The Red Sox have added five of their top prospects to the organization’s 60-man player pool, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com (via Twitter) and Alex Speier of the Boston Globe (Twitter links). That leaves the organization with five remaining openings.
Infielder Jeter Downs, the club’s consensus top prospect, leads the way. He’ll report for Summer Camp along with outfielder Jarren Duran, southpaw Jay Groome, and righties Tanner Houck and Bryan Mata.
Every one of those players has a top-ten spot on the latest MLB.com Red Sox farm ranking, so it’s a significant infusion of organizational talent. The club obviously doesn’t expect any of these youngsters to crack the Opening Day roster, or they’d have been in camp already, but they’ll now have a chance to train at full throttle with the team’s other best players.
Though Downs is the most-awaited of the group — expectations are high after he came over in the Mookie Betts swap — it seems the two righties have the clearest near-term path to the majors. Houck reached Triple-A last year and Mata topped out at Double-A, so both are among the more advanced arms that could be called upon if a need arises.
We want Blaze Jordan in Summer Camp!
We want Blaze Jordan in Red Sox Summer Camp!
Jeter Downs always sounds like the racetrack Derek Jeter will open after the Marlins are sold to Nashville?
I’d like your comment better if you weren’t a mets fan, but I thumbs upped you. It was good my guy 🙂
I think he was talking about politics.
really do wonder how long Houck will have to wait to make that dimished rotation.
Id take him over 3/5 of them right now
Given the current state of the Red Sox rotation, I wouldn’t be surprised if Houck ends up making it to the MLB club at some point this season. Mata is the real gem here, though. If he can sure up his control a bit, he has the ceiling of a #2 or #3 starter in the majors by 2022 at the latest.
i mean dont see how Houck doesnt get any starts given the lack of a AAA season for reps. even if it was in a better state he’d still probably push for a spot pretty quickly
On a side note, 20 year-old Triston Casas is still ranked as the #1 prospect for Boston, slightly above 21 year-old Jeter Downs. At least that’s how soxprospects.com has them ranked. Both should be regulars in the majors by 2022, provided there is no lockout of course!
Surprising Casas wasn’t included. He seems like the kind of guy we would want to have hanging out and training with the big league club. Pretty much everywhere has him as either 1a or 1b with Downs.
The fact that Groome was added, who is a lesser prospect currently further away from the majors, makes it a bit of a head scratcher to exclude Casas.
Groome must be added to the 40 next offseason or he’ll be rule 5 eligible. I’m sure they want to see him more before making that decision.
Casas probably will be amongst the final five.
Casas will be a mega star.
It’s not likely but I’d love to see Jay Groome get a few innings in at the big leagues.
He’s been through a lot. Don’t think he’s ready but I still like him
They’re about to add Jim Lonborg and Lee Stange and Jose Santiago , so anyone is possible.
As long as Billy Rohr can start on opening day against the yankees.
You had to know ’67 was gonna be special after that one.
Bob, while you’re add it, Bill Lee, Rick Wise and Reggie Cleveland and dig up Don Zimmer to manage. At least it will be a fun two months. imagine if there was an Internet in the 70s?
This move literally catapults them into contention for playing actual games before the season is cancelled. So let’s move forward with Pickett’s charge.
Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repelled with over 50% casualties, a decisive defeat that ended the three-day battle and Lee’s campaign into Pennsylvania. Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, Pickett reportedly replied, “I’ve always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”
See, it is about baseball.
@ why h…. no it isn’t…. it’s a calculated troll move. I seen this type of move from you a million times before. You slide your little code words in… “Yankee” “confederate”….. I know what you are up to. Politicking as usual. Your a jabroni
Is this jeter downs guy the real deal? Been hearing about him for a while now….. don’t know enough about him to comment good or bad on his part. What do you all think of that guy?
he seems like a good prospect but i feel he gets a little overrated due to the name. solid minors numbers but its not like he is lighting the world on fire. i think the fact that CIN was willing to part with him in that Dodgers deal suggests they’re not quite sold on him being a star. that said, its not like his production has been bad. seems like a guy who can be a pretty good player, but maybe not a perennial all star type.
His stock took a big jump after first season with LAD. Maybe they unlocked something, maybe he did, or maybe it’s mostly hype. But he went from non-Top 100 to Top 60 in multiple rankings so for all we know Cincy regrets giving him up as opposed to being in the know.
All that said, I agree with you that he feels like a solid, not special, big leaguer.
Thanks dark side…. that’s the vibe I get or he would be coming up, But he has to be good to be number one in the system right? Does their system stink or something? Again idk
Jeter Downs could be the next Pokie Reese. 1st round pick, middle infielder, win a championship with the Red Sox. Or not.
He’s a 20/20 guy in the majors. If he settles in at 2nd base as projected, he’ll be an above average offensive player for sure. He just needs his defense to be on the plus side too in order to be a valuable, long term asset to the team. He’s definitely someone to get excited about but maybe never become a perennial all star.
Can somebody please try to explain to me why the “56′ game hit streak is so HALO??? I get it you get a hit in every game for 56 or whatever days Fact ….but you also could be 1-4 for a 162 game hit streak and your still a 250 hitter…What Williams did to me is definitely way more impressive. batting 406… Again you can go 1-4 and have a hit streak of 162 but you cant have many 1-4″s and bat 400(without a lot of 3-4’s) ,(Side note Ted hit higher that Joe during streak) I believe if anyone else not named DiMaggio had the Streak it wouldn’t be as big of a deal Agree?? Disagree …Let me hear ya…
Nobody has gotten within 10 games of DiMaggio’s streak over almost 80 years. I’d say a 56-game hitting streak is a big deal.
Actually, eight years earlier, Joe DiMaggio had a 61-game hitting streak with the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League as an 18-year-old.
Again don’t get me wrong 56 is a top notch feat but as stated, the fact of the matter is you could obtain it while going 1-4/1-5…. Listen Ted said Joe was the best rh hitter he ever saw…. Good enough for me….. To me Joe’s more impressive feet, hitting more HR than K’S
He said batting .400 is “definitely way more impressive”, not that 56-game hitting streak in not impressive. Both have not been done in “almost 80 years”, so both are very hard to do.
Both .400 and 56-games also take a whole lot of luck with bleeders getting through, bloops, and hard hit balls finding holes……
Expansion would water down the talent and make both easier to obtain….
I wonder why the Red Sox waited to add these five players and did not add them from the beginning……. They are the top prospects in the system that are close to MLB….
Houck should get some starts even if it is just as an opener.
Several teams have come out and said they waited to add non-ML ready top prospects until they had a better grasp of how many potential covid cases there were.
With more covid cases teams would have needed more guys closer to ML ready (or guys they wouldn’t mind burning service time on) in their pools. Sox added this group now because cases have been relatively low. They’ll likely add Casas and whoever else as the season starts should no major outbreaks occur.
Joe – thanks, that makes sense. If there were more cases then the Red Sox would have added long term AAA players like:
Chad De La Guerra
Jantzen Witte
Cole Sturgeon
Daniel McGrath
These players as you say the RS would not care about burning service time and have a lot of AA and AAA experience. Witte and McGrath already have 7 years in the RS system and could have been easily removed as the returning players recovered from coronavirus.