The Red Sox will promote pitching prospect Connelly Early to make his major league debut tonight versus the A’s, as first reported by Foul Territory. Katie Morrison-O’Day of MassLive.com noted earlier in this week that Early, a 2023 fifth-round pick, was scratched from his start at Triple-A Worcester because the Sox wanted him to be ready if the big league club had a need this week. MassLive’s Chris Cotillo wrote yesterday that Early was “very much in play” to make his MLB debut within the next couple of days.
Early isn’t on the 40-man roster, so Boston will need to make corresponding transactions to open space on both the active and 40-man rosters. Righty Dustin May will head to the injured list to open an active roster spot, per Foul Territory and Cotillo.
The 23-year-old Early has thrived in both Double-A and Triple-A this season, combining for 100 1/3 innings with a 2.60 earned run average, a huge 31.9% strikeout rate and a 9.7% walk rate. The 6’3″, 195-pound lefty is sitting 93.4 mph on his four-seamer, complementing the pitch with a deep variety of secondary offerings including a slider, changeup, sinker, cutter and curveball (listed in descending order of usage rate). He’s kept the ball on the ground at a strong 50% clip and has thus far posted an excellent 14.3% swinging-strike between Double-A and Triple-A.
Early entered the season ranked tenth among Boston prospects at Baseball America but has climbed to sixth, even after the draft added several new entrants to the top tiers of every system in the sport. Scouting reports at BA, FanGraphs and MLB.com tout Early’s changeup as a plus offering. There’s a wider range of opinions on his slider, but the general consensus is that it at least has the potential to be an above-average, if not plus offering. The Virginia product will join fellow rookie Payton Tolle as a fairly high-profile September addition who could not only help into and throughout the postseason but could very well be auditioning for a 2026 rotation spot.
Although Early wasn’t on the 40-man roster on Sept. 1, he’ll still be eligible for postseason play. Players only need to be in the organization to have eligibility. The Sox will technically need to petition to have Early added to their postseason roster as an injury replacement, but teams do that every year. Depending on May’s timetable, he could simply be added as a replacement for the same pitcher he’s replacing on the active roster today.
There was at least one scenario where the Red Sox wouldn’t have had Early as an option to call up. When speaking with the Diamondbacks about Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen prior to the trade deadline, Early was of interest to Arizona’s front office, Alex Speier and Tim Healey of the Boston Globe report. The Sox were willing to discuss lefty Brandon Clarke but deemed Early too steep a price to pay in those talks, per the Globe duo. Kelly went to the Rangers for a package of three pitching prospects. Gallen stayed in Arizona and will likely receive a qualifying offer.
As for May, it’s not yet clear exactly what type of injury he’s facing. Boston acquired him from the Dodgers at the trade deadline, sending 2024 first-round pick James Tibbs III (whom they’d acquired from the Giants for Rafael Devers) back to Los Angeles in return.
That trade hasn’t gone at all as the Red Sox hoped. May has made six appearances, five of them starts, and pitched to an ugly 5.40 ERA with a lower strikeout rate (19.5%) and higher walk rate (9.8%) than he’d logged in what was already a shaky season with Los Angeles (4.85 ERA). He’s a free agent at season’s end and doesn’t necessarily have a spot on the postseason roster set in stone, so if May needs even three weeks on the injured list, it’s at least feasible that his Red Sox tenure is effectively over. Certainly, both he and the organization will hope he can get back in minimal time and pitch his way into postseason consideration, but time will tell whether that’s plausible.
I’m here Early for the puns.
It’s getting late early.
Too bad he’s not with Cleveland. Bob (Rapid Robert) Feller and Early Wynn baseball history.
Soto – You just ruined a really good pun I had. LOL!!
May I suggest that it’s a bit too Early for puns?
Sounds like you’re right on time
May joining Hicks on the “not good at pitching” IL. Excited for Early, though! He’s been tearing it up.
Meow – Yes I agree, that makes 3 of the 4 pitchers as a result of the Raffy trade who have had injury issues. So far that trade couldn’t have been any worse.
May was nothing more than this year’s version of the Paxton trade deadline acquisition. Damn shame the Sox were too cheap and don’t care about winning, they would be WS favorites if they had acquired a real SP at the deadline.
They could have had Joe Ryan if they gave one of their starting outfield.The Sox were too cheap to not break up the continuity.It looks like if they gave up Early ,they could have had Merrill Kelly or Gallen.You have to give up to get something.
TB – I totally agree!
When Breslow used the trade deadline excuse of “teams have to like our players” he was clearly referring to the players he was willing to trade.
It’s just more evidence Sox management and ownership didn’t believe in this year’s team, and were not planning to try and win this year.
Fpg what team are you really a fan of?
.it sure as hell isn’t Boston
Buster Olney reported that, from his talks with people around MLB, the Twins appeared to be not interested in trading Joe Ryan.
Joe Ryan has been awful since the trade deadline.
@FPG
The trade couldn’t have been any worse? Look at the winning percentage with Devers and without Devers. Keeping him would have been worse. Considering the contract that came with Devers, and how low he had made his value, that he was traded at all is remarkable. Would another lost season been preferable?
Styme – man the season sure would be lost if someone like Yoshida was replaced with Devers and his 143 OPS+, 30 HR.
That statement you made makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The team was doing just fine with Devers. The team was missing Bregman for a good chunk of that time, the SP was poor outside of Crochet, Duran had a slow start, Anthony was wasting away in the minors, etc. But yeah, it’s all Devers fault LMFAO.
styme – Come on, you’re better than that.
Devers isn’t an NFL quarterback or an NBA starting forward.
He was a DH with the Red Sox and therefore could contribute only one way, with his bat …. which he did extremely well as the numbers prove.
I’m sure you know the winning has been due to primarily two things …. Roman Anthony and the stellar starting pitching, particularly Bello and Gio.
You can’t possibly say those factors were impacted by Raffy, that would be beyond absurd.
Besides, the Sox won 7-of-8 including 5 straight against the Yanks WITH Raffy on the Sox, right before he got traded.
Long term trading devers for *any* return was the right move. Keeping him wouldve been a mistake.
Bat-to-ball abilities aside he publicly challenged ownership, management, and the entire organization in an insubordinate manner.
It doesn’t matter if he may have had any legitimate gripes or not. At the end of the day a player *cannot* behave that way in public, especially as an example to the massive youth movement coming up.
This was compounded by the time it occurred – new faces joining the 26man roster, and, an injury crisis
GaSox – Yep like I said since ST, the trade had to be made because you can’t treat a player like that – especially the face of the franchise – and expect it to blow over.
And who knows, maybe Baby Bello will salvage some value on the Sox side. I don’t think anyone is expecting Hicks, Harrison or May to provide much if any value.
So you going to the Big E opener on Friday? Man I had a fantastic time up there last month, perfect weather. Not sure if I’m gonna continue flying into Woosta though, the car rental prices there are crazy …. like $110/day for Economy/Compact size. They do have a train from Union Station in Woosta to South Station in Boston, I’ll look into that.
@FPG I’m in Boston now for the week. Will try to catch at least one game of the series. Still monitoring the secondary ticket market and will purchase really close to game time. Great daytime weather but bring a jacket for night games.
YBC – Awesome! Hope you make out well with the tix.
From my personal experiences, best availability would be for Sunday night’s game. It has lesser demand because so many have school/work on Monday. I’ve gotten some sweet Monster seats for Sunday night Yankees games.
Rolling the dice. I’ve bought tix before right at the Fenway gate and also along the subway ride to YS. Need someone to panic dump right before the first pitch. :fingers crossed:
YBC – I would think it’s easier to do these days since all tickets are digital. Sellers don’t have to physically transfer tickets into buyer’s hands, the seller could be thousands of miles away when the tickets are sold and transferred.
So yeah if a seller’s tickets are overpriced, they can end up panic-selling because right before gametime the potential buyer pool is limited to people at or near the park.
Good luck! Sunday is Crochet so that could make it a little harder.
Hopefully it’s not too early for his promotion.
I am quite thankful that there is some good pitching depth in the minors this year, but man not getting a good SP at the deadline is really biting the Red Sox right now.
They’re gonna use three starters in the playoffs and they’re going to make the wild card, so tbh it isn’t “really biting” them at all. That said, May has been awful.
Also, to get a good SP, the Red Sox would likely need to trade guys like Early and Tolle.
It’s very hard to win a 7 game series with 3 SP, and I honestly don’t trust Giolito against good teams. He has had I think one good start against playoff bound teams, against HOU around the deadline.
Arizona, a team which traded away two of their best hitters, made childs play out of Tolle due to the lack of secondaries.
Tolle may be a great SP, but if he can’t pitch better than 3IP/5ER against a team that sold at the deadline, I don’t have hopes for him to do well this year. Let him actually develop something other than his fastball.
And yes, to get good players back a team needs to give up something good in return. That’s how trades with most teams operate. Don’t trade them for some rental, but for a good player with multiple years of control. Hording prospects hoping they all reach their potential is not a way to run a team. It doesn’t work.
Read the headline wrong. I thought that they were promoting him early and not later. Didn’t know that is his name. And I was wondering “who’s Connelly?”
“noted earlier this week that Early…”… You just couldn’t resist could you Mr. Adams? Ps. Congrats on being the first human to use early 3x in a sentence.
I knew they would promote Connelly Early.
Better late than never.
Wow, we have an entire rotation on the injured list with may, houck, Crawford, criswell and you could count dumping Buehler. I love seeing the kids come up, but this depth is really getting thin.
Fitts too. If they had any luck, they would never have needed to trade for May.
Tang – Houck and Crawford are the only legit MLB starting pitchers in your list though.
Red Sox couldn’t have messed up this season any more than they did with their cheapskate starting pitching decisions.
May & Buehler – Both suck.
Criswell – AAAA pitcher
I am with you though on the kids. Since the Red Sox already said they aren’t trying to win until next year at the earliest (no pun intended), now is a good time to let them get their feet wet.
It’s September. Better its thin now than in July.
styme – Say what?
If it was July at least the Sox could’ve acquired pitching help ….. but only if they wanted to, of course.
Assuming the don’t catastrophically implode. Plus they won’t go very far in the playoffs with this rotation if Bello and or giolito aren’t perfect and healthy
Tang – I absolutely agree with you, if they go far in the postseason it will be because of the pitching …. not because of the offense, unless Abreu and Roman are back by then.
This guy better never be late for anything. The jokes will write themselves.
Obviously promoted late after September 1
Now that’s a Boston name if I’ve heard one. Only wish it was Connelly O’Early.
May mainly suffering from bloated ERA
Well hopefully the this EARLY pitcher gets the WIN…..
It’s get late [for those A’s fellas with] early out here. – Yogi
At triple-A, he has good pitch arsenal, strikeout rate ranks 85th percentile, shows his ability to miss bats, suppresses hard contact and good pitch movement and stuff.
I’d like to see that walk rate come down and despite the spin rate on his slider and sweeper being quite high, the expect outcomes are less impressive with a xwOBA of .308 and .394 respectively. The sweeper’s been hard hit iwth a .403 xBA and .408 xSLG.
prospectsavant.com/player/813349
Good team to test his abilities against, though, so best of luck tonight.
May is still a top tier starter, just ask him.
@GOP Lizards
Everyone is a top tier starter. Just depends on which tier they consider to be top. I tested my arm last night and I’m throwing gas at 52 mph. I’ll probably be good against the U9 players.
I am laughing out loud because I know dads who “measure their skills” against middle school kids!
Phantom injury for May
For the 40 man move, we are discussing Fitts to 60 day IL if we don’t think he can make it back for postseason or DFA Jovani Moran or Isaiah Campbell. We have a lot of LHP in bullpen now, so Moran more likely the DFA candidate.
Sox biggest weakness the last several weeks has been their offense, which would have been even more wasted if they had had to give up Duran for another good arm. May was a huge disappointment, and one has to believe they’re going to review what went wrong in their assessment. But the fact that May was a bust doesn’t lead to the conclusion that they should have given up Abreu (injury came post-deadline) or Duran to get Ryan (who has been inconsistent himself since the deadline). The idea that getting Merrill or Gallen as a rental would have made them World Series favorites is preposterous.
Although their fans will rationalize til the cows come home, the Devers trade has proven to be a disaster for the Red Sox. Posey knew exactly what he was doing. Hicks should be out of baseball, Harrison still can’t figure it out in the minors, and they traded Tibbs for a permanently broken May. Meanwhile, Devers is having an MVP-type season. Add to that Posey dumping the mercurial headcase Doval on the Yanks as their fans have watched him blow up over and over, and Buster should win GM of the Year.
Thanks for taking Devers!
Tell – Excellent post!
Those who liked the Raffy trade and claim to be Sox fans are simply using hatred as a coping mechanism.
Nobody in their right mind would think Harrison, Hicks and May combined could provide as much or more value than Raffy this season.
Frankly, he would be better off as an Oriole.
never too late for Early, and it’s not too early to be rid of May even though its September..
He’s a little Early!