The Red Sox and Rays have swapped right-hander Luis Guerrero and infielder Tristan Gray, per announcements from both clubs. Boston recently designated Guerrero for assignment and passed him through waivers unclaimed. The Red Sox designated first baseman Nate Lowe for assignment to open a 40-man spot for Gray.
Tampa Bay could have just claimed Guerrero off waivers but seemingly didn’t want to commit a 40-man roster spot to the hard-throwing but command-challenged righty. The 25-year-old has posted a strong 2.63 ERA in 27 1/3 innings for the Red Sox over the past two seasons and averages a potent 96.9 mph on his heater. However, he ended the season on the injured list due to an elbow issue and has regularly displayed alarming command (or lack thereof) both in the majors and upper minors.
Guerrero has walked nearly 15% of his major league opponents against a tepid 17.6% strikeout rate. He carries a 3.89 ERA in three Triple-A seasons but has walked or plunked a colossal 17.4% of his Triple-A opponents. That includes a walk rate just under 19% in 2025.
At times, Guerrero has posted gaudy strikeout and swinging-strike rates. The velocity is impressive, and he has a pair of minor league options remaining. That makes him an intriguing roll of the dice for Tampa Bay, but his health and troubling lack of command make him more of a project than a sure thing — small-sample major league ERA notwithstanding.
Guerrero would hardly be the first live-armed prospect to land in Tampa Bay and flourish, of course, and there ought to be ample opportunity in Kevin Cash’s bullpen. The Rays declined their $11MM club option on longtime closer Pete Fairbanks, making him a free agent. Holdovers include Edwin Uceta, Griffin Jax, Garrett Cleavinger, Bryan Baker and Mason Montgomery, but there’s plenty of innings for Guerrero (and others) to claim if he can impress in spring training or in the early portion of the Triple-A season.
As for Gray, he’s a 29-year-old with limited MLB experience across parts of three seasons. He tallied 86 plate appearances with the Rays in 2025 and hit .231/.282/.410 with three homers and five doubles. Gray walked at a 7% clip and fanned at a 22.1% rate in his 30 games with Tampa Bay. He split the bulk of his season between the Triple-A affiliate of the White Sox, slashing .270/.333/.472 in 282 turns at the plate.
Gray is a left-handed hitter with considerable experience at all four infield positions. He’s played more second, short and third than first base but still has 938 innings even as a first baseman. He also has a minor league option remaining. He’ll go on Boston’s 40-man roster as a depth piece who can be stashed in Triple-A Worcester, though he’s not a lock to make it through the offseason on the 40-man roster. Guerrero will be in camp with the Rays as a non-roster invitee and head to Triple-A Durham if he doesn’t make the club next spring.
MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo first reported that Guerrero had been traded to Tampa Bay.
Odd time for the Red Sox to trade non-40-man pitching depth. Guerrero has good stuff but struggles to throw strikes and is coming off a brutal season.
Sad to see a local guy go.
I like Guerrero. He seems to be a guy that a competent pitching program would be able to mold into a great RP.
So little shocked to see him traded, but I expect that TB will be able fix his issue. Jalen Beeks and Jeffery Springs are two guys who went from Boston where they steugflef and had some good success in TB.
Joe – its almost guaranteed that TB will “fix” Guerrero.
They have the track record of actually doing that, rather than Breslow and Bailey simply saying they do it.
“It’s almost guaranteed”
What does that even mean? It’s not guaranteed?
So, theres this thing called irony…..
Steve – the Red Sox are light-years behind MIL, TB, CLE, SDP, in terms of pitching development. They are better than they were years ago, but I still wouldn’t consider them a good pitching development team.
Maybe they’re just devoting all their resources to fixing Hicks and his massive contract.
Has Tolle developed any sort of off speed pitch?
Dobbins has a solid 11 games started at the major league level, and whole he looked ok in the he wasn’t lighting the world on fire
Early has 5 games started and looked bad against NYY.
Little Early to be using those guys as examples of them being able to develop pitchers.
There are some players who come up and pitch really well in their first taste of MLB action. It pains me to use them as an example, but Gil and Schlittler are prime examples of that.
Tolle pitching 16.1IP to a 6.06ERA isn’t impressive. He’s all fastball and maybe instead of adding “three pitches” he should have focused on adding one good one.
Early had 4 regular season starts that were really good, and then had the start against NYY which was awful. So over a very small sample size, that’s nothing impressive. Can he be a good pitcher next year or even over his entire career? You bet but it’s far, far from a guarantee.
Early had 4 regular season starts against ATH, ATH, TB, DET. Those aren’t exactly powerhouse offenses. When he faces a good offense in the Yankees he got crushed. Again, not saying he can’t be a good pitcher in the future but that’s not indicative of the Sox being some pitching factory.
Dobbins was good, not great, over his 11 starts (61IP). So you have just about 100 regular season innings pitched between the three of them. That’s not nearly enough of a sample size to say that a team is good at developing pitchers.
You have to be some sort of a troll.
You need some sort of results to prove your point. And if you’re saying that the guys you mentioned are “not soft-tossers whose results can only be explained by random variance”, then what does that say about Tolle? He pitched quite poorly in his MLB career so far.
The results you have reference don’t prove your point.
Plenty of people have tossed 60 decent innings at the MLB level and quickly fell off the face of the earth. Let’s wait until one of them has a full good season before just assuming the Sox are some pitching factory.
Stevie – i hope youre not proud of yourself for those posts. All you did was denigrate one person’s opinion and then present your own opinion as gospel truth.
Based on Joemo’s posts hes already forgotten more baseball than ChatGPT or Baseball For Dummies will ever be able to teach you.
Here’s what you need to do in order to gloat and demean.
Go get Tolle’s grades on his three secondary pitches you label as Plus. Then compare them to other successful SPs, or, if you prefer, contrast his Plus pitches against other young pitchers his age or experience. Then what you still won’t understand that what Joemo was trying to tell you is the Sox haven’t developed a TOR (that’s Top of Rotation) starter since Jon Lester.
In the meantime we all will be anxiously awaiting your research
Plus Plus fastball with currently average secondaries. Not three Plus secondaries like you claim. You see, “developing” a pitcher means taking those raw secondary pitches and making them into Plus pitches. You’ll catch on soon enough.
soxprospects.com/players/tolle-payton.htm#:~:text=….
Muted
It can’t be fun standing in the box against a guy who throws this hard with such little control.
Wat?
Very surprising given their 40-man situation. Have to imagine there are some other infield moves happening? e.g. need to probably find a new home for Grissom. And maybe even Hamilton.
To be clear, I’m more shocked at the timing than the move itself. Sox do need some 40-man balancing in this direction and Gray hits the ball quite hard, although at entering his age 30 season, I’m not holding my breath for a huge breakthrough.
This does not bode well for Hamilton. Red Sox still have Sogard as AAA depth as well and I don’t see a need to keep all 3. Wonder if there’s another deal out there or if we see him DFAd.
I’m sure we’re all expecting the Grissom DFA any minute.
Hamilton needs to go.
Gray can play all four infield positions, while its not an earth mover, there is a great chance he makes the final roster with that sort of versatility.
I hope we sign Bichette or Alonso next.
I like the idea that Gray is a bit older and can play all four positions. It seems like it makes more sense when your utility man:
1) isnt going to be looking for consistent playing time
2) has experience across the diamond
The problem with Hamilton, Sogard, Gonzalez et al, was they all had shortcomings with the glove in at least one infield position and (probably) shouldve played either more, or less.
Having ONE utility guy is a huge advantage over having three utility players.
He’ll be a CY young candidate next year. Haha
Geez Brealow will you stop feeding Cora’s affinity for marginally MLB quality middle infielders already?!!! The 40-man roster was already clogged with guys like Romy Gonzalez, Vaughn Grissom, David Hamilton, Nate Eaton and Nick Sogard. At best 2 of those 5 should have 40-man spots and the rest cleared for space to add actually useful players. Adding a 6th name to that mess makes zero sense.
Gonzalez hits and is decent on defense. The Red Sox will keep him. I’m wondering if Refsnyder is coming back?