The Red Sox have claimed right-hander Alex Speas off waivers from the Astros. Speas was designated for assignment by Houston last week.
A second-round pick for the Rangers in the 2016 draft, Speas didn’t really start to live up that prospect status until the 2023 season, when he had a 2.86 ERA over 56 2/3 combined innings (28 1/3 frames each) at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. It was a comeback season for Speas, who missed virtually all of 2019-20 recovering from Tommy John surgery, and he stepped away from baseball entirely in 2022. Speas’ minor league performance earned him his MLB debut, as he had three appearances and two innings with the Rangers last July.
Texas designated Speas for assignment in late September, and the White Sox quickly snapped him up on waivers. This started a run of frequent trips to DFA limbo and the waiver wire for Speas, who was designated by Chicago and then dealt to the A’s in early April, and designated again by Oakland at the start of May before Houston made another claim. This latest stint with the Astros did result in one more big league game for Speas before he was again DFA’ed and now finds himself as a member of the Red Sox organization.
It is easy to see the appeal in Speas, whose fastball sits in the high 90’s and has been known to hit the 100mph threshold. The tremendous velocity has helped Speas post a 32.73% strikeout rate across his 165 1/3 career innings in the minors, yet his whopping 18.24% walk rate provides an easy answer to why the 26-year-old has yet to gain a solid foothold in the big leagues or even in the upper minors. Over 21 2/3 combined Triple-A innings this season, Speas has a 10.38 ERA, and bouncing between three different teams provides only a limited excuse considering that Speas has more walks (22) than innings pitched.
The Sox are the latest team to see if they can solve Speas’ control problems, or at least make them passable enough so he can be a viable Major League hurler. Boston’s pitching development system has been overhauled under new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow with some improved results already showing at the MLB level, and Breslow himself knows a few things about harnessing and managing control issues from his own days as a pitcher.
He’s going to AAA.
If he can actually clear Waivers this time…!
He is currently on the 40-man roster and has 2 options remaining. He would only need to clear waivers if the Red Sox DFA him!
If the Red Sox sign someone who is opting-out as of 7-1 (as many players have), and want that 40-man spot, then a DFA would make sense and he would have to clear.
Dispatching or driving the tow truck?
Bullpen cart insurance!
Red Sox post? Expect 20 comments from Rsox and Fever Pitch telling everyone how wrong they are
Rsox is accurate and respectful. I wouldn’t group him with FPG.
Ha, Fever saying he compliments people? He’s literally delusional. He thinks everything he says is 100% correct. That’s the problem.
How’s that Bogaerts contract going?
He compliments people to gain favor with them. He only does that to hide the fact that he often trolls people who don’t agree with him.
Fever’s like a little kid. It’s so obvious. I’m sure he has attachment issues, not to be mean. This place is probably his life, sad to say.
All in – 100% accurate on your Rsox and FPG assessment! FPG could be lumped in with KD17 and 30parks for their wonderful, happy dispositions though…..lol
Murray – Yet another account just to get my attention? Sad.
BTW – Nobody compliments others more than I do. But don’t let facts get in the way of your spectrum fueled obsession.
I will vouch for fever pitch guy. Yes he goes off the rails sometimes but don’t we all if we post often enough?
Sure he’s often critical of the red sox, but he’s pretty engaging with fellow posters and friendly enough to count him as a good dude.
Can’t say the same for some others who use foul language or attack with derogatory adjectives for no reason at all. I don’t think fever pitch guy has ever once called me an idiot LOL.
He spends the majority of his time complimenting the people that agree with him and trolling those who don’t hardly a good guy.
The guys who aren’t good guys are those who call others names they shouldn’t in this type of venue. If you can refrain from that and have a conversation, you’re a good guy.
He doesn’t refrain from doing that. He often insults people that don’t agree with him and he talks up and compliments people like Trollfree/KD that insult people constantly. even by that low bar that you’ve set he still doesn’t clear it.
True, he and KD17 will team up often times slapping each other on the back for such great takes and posts. That’s a black mark for sure but we’ve all got our imperfections. Especially if we post 100 times a week. I’d still say FPGuy is a good dude.
if you standard to be a good guy is not insulting or name calling people then FPG shouldn’t be consider one because he does both. it’s OK if you think he’s a good dude but he clearly insults and also trolls like crazy.
I get it acell. I respect your opinion and I’m sure you have your reasons. I haven’t read every post the two of you had among each other so I’m just giving you my perspective. Your perspective is the right one for you. All good.
Fair point Gary. all good with me as well.
also trolls like crazy.
=======================
I gave up on KP when he said that Dalbec was better than Olson, and I believe he said that it wasn’t close.
I gave up on FP when he said that the only reason why the RS and BJs were so close in the first half was because of all of the BJ’s injuries, even though they might’ve been the healthiest team in history.
Then he followed that up by criticizing the RS signing too many waiver wires. As proof, he showed me like 30 additions in one day. Of course, all 30 were international draftees.
Fever embarrassed himself pretty badly and never took any ownership of that mistake.
Gary – Thank you, and no I never did or would!
My motto is don’t do anything online that I wouldn’t do face to face.
And that definitely includes using the “t” word! Lol!!
I’d never group Rsox and FPG.
Organization got Booser to throw strikes out of nowhere after he had quit the game and he was one of those upper 90’s guys before that just reached back, then threw as hard as he could.
Maybe this will be another guy bailey’s bunch will be able to teach throwing nothing but FB’s as hard as he can isn’t the way.
John – I agree it doesn’t hurt to take a flyer, as long as he’s not called up and immediately thrown into a high leverage situation facing Judge and Soto or something like that.
But let’s face it, teams trying to convert throwers into pitchers is the oldest storyline in MLB and almost always doesn’t work out longterm.
I’ll try to limit myself to 1 comment. Whether anyone is wrong or not is subjective. Bottom line Sox need pitching depth badly and there is lots of swing and miss potential in Speas. We’ll see if Breslow can harness it
Rsox – Don’t let them bully you. I appreciate all your comments, including the few I don’t agree with.
This website’s Red Sox commentariat is so much better all around than the other site I visit. So much better. There are quite a few posters here whose thoughts I look forward to reading. Disagreements are normal, and needn’t be ad hominem (as they always are in that other place . . . ).
Horace – I agree SOSH sucks and it’s no surprise the traffic there has dropped down considerably now that the golden Red Sox era is nearly 6 years in the past.
Ditto Fever. Some (several) sites follow a sox “company” line so stringent it makes me sick. Stopped long ago posting anywhere but here and rarely at 1 other, had totally forgotten about SOSH, been years since been to that place. obvious reasons.
mlbtr, good and bad has been the best thry the years. Phone crowd drug it down quality wise, made it just to easy to jump on and spammers/trolls.
john – I totally agree! What’s the point of trying to have discussions when people can’t even acknowledge the team’s shortcomings, mistakes, or areas that could use improvement.
That place became popular because G38 started posting there. Then the owner allowed a group of entitled elitists (several of whom were mods) to become territorial and gang up on newcomers, apparently they thought being a member for 10 years meant they were better than everyone else.
I’m involved in other forums, but I like it here and will never leave as long as Tim is running the place.
What really gets me is how some sites give cover to mistakes to organizations and players in particular Fever. by washing over mistakes they make, all to keep whatever crumbs of information they “might” recieve from the organization flowing, which it pretty much has to be.
going to rehash a little in case not aware of my past some with sox.. Dad was bud’s with fairly higher up with sox locally. early on i was a stalwart in and around red Sox clubhouse, on the field.. everywhere during Sox ST once the team moved it to winter haven, mid 60’s. many of the “stars” had winter homes within 2-3 blocks of us, Yaz for instance for years, used to boat all the time on (then) beautiful lake Howard.
Players, some would show up during ST will obvious hangovers, partied all night. I, and anyone could see this. anyone knows this still goes on, but do all these 100’s of now “on the ball” sites report this? of course not.
used to have a handfful of coaches at the time who would properly chew the same culprits out. didn’t do much good since they would do it again, but they would here about it and I’d love to write the names, but they are all deceased ex for 1 coach.
Flow of information, or telling the truth. I used to complain to 1 guy at 1 site, did little good and he knew my back story.
BTW.. my kid is now nearing 40 and still loves it when pop out an old yaz/hawk/Tiant yarn from the dayz..
John – That’s amazing stuff, thank you for sharing. No I wasn’t aware of your background, I’ve been here only about 3 years or so.
I think part of sites giving cover is because they rely on the connections. Quite often it’s a “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” deal. That’s one reason why I like it here so much, Tim isn’t a sellout.
I can imagine some of those players you’re talking about, obviously Boggs and Boyd had the reputations. I think it was Margo that referred to Roger as “Mr. Perfect” because he would never drink too much or cheat on his wife, that was good to hear.
I never made it to the park in Winter Haven, but I know it was demolished just recently. Any stories you’d like to share and are able to do so, I’d be thrilled to hear them. I’m always interested in behind the scenes stuff.
Rsox – Agreed, Soxprospect podcasting on the Red Sox minor leaguers has commented a number of times this year as to the lack of high velocity arms in the Red Sox Minor league systems.
That said, most of their top prospects are position players, and the most of the better pitching prospects they have have been acquired from other organizations: Fitts, Sandlin, and Slaten (in MLB). The Red Sox top pitching prospect Luis Perales just had TJ and will be out 12-18 months….
Problem is the Sox are too much up and down. We will be in the wild card race by the deadline but hopefully Breslow is smart because like the last two years, we nibble the standings with a winning record by All Star break until we gradually lose and get it back down to .500. We are incredibly streaky.
Tough to fully sell or buy, but if we make it, there’s no guarantee we go far, so Breslow really has to think before putting all the chips in.