The Red Sox have a deadline path that might not make everyone happy, but it makes plenty of sense: use the pitching depth to chase a right-handed bat, unless Jahmai Jones can be that bat already.
That’s the tension sitting in front of Craig Breslow with the August 3 deadline approaching. Boston has been linked to adding a right-handed hitter, and the club’s farm system gives it the kind of leverage most teams would love to have. Baseball America’s midseason update pushed the Red Sox up to No. 9 in its farm rankings after starting the year at No. 15, and the driving force is obvious - pitching.
The system does have position-player talent, including top 100 prospect Franklin Arias, plus Justin Gonzales and injured pitcher Juan Valera. But the real strength is the wave of arms that look closer to the majors and carry real upside. Anthony Eyanson leads that group, with Kyson Witherspoon, Marcus Phillips and Jake Bennett - who has already debuted with Boston - all sitting behind him in a deep pipeline.
That matters because the same Baseball America update pointed to the system’s biggest flaw: pure hitting. Outside of Arias, the Red Sox don’t have many true high-end bats in the pipeline.
Boston did draft three position players with its first three picks in this week’s MLB Draft, so that issue is already being addressed for the long term. For the deadline, though, the trade currency is the pitching.
Eyanson is the clearest example of why Boston can shop from strength. The 2025 third-round pick out of LSU saw his fastball jump from touching 97 in college to sitting 97-99 and reaching 100 mph in pro ball, and his mid-80s slider may be an even nastier weapon. He has put up a 1.07 ERA with a 34% strikeout rate between High-A and Double-A, earned a Futures Game nod and rocketed from unranked at the start of the year to No. 33 in Baseball America’s July top 100.
Witherspoon and Phillips bring more of the same kind of power-arm appeal. Both are 2025 first-rounders with upper-90s velocity and secondary pitches still coming along.
Witherspoon, the No. 94 prospect in Baseball America’s top 100, has had a more uneven season, but the raw stuff from the Oklahoma right-hander is loud. If the command tightens up, he has mid-to-upper rotation upside, which is exactly the sort of profile a selling club will try to pry loose.
Phillips, Boston’s 33rd overall pick out of Tennessee, is built like a power pitcher at 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds. His fastball can touch 101, and his high-spin slider gives him another real weapon. He could wind up in the bullpen, and his 2026 debut has been inconsistent as he adjusts to pro ball, but the arm strength and pedigree are there.
Add Bennett into the mix and Boston has four names that can headline a serious trade package. One of them, or one of them plus a prospect from the 11-to-30 range, could be enough to get a quality right-handed bat if Breslow decides to spend from that stash.
But there’s another possibility, and it arrived quietly. On July 14, the Red Sox acquired Jahmai Jones from the Detroit Tigers for a player to be named later.
The season has not gone the way Jones wanted, as he entered the move hitting .137 with a .440 OPS. That’s a sharp drop from the .287/.387/.550 line and .937 OPS he posted for Detroit’s playoff team in 2025, when he was a clubhouse favorite.
Still, Fenway Park has been a different story for him. In seven career games there, Jones is hitting .500 with seven hits, a home run, six RBIs and two runs scored.
It’s a tiny sample, but it’s enough to notice, especially for a right-handed hitter who has handled left-handed pitching well. Some players just click in certain parks, and Jones has already shown a feel for Fenway.
So before Boston sends one of its best young arms out the door for a right-handed bat, it might be worth seeing whether the answer is already on hand.
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For Boston, the decision also brings a little extra sting because Thaiss was once part of the organizations own pipeline, drafted by the club in 2013 before his path took him elsewhere and he reached the majors with Los Angeles in 2016. A roster opening helped force the issue, and while the move clears space, it also leaves the Red Sox with another reminder of how thin the catching picture can look when depth starts to get tested. [Read more 🡒]
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Rosarios development matters because catching prospects can change an organizations outlook fast if the hit tool starts to catch up with the defense. For Boston, that is the real intrigue here: a player who has long been viewed through the lens of projection is suddenly giving evaluators a reason to wonder whether the offensive progress is real, and whether it might be arriving sooner than expected. [Read more 🡒]