The Red Sox placed Richard Fitts on the 15-day injured list on Tuesday afternoon. The righty is dealing with arm neuritis. Fitts had stepped into a bulk role out of the bullpen on Monday. The Sox needed to replace Walker Buehler in the rotation after moving him to relief last week.
Fitts’ injury again leaves that spot in question. Manager Alex Cora confirmed they’re not going to reverse course on Buehler’s move to relief (link via Tim Healey of The Boston Globe). That means they’ll need to bring someone up for Saturday’s start against the Pirates. Cooper Criswell went on the minor league injured list last week. That leaves Kyle Harrison as the only healthy depth starter on the 40-man roster.
Harrison started tonight’s game with Triple-A Worcester. However, the Sox removed him after three innings and 38 pitches. That’d appear to tip their hand that they’re viewing Harrison as the choice for Saturday. He’d be on three days rest but that should be sufficient recovery time after today’s abbreviated outing.
The southpaw has been on optional assignment since the Sox acquired him as the centerpiece of the Rafael Devers return. He has a 3.65 ERA in 11 starts for Worcester, though he’s averaging less than five innings per appearance. Tonight’s deliberately brief outing is part of that, but Harrison has continued to struggle with pitch efficiency. That has been the question with Harrison, who has above-average stuff and strikeout potential while issuing a lot of free passes. The 24-year-old had started four of eight MLB appearances with San Francisco earlier this year, allowing a 4.56 ERA through 23 2/3 frames.
The most exciting alternative would be to turn to the organization’s top pitching prospect, Payton Tolle. Asked about a potential Tolle promotion, Cora said the Sox “haven’t talked about that” to this point (relayed by Christopher Smith of MassLive). Tolle is scheduled to start for Worcester on Thursday, so Boston would need to scratch him from that appearance to bring him up.
It’d be an aggressive promotion, as the 22-year-old was bumped up from Double-A less than three weeks ago. Tolle has recorded 17 strikeouts against two walks while allowing six earned runs across 15 innings through a trio of Triple-A starts. He has a cumulative 3.04 ERA while punching out nearly 37% of batters faced between three levels this year.
Payton Tolle would be exciting af and would push the rest of the team just like when they brought up Anthony
Tolle only has had 15 IP in AAA. Not sure the Red Sox want to burn a 40-man spot for him just yet. Maybe Kyle Ferguson from the Devers trade who’s already on their 40?
AAA is widely considered inferior to AA, and Tolle is nearly 23yo who finished college so its not like they’d be rushing an immature kid…
Have you watched him pitch? Dude is a massive 6’6″ machine with insane whiff & K rates and excellent command, his delivery is one of the most deceiving I’ve ever seen. I’m 38yo and he already looks older than me. He’s ready.
Aaa is inferior to AA? Hahahaha. Keep on believing that.
AAA is not widely considered inferior to AS by any means.
What does finishing college have to do with maturity?? Majoring in sports management is by no means the essence of ripening adulthood. Maybe a 23 year old who has been deployed in combat or a 23 year old still working their way through college while footing the bill themselves.
FYI, you should try watching him as well. His delivery is not particularly deceptive. What is deceptive is the speed of his pitches, hes tall with a long wingspan so the late release makes ball seem faster and cuts reaction time the batter has.
@andre @tigers – Yes, many experts have long agreed that AA is objectively the most challenging level of minor league baseball.. It’s actually disappointing that there are still baseball fans that would even debate this. I just sent a screenshot in Slack to an actual MLB scout who manages in one of my online OOTP leagues and they had a good laugh at your responses, FWIW.
The facts of the matter is that AAA is filled with 30+ year old veterans who can’t hack it in the majors with an overall league average age of 28yo, whereas AA is largely filled with the top young prospects in the sport. There’s a reason many of the top prospects played at AAA the least of their minor league career, or skip it entirely, when called up to the show.
I’ve watched Tolle pitch nearly every game thanks to Milb baseball telecasts. He does hide the ball quite well he comes straight down line right at you with nearly 8 feet of extension. His fastball is elite and hitters don’t pick it up very well. His extension is the highest in baseball. He came into the season really as just a fastball slider guy and the fastball before this year was 91-92 now he’s sitting 94-97 depending on the game you see him he’s also throwing a cutter a curve and changeup and those pitches have shown massive improvements over the season. He has a repeatable delivery and he throws strikes.
It’s not so much that he’s immature it’s that he has very little experience above A ball. Considering that rushing Campbell was a disaster, why not give the good prospects some minor league experience before dumping them in a pennant race.
The most challenging does not mean inferior. The overall experience and proven talent without question is at AAA.
As far as challenging, that is in regards to the players themselves not the overall level of competition. And the reason being is thats where the first true line of legit MLB prospects is crossed by most on the rosters. At AA players for the first time face consistent across board MLB type potential and talent.
Few players skip AAA entirely. I always find it laughable when someone making unsubstantiated claims conveniently references some unnamed professional of sorts. Just a further unsubstantiated claim by someone trying to use BS to back an assumption they made.
Tigers I believe that AAA is a massive jump for pitchers especially. I can only talk about the IL but the strike zone seems to be much tighter in AAA and the challenge system seems to have something to do with that. I’ve seen a lot of good pitchers who throw a lot of strikes struggle with the AAA strike zone.
Boston plays there AA games in an extremely friendly pitchers park and Polar Park in Worcester is a friendly hitting environment. So pitchers go from a bigger strike zone and an extreme pitching environment to smaller strike zone and much better hitting environment. It’s why what Tolle has done has been amazing despite the smaller strike zone he continues to adjust and throw strikes and there quality strikes. Don’t sleep on Connelly Early either he’s a five pitch pitcher who’s adjusted well to AAA really only had one bad outing since being promoted I’m very pleased with how well he’s taken to AAA.
Turd Ferguson’s brother?
If the rotation fitts- the pitching staff should acquit itself quite nicely come October
Seasons almost over, time to see what Harrison can do
Time to win, not to see what AAA pitchers can do. Promote the best guys
The Sox’s are in the heat of a playoff race, not eval time, time to go, get the best you got to the show and win some games.
Who would drop from the 40 if Tolle came aboard?
No one needs to be dropped — Mayer can go to the 60day IL
They could just transfer Fitts to the 60-day IL, I highly doubt that he’s coming back this season after immediately losing feeling in his hand after that pitch
The postseason has been sprinkled with young guns that had made a significant difference thru out the last 30 plus years… late call ups etc.. can’t hurt to try one or the other seeing how they need someone anyways….
But if Quinn the Eskimo (Priester) stayed there, everybody would be jumping for joy. That trade was as stupid as the Sale deal.
Sale got hurt and missed the playoffs last season and has missed pretty much this entire year because of injury. AND If they signed, Sale to an extension, Crochet wouldn’t be here now..
Trading Sale was smart, getting Grissom? Not so much.
If you trade a guy and he immediately wins the cy young, you better get a hall of famer back in returns. Also, thanks so for sending him to the Braves, you jerks.
Not if the Cy Young Winner misses the playoffs and basically all of the next year.
That’s who Sale is: a great pitcher who can’t stay on the field.
I am certain that Braves fans everywhere are proud of how well you represent them with your baseball intellect and your inspiring interaction with the human race. Chop, chop, chop.
Anfremets-If you thought that Sale was going to win the Cy, you should’ve traded for him. Your bad.
Ghost – That was the brunt of my point. I “get” that they were probably antsy about getting performances out of Sale, but the Sox always seem like they’re being held at gunpoint when making a deal. Sale, Betts and Priester combined should have gotten them a wealth of talent. Combined, what do they have on their roster to show for all of them? Connor Wong?
If Priester was that good ,why did the Pirates not get better prospects back for him?
Sale was getting you nothing but salary relief. Preister was acquired for very little, so he wasn’t going to get us any more than we gave up.
The Pirates wouldn’t give up any prospects because Priester was traded to the Brewers.
I wish he was in Boston because he’s had an outstanding year and the back end of our rotation is a mess. The trade was kind of a head scratcher at the time. Mostly, I remember thinking it didn’t make sense to trade away rotation depth. But I never thought we were giving up anything other than roster filler.
The Red Sox thought the no. 33 draft pick and it’s slot value ($2.89M) had more value than Priester.
Plus the Sox got two other prospects.
It amazes me that people thought we traded a former AAA prospect for Priester and then think we’re getting someone much better in exchange.
Are you related to Priester because comparing a guy that’s had barely half a season of above average pitching to Sale is ridiculous. and that’s coming form someone who didn’t have a problem with either trade at the the time.
If only they added a top of the rotation arm at the deadline instead of settling for May. Sigh.
This is about trying to suss out a 5th starter for a month, who won’t even be pitching in the playoffs, not about a “top of the rotation arm”
It’s too bad Criswell is injured, he was fine last year, and has been this year as well.
And how exactly would that have changed things? They’d still need a 5th starter right now with the Fitts injury and demoting Buehler to the pen.
“And how exactly would that have changed things?
“It’s too bad Criswell is injured, he was fine last year, and has been this year as well.”
So apparently you don’t have an answer. I guess logic is too hard for you to grasp.
If Criswell was healthy, he’d be the 5th.
Crochet
Bello
Giolito
May
Criswell
Seems pretty obvious.
Normally I’m against these types of promotions with pitchers but with Tolle, it’s literally his control, size, and mechanics that make him elite. His extension makes his 95-98mph fastball feel like triple digits to a batter. Delivery is effortless. Doesn’t over throw. His first AAA start he gave up 5 of the 6 earned runs in his first inning and bounced back only giving up 1 in the next 14 innings. To me that says the head is there too. He doesn’t need to go out there a change a thing. I say rock and roll.
I saw him pitch in Portland a month or so back.
Total man vs boys vibe.
Been to hundreds of games at hadlock since the opening in the mid 90s. Never seen a bad game. I love that park
Definitely agree with Sean and Ghost here, the “kid” (who already looks older than me at 38yo) is elite and clearly ready for the majors, only concern is that he’s never pitched this many innings in a season before.
Just like he settled down after the rough first inning in his AAA debut, he seems to get more locked in as the game progresses.. as seen when he retired 15 straight batters after giving up a leadoff double in his last start. Struckout 1 in the 1st, 2 in the 2nd, then 3 in the 3rd (to make it 5 in a row). So it seems that if you’re gonna do any damage against Tolle, you better get it done quickly out of the gate before he really settles in.
His first AAA start should have been scoreless. With one out and a runner on first he induced a routine double playground ball to second baseman Romero. Romero booted the ball and then walk, homer, single, homer. The important thing though after that inning he gave up no more runs he had something like 35 pitches in the first and less than 40 the other 4 innings.
Tolle isn’t necessarily the top pitching prospect, but he certainly is the closest.
Tolle is the Sox top pitching prospect. Age 22 ,250 pounds, huge, 3 years of college ball. Has been dominating at AAA . He is the most capable of our choices to start Saturday against the Pirates. This team deserves to have its most talented pitcher give it his shot. Like Rob Bradford referred to with David Price and Tampa Bay,all the way to the W.S. Do it. Breslow.
Witherspoon is close as far as rankings, but obviously not ready
I think we will see a similar rise through the rankings for Witherspoon next year, provided he’s healthy. Guy has the great fastball, like Tolle, but also already has secondaries.
To give some context, it looks like Tolle was 13th going into the season on SoxProspects. That’s with the trio of Anthony/Campbell/Mayer.
Witherspoon is 4th. Yeah those three graduated, so less at the tippy top but it’s clear Witherspoon is the better prospect coming out of the draft.
Now does that translate to the better player? Of course not! But it’s interesting to look at.
I am unreasonably excited for Witherspoon. Can’t wait to see him pitch.
Tolle at this point is the best Red Sox pitching prospect and imo might be the best pitching prospect in baseball now after a few graduations. His elite fastball, his command, and rapidly improving secondaries along with his tenacity on the mound. This combination along with his mound maturity and elite extension make me think he’s underrated in the eyes of the experts he’s going to be real good one.
The PT lineup is 1-12 v Harrison with a 0.00 ERA with a 5/0 K/W. Obviously a very small sample, but could create a psychological advantage for Harrison.
JB
You would go with Harrison??. I would like to see a Tolle vs Skenes matchup.. how cool would that be .. It’s his time….
Very interesting stats. I’m sold, though I’d love to see Tolle get a chance going into the stretch run.
Easy on the Tolle, boys. Let him pitch and watch what happens. Yeesh.
Small thing but Tolle is scheduled to start on Friday not Thursday.
I’d call up who is the most deserving regardless of age or AAA experience Tolle seems ready
That would be Early, a pretty darned good lefty