTrax that gives them real-time batted-ball data. Trash cans house an array of training bats — overweight and underweight, long and short, skinny. A Trajekt robot, capable of replicating every pitch thrown in the major leagues over the past half-decade, is joined by a dozen other standard pitching machines. Exit velocity leaderboards dot the walls.

Here, Campbell, Anthony and Mayer are in the middle of everything, appropriate for what their future holds. They’re learning modern hitting philosophy, applying it in an array of competitions that aim to turn their tools into skills, jamming to Bachata and Reggaeton and rap and rock, talking immense amounts of trash. On a small desk inside Cage 4 sit two binders outlining the Red Sox’s hitting philosophy: one in English and one in Spanish. These binders outline what the organization’s hitting coaches refer to as its Core Four tenets: swing decisions, bat speed, bat-to-ball skill and ball flight.

As pitchers have leveraged baseball’s sabermetric revolution into designer offerings and a sportwide velocity jump, hitting has fallen behind. Batting average and weighted on-base average (a metric that measures productivity at the plate) are at low points over the past half-century. Pitchers regularly flummox hitters. The Red Sox believe they can bridge the gap. And the new big three — a nickname that was originally given to Mayer, Anthony and Kyle Teel, the catching prospect at the heart of the trade that brought ace Garrett Crochet to Boston over the winter — are the philosophy’s beta test.

“The training environment is the biggest thing with us,” said Anthony, a 20-year-old outfielder. “We push each other so much, and it’s always that competitive — friendly, but competitive — environment we set in the cage. We talk crap to each other. We really try to get the best out of each other and really beat each other in training. And I think it makes us better when we take the field.”

There, their results are undeniable. Mayer, 22, is a smooth-fielding, left-handed-hitting shortstop who fell to the Red Sox with the No. 4 pick in the 2021 draft, weathered injuries and saw his exit velocity spike and strikeout rate dip last year. Anthony, who signed for a well-over-slot $2.5 million bonus after Boston chose him with the 79^th pick in the 2022 draft, is widely regarded as the best hitting prospect in the minor leagues. The 22-year-old Campbell, a fourth-round pick in 2023 as a draft-eligible redshirt freshman, was a revelation last season, the consensus Minor League Player of the Year who went from unheralded to a prospect coveted even more than Anthony by some teams despite an unorthodox swing.

All three will be in the major leagues sooner than later — for Campbell, perhaps by Opening Day. They’ll bring with them a shared experience they believe will transfer to the big leagues. When they eventually face Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, they’ll have a sense of what to expect, not just because they stood in against him on the Trajekt but because coaches took his best fastballs (100 mph at the top of the zone), added an extra half-foot of rise to them and challenged the kids to hit it.

“You want to be surrounded with the best,” Anthony said, “because it makes you want to become the best.”

IN SEPTEMBER 2023, after the minor league season ended, the Red Sox gathered their minor league prospects at their spring training complex for a two-month offseason camp. Boston’s staff assesses every hitter to form an action plan, and Campbell’s was clear. He made excellent swing decisions and had elite bat-to-ball ability, both of which manifested themselves as he hit .376 with 29 walks and 17 strikeouts over 217 plate appearances in his lone season at Georgia Tech. While the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Campbell swung the bat hard, the Red Sox saw room for improvement. Ball flight represented the biggest area of need after his average launch angle during 22 postdraft pro games was just 2 degrees.

Inside the complex’s cafeteria one day in camp, Campbell was surveying his options when Red Sox hitting coordinator John Soteropulos meandered by. Soteropulos had joined the team after three years as a hitting coach at Driveline Baseball, the Seattle-based think tank where philosophies have pervaded the game over the past decade. Soteropulos noticed shepherd’s pie on the cafeteria’s menu and alerted Campbell.

“You need to eat that,” Soteropulos said. “It’s got bat speed in it.”

“I hope it has ball flight, too,” Campbell said.

While Mayer entered the MLB ecosystem as a top prospect and Anthony a tooled-up could-be star, Campbell was different. Taken with the compensatory pick the Red Sox received when longtime shortstop Xander Bogaerts signed with the San Diego Padres, Campbell signed for less than $500,000. His swing was janky. He needed work. Soteropulos, director of hitting and fellow Driveline alum Jason Ochart and assistant farm director Chris Stasio were empowered by Red Sox management to implement their new systems in hopes of extracting the best version of later-round picks like Campbell — and if it worked, he would represent the proof of concept.

From the moment he arrived in the organization, Campbell impressed the staff with his desire to learn. And challenging players beyond the perfunctory repetitions hitters take — the same soft flips in the batting cage, the same 60 mph batting practice before every game — is at the heart of Boston’s philosophy.

Professional baseball players, the thinking goes, are elite problem solvers. Giving them complex problems drives them to adapt. If they train in environments that don’t take them outside of their comfort zone, improvement is negligible. Challenging hitters, whether with the Trajekt or with machine balls that fly only when struck on the sweet spot or with slim bats that emphasize barrel control or hundreds of other ways, forces that adaptation. And it’s those changes that take a nonexistent or atrophied skill and give it heft.

“I really wanted to go to a team that could develop me into a great player and that will take the time to help me because I feel like I’m really coachable and I listen,” Campbell said. “I just need the right information. And if I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s hard for me to correct and change things.”

Over those two months, the Red Sox didn’t overhaul Campbell’s swing as much as they found the best version of it. Thirty years ago, Coop DeRenne, a professor at the University of Hawaii, ran a study on overload and underload training that showed it significantly improved bat speed. The industry has mostly ignored its findings, but Driveline embraced them and brought them to the Red Sox. Campbell trained two days a week with bats that were 20% heavier and 20% lighter than standard 31-ounce bats. Though he whipped his bat through the zone with a preternatural ability to stay on plane — the angle of the bat meeting the angle at which the pitch arrived at home plate — delivering the barrel with greater force reinforced a tenet Red Sox coaches preach repeatedly: “The bats do the work for you.”

The bigger challenge was adulterating Campbell’s swing to hit the ball in the air. Williams, who wanted to be known as the greatest hitter who ever lived, long advocated for ball flight because he understood a hard-hit ground ball is typically a single while balls struck in the air produce the vast majority of extra-base hits. Pulling the ball in the air is particularly important. The longer a bat takes to make contact, the more speed it generates. Meeting a ball in front — which typically allows a hitter to pull — maximizes the capacity for damage.

Rather than overhaul Campbell’s swing, the Red Sox preferred to let his natural athleticism guide him toward a solution. Instead of moving his hand position or getting rid of his toe-tap, Campbell altered where he wanted to strike the ball, reminding himself with every rep to do something counterintuitive: Swing under it.

“For me, it’s just a feeling,” Campbell said. “You got to know where your barrel is at all times. It was in an odd spot because I was trying to get more elevation on the ball than normal. So I feel like I have to swing under the ball to hit it in the air. And I really was on plane because I’ve been so on top of it all these years.”

Campbell’s barrel aptitude improved by taking reps with a fungo bat or a slim 37-inch bat (3 to 4 inches longer than the standard bat), which forced him to meet the ball farther in front of the plate. The skills learned in doing so eventually meld with a hitter’s’ regular bats, and variations of drills — offsetting standard pitching machines to the side, mixed-pitch Trajekt sessions — allow them to be applied in new, challenging environments. In the cages in Ft. Myers, coaches pitted Campbell and his fellow prospects against one another to see who could hit the ball hardest or most consistently. Winners gloated — “Marcelo talks s— 25/8,” Anthony said — and those who didn’t win returned the next day intent on revenge.

When last winter’s offseason sessions ended, the Red Sox were hopeful they would translate into a breakout season for Campbell. Even they could not have predicted what transpired over the ensuing months. Campbell said he came into 2024 hoping to hit five home runs — one more than in his lone college season. He started the season at High-A Greenville and hit his fifth home run May 9. Less than a month later, with three more home runs on the ledger, he ascended to Double-A, where he spent two months and whacked eight more homers. He was promoted to Triple-A for the final month and added another four, finishing the season hitting .330/.439/.558 with 20 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 74 walks and 103 strikeouts in 517 plate appearances.

“I remember the first time I saw him hit, I was like, ‘The hell is this?’ ” Mayer said. “He’s in the cage with the weirdest swing I’ve ever seen, and he’s got his long bat, and I’m like, ‘What?’ Next thing I know, he’s hitting .380.”

When Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story first saw Campbell on a rehabilitation assignment in Triple-A, he was taken by his ability “to self-organize and learn how to solve problems.”

“He has a special talent for moving the bat,” Story said. “His bat speed is just violent. When you hear it, you’re like, oh, s—.”

“It’s controlled violence,” Campbell said. “You got to make sure you see the ball. And then whenever you make a decision to swing, you got to put your fastest, hardest, best swing on it and make sure you stay somewhat under control while that ball is going on so you can hit the ball as well as possible.

“Every swing really can’t be the same. The way pitches move and how good everybody is nowadays, if you take the same swing every time and only can hit certain pitches, that’s a mistake. You’ve got to be able to adjust to different things, different pitches, different locations.”

DURING THE FIRST week of this year’s spring training, before the full Boston squad reported, Red Sox Hall of Famer Dwight Evans stood outside of Cage 4 and admired what he was seeing. Evans spent two seasons as a hitting coach, in 1994 with Colorado and 2002 with the Red Sox, and he recognizes baseball’s evolution. The game changes, and even if all the technology isn’t his cup of tea, he isn’t going to argue with the results.

In Campbell, Mayer and Anthony, he doesn’t see prospects. Without an at-bat to their names in MLB, they remind Evans — who spent 20 seasons in the major leagues, 19 with Boston — of his peers.

“It’s almost like they’ve been around 10 years in the big leagues,” Evans said. “They just have it. They know what they’re trying to do.”

The Red Sox believe this is just the beginning for Campbell, Mayer and Anthony and that their approach to hitting will create a pipeline of prospects to join a core that includes the trio alongside All-Stars Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, Alex Bregman and Story, and the young and talented Triston Casas and Ceddanne Rafaela. Buy-in at all levels is paramount, and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, assistant general manager Paul Toboni and farm director Brian Abraham are leaning into the work done by Ochart, Soteropulos and Stasio. Breslow hired Kyle Boddy, who founded Driveline, as a special adviser. Five other former Driveline employees dot the player development, baseball science and major league staffs, and Stasio was promoted over the winter to director of major league development, a new role in which he will apply the development philosophies to the big league club and maintain the continuity for prospects who ascend to Fenway Park.

Campbell is in line to be the first — of many, the Red Sox hope — to crack the big league roster. He’s in competition for the second-base job this spring, a testament to the organization’s belief in him. If he wins it, Bregman will play third and Devers — who has received MVP votes five of the past six years and signed a franchise-record $313.5 million contract — will move to designated hitter, a role he said unequivocally he doesn’t want to play.

The Red Sox see Campbell as worth the potential drama. Perhaps it’s a function of five playoff-free seasons in six years since their 2018 World Series title, but it’s likely simpler: Campbell is too good to keep down. Mayer and Anthony won’t be far behind. The competition fostered in Cage 4 — and the work ethic it demands — isn’t going anywhere.

Even before Campbell’s arrival, Mayer and Anthony had grown close through late-night, postgame hitting sessions. Both have beautiful left-handed swings, more traditional than Campbell’s in which he waggles the bat, pointing it almost directly toward the sky at the swing’s launch point. Starting from a better place than Campbell hasn’t kept either from reaping the benefits of Boston’s program.

“I don’t know if I’m hitting the ball harder because it’s necessarily bat speed or because I’m working in the gym, but both together could only help,” Mayer said. “So over the years, I feel like I’m hitting it harder, I’m moving the bat quicker. I have a better understanding of my swing. So all those things tie in and play a big role and lead to success.”

Knowing which prospects will find major league success is impossible, though in an era defined by objective data, the misses aren’t nearly as frequent. There was no bat-speed data when Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Wil Myers were all top-10 prospects for Kansas City in 2010. Trajekt was a dream machine when Arizona had Justin Upton, Chris Young and Carlos Gonzalez in 2007. Exit velocity was the domain of rocket ships in 2004 when Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy were coming through the Milwaukee system.

It’s a whole new baseball world, and it is on full display in Cage 4, where Campbell, Mayer and Anthony have spent so much time working with their instructors that they joke that Soteropulos might as well sleep there.

“It’s pretty cool to think about how many spring trainings we’ve been in there,” Anthony said. “Looking back at it and being on the big league side, just appreciating guys like John and guys on the minor league side that take so much time out of their days to get us better.”

For all the struggles hitters around baseball have faced, the Red Sox believe in their system — and in this first generation that will serve as a litmus test to its efficacy.

“I’m committed to the game,” Campbell said. “I want to be the best player I can be every day. I want to bring whatever I can to Boston. Once I knew they drafted me, I was like, ‘That’s the team I’m going to debut with. That’s the team I’m going to play with. I want to play with the team for a long time.’ I just knew that I’m going to give all I have to this team that took a chance on me. I’m going to make sure it’s worth it for them and me.”