WooSox Photo/Ashley Green/USA TODAY NETWORK
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb. A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here. All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Projectable DSL Hitters
- Justin Gonzales, 1B
- Christopher Alvarado, 2B
- Jhoan Peguero, RF
- Efren Teran, INF
Just because of the way my sources and available video resources worked out, I have more notes on Boston’s DSL Red team than their DSL Blue squad, so there’s outsized representation of that group in this section of the org audit. Gonzales is one of my more trusted source’s favorite DSL Blue hitters. He’s a 6-foot-4 first baseman who has been very tough to strike out so far this summer. Alvarado is only 5-foot-10, but he’s long and sinewy in a way that seems like he’s poised to fill out. He also has the best bat speed on the roster. Peguero is more of a traditional corner outfield power projection guy at 6-foot-2. Teran is a switch-hitting infielder (he’s playing all over) with natural swing loft who needs to get stronger.
Compact Rookie-level Hitters
- Anderson Fermin, CF
- Avinson Pinto, SS
- Raimundo De Los Santos, CF
- Vladimir Asencio, OF
Fermin (DSL) tracks pitches very well and has the speed to develop in center. His sweeping, downward bat path produces very little power right now. Pinto (DSL) is a 70 runner who rotates hard, but his bat isn’t in the zone very long. De Los Santos (FCL) is a plus runner who looks like a center field fit, but he’s very small and requires a ton of effort to swing hard. Asencio signed for $1 million in January. He wasn’t someone who my sources brought up before signing day as a player I needed to be on, and he’s struggling so far in pro ball.
Catchers
- Nathan Hickey, C
- Johanfran Garcia, C
- Brooks Brannon, C/1B
Hickey was a 2021 fifth rounder out of Florida who hit 15 bombs in Portland last year. I don’t think he has the arm to catch and the strikeouts are a problem if we’re talking about first base. Johanfran Garcia (Jhostynxon Garcia’s little brother) is a power-hitting catcher who blew his ACL in May. He isn’t a lock to stay behind the dish and, like Hickey, the K’s will probably be an issue if he can’t. Brannon was a high school draftee who signed for just north of $700,000 in 2022. He’s a stout, power-hitting catcher who has dealt with a knee issue this year. He has still not played very much actual baseball in parts of three seasons.
DSL Arms
- Yoelvin Chirino, RHP
- Dalvinson Reyes, RHP
- Dariel Morillo, RHP
Chirino is a 19-year-old righty who looks like he’s had a growth spurt. He has most definitely had an arm strength bump this year, sitting 94-95 in the DSL compared to 90-91 in 2023. A 6-foot-5 17-year-old righty, Reyes has an advanced two-seamer/changeup/slider mix and is sitting 90-91. Morillo is an undersized 17-year-old righty sitting 88-91, but he can spin his breaking ball in the 2,800-3,000 rpm range.
Velo Only
- Ryan Zeferjahn, RHP
- Helcris Olivarez, LHP
- Wyatt Olds, RHP
- Alex Hoppe, RHP
Zeferjahn has touched 100 this year and was performing well at Double-A, but things have taken a turn for the worse since his promotion to Worcester. Olivarez was once a very exciting teenage pitching prospect in Colorado who ran into persistent injury trouble and changed orgs. He’s still throwing quite hard (up to 98) and getting a lot of groundballs, but he isn’t throwing strikes. Olds is a low-slot righty with a very long arm swing who sits 93-96 and has a tough-on-righties slider. Hoppe touches 100, but somehow his fastball was only generating an 8% in-zone miss rate as of my last sourced data update.
Injuries
- Bryce Bonnin, RHP
- Bryan Mata, RHP
- Brandon Walter, LHP
Bonnin has had many injuries dating back to college, and they were so persistent that he was released by the Reds before the season. He caught on with Boston and is touching 98 right now. It’s a great story if he can keep it up. Mata is a famous former top prospect whose stuff has never played to its visual evaluation, in part because his fastball shape isn’t effective, in part because his command is pretty rough. We’re at the point now where he’s basically out of option years, and it’s tough to value someone as a prospect when they might just be freely available very soon. Walter was once arguably a top 100 prospect in that 2021-2022 window when his stuff was peaking, but his stuff has either been down or he’s been hurt for long stretches the last couple of years. He is currently on the IL with a shoulder injury.
System Overview
This is perhaps the deepest system in all of baseball, and one of the best, right up there with the Dodgers, Cubs and Orioles in terms of the number of 40+ FV or better prospects. The Red Sox fill their system with toolsy, well-built athletes (everyone on their backfields looks like a Division-I defensive back) and tend to coax more power out of their hitters as they mature. They often target players with demonstrated bat-to-ball competence, alter their approach to be geared for power, and then see whether their hit tools can hold up to the changes. If, like many of the prospects above, it bends but doesn’t break, then you have a pretty dangerous position player prospect. If I had to gripe about something here, it’s that watching Boston’s lower-level affiliates can be a bit grating because I’m pretty sure hitters in this system are being told to swing less and less. If you follow these prospect lists consistently (thank you, I’m almost done), you know that there are players whose data indicates to me that they are artificially patient. Their swing and chase rates are incredibly low, but when you look at the way they swing and chase with two strikes, there’s a huge spike because when the hitter is truly forced to determine whether or not a pitch is a strike, they can’t. It’s common sense that a hitter’s two-strike chase rate would be higher than their baseline chase because you have to protect against borderline pitches, but when the gap is like Cutter Coffey’s (his chase rate doubles with two strikes), it makes those early takes feel premeditated. This dynamic is evident up and down Boston’s system. Look at these walk rates. Is it strategically sound? Sure. Is it annoying when you’re trying to see Franklin Arias swing more than once in games you flew to Florida to see? Yes. Again, this is a cranky, personal gripe, but more practically (and to justify keeping this paragraph in here), it’s also a word of warning not to take minor league walk rates at face value — the BoSox are far from the only org whose hitters show this tendency. On the pitching side, Boston gravitates more toward undersized prospects who are plus athletes. The particular flavor of athleticism may vary. There are guys in the explosive and powerful bucket (like Luis Perales and Yordanny Monegro), and then there are those in the graceful and loose bucket (most…
