This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Look at Wilyer Abreu in the early to middle innings of most Red Sox games, and his uniform is filthy.

Inevitably, he is diving -- and usually catching -- a ball in right field.

On the other side of the ball, he’s stealing a base or hustling for an extra base -- activities that leave his body covered in dirt.

In his rookie season, Abreu is doing a little bit of everything for the Red Sox, and he's doing it all with abandon.

“Every time I see myself with dirt on my uniform, I feel happy because I feel like I’m giving 100 percent and feel like I’m helping the team,” said Abreu. “For me to be able to help this team win is very important.”

For all the talk leading into the season about Evan Carter, Jackson Holliday, Wyatt Langford and some of the other more glamorous young players, Abreu is exceeding the pack of American League rookie position players through the first two months of the season.

Entering Monday, among qualified AL rookies, Abreu leads in OPS (.829), hits (46), doubles (14), extra-base hits (22) and total bases (82). He ranks second in batting average (.272) and runs scored (26). Abreu is third in home runs (six) and stolen bases (seven).

While pitchers like Mason Miller and Luis Gil might ultimately win out over all the position players in the AL Rookie of the Year race, that whole topic is off Abreu’s radar.

“To be honest, that’s not even something that’s on my mind,” Abreu said. “I’m just trying to help the team win and trying to do my part. If at the end of the year, the numbers are there and I’m the Rookie of the Year, that’s going to make me very happy. But right now, that's not something that is even remotely on my mind.”

Abreu’s offense is sturdy, but his defense in right field has stood out. To watch Abreu go back on a ball, put out his arm as if it is a reach of desperation and so often come up with the ball makes it look like he has a magnet attached to his glove.

How does he keep coming up making those catches?

“For me, I think that the key thing for me is I never give up on the ball,” Abreu said. “I play the ball until the last second and that’s the key. And even if I feel like the ball is over my head, I still go for it hard.”

Then there is the arm. Abreu made a throw to the plate in Friday night’s contest against the Tigers that registered at 100.7 mph, per Statcast. It was the third-hardest throw by an outfielder this season. Initially, Abreu was credited with throwing the runner out at the plate, and it would have been the hardest assist in MLB this season. Alas, the call was overturned upon review.

But it didn’t take away from the laser-beam throw, which traveled nearly 300 feet with perfect accuracy.

“That’s the hardest throw I’ve made in my career,” Abreu said. “After that play, I didn’t think the throw was that hard, but when everyone told me it was 101 and I was very surprised by it. I felt like it was a normal throw. I didn’t expect it was anything special.”

Abreu’s average max-effort throw this season is 94.6 mph, putting him in the 98th percentile.

Perhaps because he wasn’t a top prospect for the Astros -- who signed him out of Venezuela as an international free agent in July 2017 -- Abreu has kept that mindset to be relentless in everything he pursues.

He was acquired along with Enmanuel Valdez at the 2022 Trade Deadline from the Astros for Christian Vázquez, whose contract expired at the end of that season. In other words, this trade has already gone down as a win for Boston.

“He’s fun to watch. Everyone knows about the quality of the at-bat,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “He can play good defense. He can run the bases. He's a complete player.”

While Abreu never became a top Astros prospect, Cora credits that organization with positioning him to make an impact once he got to the Red Sox.

“Just a tight swing with a tight strike zone,” Cora said. “He comes from an organization that preaches dominating the strike zone from day one. He's gonna get on base, and even when he's ‘struggling,’ it’s a good at-bat. I'll just keep saying it: He’s a good player.”