Juan Rivera was already familiar with Payton Tolle. The Portland Sea Dogs pitching coach had worked closely with Tolle during spring training, and even then he could tell the club’s second-round draft pick from the prior summer had a bright future.
But when Tolle joined the Sea Dogs last week, Rivera could immediately tell the big left-hander had made considerable strides.
“He is so much better now than he was in spring training,” Rivera said. “That’s the first thing that popped into my head.”
Tolle was promoted to Double-A Portland last week after a brilliant first half with High-A Greenville, and he wasted no time making a statement upon his arrival. In his first start with the Sea Dogs on Saturday, the 22-year-old struck out nine batters over five dominant innings, allowing one run on one hit and two walks.
Overall, Tolle has posted a 3.46 ERA with 88 strikeouts in 54.2 innings split between High-A and Double-A, and he’s quickly turned heads around the game.
In its latest Top 100 Prospects rankings released on Wednesday, Baseball America bumped Tolle up to No. 49, a 39-spot jump from his previous ranking of No. 88, the second highest of any prospect on the list. Once Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer graduate from the rankings in the coming weeks, Tolle will stand as the organization’s new top prospect.
“Tolle has shown a significant velocity bump sitting 94-96 mph with the plus fastball shape that got him drafted and massive extension,” Baseball America writes. “Now in Double-A, Tolle has seemingly gotten better by the start so far this season.”
Rivera said Tolle’s velocity has steadily ticked up ever since he was drafted, but even when he was averaging low-90s instead of mid-90s, his fastball still gave opposing hitters fits. A big part of why is because the 6-foot-6, 250-pound Tolle is an “extension monster” who releases the ball so close to the plate that hitters don’t have time to track the pitch.
“It’s almost like it’s invisible to hitters,” Rivera said. “Especially when he’s on the upper half of the strike zone.”
Though you can get by with a dominant fastball in college and the lower minors, at some point you need more to keep hitters off balance the closer you get to the big leagues. Rivera said the other area that’s impressed him has been the development of Tolle’s overall pitch arsenal, which now includes a changeup, a sweeper and a curveball, in addition to the slider that has always been his best secondary pitch.
The curveball, in particular, has real potential.
“We’re calling it more of a ‘downer’ because it’s not as big and loopy as a traditional curveball but it doesn’t really fall into a slider bucket either,” Rivera said. “He’s only thrown it during his last two games, so it’s brand new, but I think it’s platoon neutral, he’s going to be able to throw it to left and right, and I think it shows a ton of promise.”
As the highest drafted Red Sox pitcher since Tanner Houck in 2017, Tolle is at the forefront of Boston’s effort to infuse a new wave of young pitching talent into the organization. The club ultimately aims to create a pitching pipeline that produces a steady stream of impact arms to the majors, and less than a year into his pro career Tolle is already well on his way to becoming among the first to arrive.
Triple-A: New faces at home in Worcester
Polar Park welcomed a few new and familiar faces to the WooSox clubhouse in June.
Outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia, the No. 4 prospect in the farm system per MLB Pipeline, earned a promotion to Triple-A in late May and began his WooSox career with a bang, homering three times in his first 10 WooSox games before the month was out. The 22-year-old, who’s known as “The Password,” kept on raking as the calendar page turned: his 22 hits in June included three doubles, two triples, and six homers. This week it was announced he will be the organization’s lone representative in All-Star Futures Game on July 12.
Garcia’s bat wasn’t what impressed big-league manager Alex Cora months ago, though.
“We saw him in spring training and we didn’t see the best version offensively. In between, mechanics-wise, he was off,” Cora said. “But the way he played the outfield was eye-opening. And that’s the good thing about these (top prospects). We talk about their offense all the time, but I think they’re complete players. They’re good base-runners, good defenders, which is the most important thing, you know, you don’t want to get just a hitter here to the big leagues. We want the complete players, and Roman (Anthony) is that way, Marcelo (Mayer) is the same way, (Kristian Campbell) is the same way, and Garcia is a complete player. We’re very proud of him.”
It took a while for corner infielder Blaze Jordan to reach Triple-A. The Red Sox drafted him out of high school in the third round of the 2020 draft, but his professional debut had to wait until the following year, as the that entire MiLB season had already been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. He reached Double-A Portland in July ’23, and remained there until June 3 of this year.
Jordan validated his promotion in his first month with the WooSox. Over 23 June games, he hit .290 with a .828 OPS, 27 hits, eight doubles, a triple, and three homers. He scored 16 times, drove in 13 runs, and while he only drew six walks, he displayed strong plate discipline: 11 strikeouts in 99 plate appearances, an 11.11 K%.
Left-hander Kyle Harrison joined the organization in the Rafael Devers trade, and the Red Sox immediately optioned him to Worcester. He went four innings in each of his first two WooSox starts on June 26 and July 2, but yielded a combined seven earned runs (7.88 ERA) on 13 hits, including a trio of homers, walked three and struck out six.
While those numbers aren’t exactly ideal, especially for the key return in a trade of this magnitude, Harrison’s latest outing suggested he’s improving in a key area of need. He relies heavily on his four-seam fastball and the Red Sox consider expanding and strengthening his pitching arsenal to complement the four-seamer a top priority. When his go-to pitch wasn’t getting the job done his last time out, Harrison was able to induce 18 swings and eight whiffs on secondary pitches.
Campbell was baseball’s American League Rookie of the Month in April, but then pitchers began figuring him out and he had trouble adjusting. After hitting .301 with a .902 OPS in 29 games between his big-league debut on Opening Day and the end of April, the infielder/outfielder batted .134 with a stunning .355 OPS and just 11 hits (10 singles, one home run) in 22 May games. He looked better at the plate in 16 June games, hitting .205 with a .658 OPS and three extra-baggers among his nine hits before getting optioned, but his defense also needed work and the Red Sox decided it would be better for him to hone in Triple-A.
Double-A: Early’s dominant first half
While Tolle has made a strong first impression since being called up to Portland, Connelly Early has been dominant for the Sea Dogs all season.
One of Boston’s fastest rising pitching prospects, Early has been brilliant in Double-A. The left-hander is 6-1 with a 1.94 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 55.2 innings through his first 12 outings, ranking fourth in the Eastern League in both strikeouts and ERA (minimum 50 innings pitched). He tossed six no-hit innings in his most recent start on Sunday, earning Eastern League Pitcher of the Week honors.
David Sandlin (3.66 ERA, 69 strikeouts) and Blake Wehunt (3.76, 63) have also impressed with the Sea Dogs, and Yordanny Monegro (2.67, 49) was on his way to an excellent season too before going down recently with season-ending Tommy John surgery.
Outfielder James Tibbs, one of the prospects acquired in the Devers trade, was assigned to Double-A upon his arrival and has batted .280 with a .713 OPS in his first 13 games with the Red Sox organization. Prior to the trade, Tibbs was the No. 13 overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft and had already hit 12 home runs through 57 games with San Francisco’s High-A affiliate.
Shortstop Mikey Romero has been Portland’s most productive player at the plate, leading all current Sea Dogs players in home runs (7), OPS (.829) hits (49) and doubles (13). Outfielder Zach Ehrhard is also emerging as a player to watch. A fourth-round pick in last summer’s draft, Ehrhard has done a little bit of everything, batting .252 with six home runs and 10 stolen bases.
High-A: Pitchers move up, bats impress in Greenville
Tolle and fellow left-hander Eduardo Rivera were both promoted to Double-A on June 24.
Rivera was even more unyielding than Tolle, posting a minuscule 0.96 ERA over 18.2 innings with his only runs allowed being a pair of solo homers.
Beyond those pitching promotions, the Greenville pitching staff had a fairly solid month. Noah Dean got hit hard – 11 earned runs in 19 innings – but no one threw more innings than John Holobetz’s 22.2, and he and Tolle each struck out a team-leading 25 batters.
Much has been made of Boston’s ‘Big Three,’ and with good reason. They’ve all reached the majors. They’re what’s happening now, and what everyone’s been waiting for.
But down in Greenville, the Drive have some serious budding star power, too. Miguel Bleis led the way in June with four home runs, while shortstops Nazzan Zanetello and Franklin Arias drove in 10 RBI apiece to tie for the team lead. The most patient man at the plate was outfielder Nelly Taylor, who walked 20 times, followed by Zanetello, who drew 15.
Low-A: Teenage phenom off to strong start
At 18 years old, Justin Gonzales is among the youngest players in all of the affiliated minor leagues. Yet despite being barely older than a high school senior, the teenage standout has made himself right at home with Low-A Salem.
The 6-foot-4 slugger is batting .265 with two home runs, 13 RBI and a .739 OPS through his first 42 games in Salem. Those numbers don’t necessarily jump off the page, but Gonzales is facing pitchers who are almost three years older than he is on average, and most notably, he has recorded nearly as many walks (23) as strikeouts (28).
Yoeilin Cespedes, one of Boston’s top recent international free agent signings, is batting .231 with five home runs and 32 RBI through 62 games.
Rookie ball: Soto standing out in DSL
Dorian Soto was Boston’s top signing from this past January’s international free agent class, and the 17-year-old infielder has looked the part so far in the Dominican Summer League. Soto leads the DSL Red Sox Red with a .361 batting average, two home runs and 11 RBI, and he also has a .934 OPS.
