Brandon Walter hasn’t come out of nowhere, but he has come a long way. A 26th-round pick in 2019 out of the University of Delaware, the 25-year-old southpaw went into last season a veritable unknown, and he left it as the fastest riser in the Red Sox system. Displaying elite movement from a low arm slot, Walter fanned 132 batters and allowed just 67 hits in 89.1 innings, between Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville. He’ll enter the 2022 campaign ranked No. 10 on our newly-released Red Sox Top Prospects list.

Walter discussed his repertoire, and his unexpected emergence in a steadily-improving system, last month.

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David Laurila: Your Baseball America writeup said, among other things, “His stuff and pitch data suggest reason to believe in a big ceiling.” What does that mean to you, particularly the reference to data?

Brandon Walter: “I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years, especially since Chaim Bloom came into our organization. They’re big on analytics and pitch data [and] they’re preaching it to us. To me, it mostly means that my stuff is plus, so I can simplify and just throw it in the zone. I can make hitters deal with what I’m throwing instead of trying to hit corners and risk falling behind in the count. Basically, I can just try to get ahead with with my three pitches and compete that way. Getting that information and knowing that my stuff is above average allows me to just attack hitters.”

Laurila: Has the data reinforced things you kind of already knew, or has any of it actually come as a surprise? Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox have upped the quality of their farm system in recent years, and Paul Toboni has played a key role in that ascent. Boston’s director of amateur scouting since September 2019 — he was assistant director for three years prior — the 32-year-old University of Notre Dame MBA has helped facilitate drafting players such as Marcelo Mayer and Nick Yorke. Originally hired by the Red Sox as an intern, Toboni became an area scout in 2015 before climbing up the ranks to his current position.

On the road scouting when this conversation took place, Toboni talked about the process itself, the philosophies that shape an organization’s decision-making, and some of the notable draftees the Red Sox have brought on board.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with the basics. What exactly does an amateur scout do?

Paul Toboni: “It depends on your responsibility. We have a number of area scouts across the country who are responsible for areas ranging in geographical size, and also in player density. There are a lot of players coming out of Southern California, so maybe we have two scouts there. We also have a scout covering Arkansas, Oklahoma, and all the way through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. An area scout’s job, really, is to be at the grassroots level and get to know these players really well. They talk to coaches, turn in reports, and come up with their lists.

“It flows upward from there, to our regional cross checkers. I think teams around the league are organized pretty similarly in that [the cross checkers] cover four or five area scout’s areas. From there it goes to national cross checkers, who are responsible for covering the whole country. Then it’s the front office.”

Laurila: What goes into the reports that scouts turn in? Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no shutout this year — instead, there’s joy in Cooperstown. On Tuesday, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the voting results for this year’s BBWAA ballot, and after a year in which no candidate was elected and featured a contentious election cycle in which it quickly became apparent that the four prominent 10th-year candidates wouldn’t gain entry in their final year of eligibility, David Ortiz broke through on his first try. The centerpiece of the Red Sox’s three championships from 2004-13 — the first of which broke an 86-year drought — and the record-holder among designated hitters in several key categories, Ortiz received 77.9% from among the 394 writers who cast a ballot.

Over a two-month span during which discussions of character-related issues — mainly pertaining to performance-enhancing drugs and domestic violence — at times loomed larger than those pertaining to traditional and advanced statistics and other credentials, Ortiz gained entry while Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling did not. That trio, all in the final year on the writers’ ballot, had the highest shares of the vote last year, but between Bonds’ and Clemens’ links to PEDs and Schilling’s long history of toxicity via his social media accounts, none was able to change the minds of enough voters this year. Schilling, in fact, requested to be removed from this year’s ballot after falling short last year, and while the Hall denied that request, so many voters obliged that his share of the vote dropped 12.5% from last year’s ballot-leading share of 71.1%. He ranked fifth from among the 30 candidates, while Bonds (66.0%) and Clemens (65.2%) ranked second and third respectively, with Scott Rolen (63.2%) fourth. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Developer, Baseball Systems

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director, Baseball Systems
Location: Boston, MA

Position Overview:
The Developer, Baseball Systems position will be a member of the baseball operations software development team, and is responsible for the design, development, and support, of all baseball systems. This individual will work closely with members of baseball operations to understand business requirements that drive the analysis, design, and development of quality baseball systems and solutions. This developer will collaborate closely with the Director of Baseball Systems, colleagues on the software development team, and baseball operations personnel from all departments. Read the rest of this entry »

The most recent of my “Who Was Better” polls on Twitter featured Dale Murphy and Ken Singleton, and while it drew only a modicum of interest — only 95 people cast votes — the results were nonetheless telling. Murphy won in resounding fashion — 76.8% to Singleton’s 23.2% — and it’s unlikely that the percentages would have been markedly different with a more-robust sample size. Murphy is a two-time MVP who made seven All-Star teams and was once on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Singleton made three All-Star teams and received nary a vote in his one year on the ballot.

But was Murphy actually better than the less-ballyhooed Singleton, who broke into the big leagues with the New York Mets before excelling with the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles? Let’s look at a few of their numbers, keeping in mind that Murphy played in 2,180 games, Singleton in 2.082 games.

Murphy: .265/.346/.469, 2,111 hits, 398 HR, .357 wOBA, 119 wRC+, 44.3 WAR.
Singleton: .282/.388/.436, 2,029 hits, 246 HR,.371 wOBA, 134 wRC+, 44.4 WAR.

Peaks matter, so here is the best eight-year stretch for both: Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Jake Peavy has a claim as the best player the Padres have drafted and signed since choosing Tony Gwynn in the third round in 1981, and probably the most important as well. From 2004 until he was traded in mid-’09, Peavy, a 1999 15th-round pick out of an Alabama high school, was their ace, winning two ERA titles and a Cy Young award, making two of his three All-Star appearances, and helping the team to back-to-back NL West titles in ’05 and ’06 — the franchise’s only playoff appearances between the 1998 World Series and the expanded playoffs in 2020.

Undersized at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, and dismissed as “frail and wild” by talent evaluators, Peavy parlayed a mid-90s fastball/slider/changeup combination and a bulldog mentality into a 15-year major league career (2002–16). During that time, he made four trips to the playoffs with three different franchises and earned two World Series rings (though he struggled mightily in October), all while battling through a variety of injuries that turned him from an extraordinary pitcher into a rather ordinary one.

Through it all, Peavy’s irrepressibly competitive nature remained apparent. As Baseball Prospectus 2016 noted just before he headed into the final season of his career, “Few pitchers present a bigger contradiction between stuff and mound demeanor than Peavy, whose fiery outbursts and furious soliloquies mask a finesse approach that no longer intimidates his foes.” A tip that Peavy picked up from Roger Clemens, one of his many high-profile mentors, may have had something to do with that. According to Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller, Clemens introduced Peavy to Icy Hot Balm, telling him “to take a little and put it on no-man’s land down there.”

“So over the next 12 years, you might say, Peavy regularly pitched with his balls on fire,” wrote Miller.
Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Pro Scouting, Assistant

This is an office-based position that works closely with department leadership to provide support across all areas of the Pro Scouting operation. These areas include but are not limited to administrative responsibilities, coordinating with scouts regarding daily questions or issues, and using all valuation materials to help drive progress in the player acquisition process. Additionally, the role helps manage intern support both for Pro Scouting and overall in Baseball Operations. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Content warning: This piece contains details about alleged domestic and gun violence. The content may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.

The new millennium hasn’t exactly been a banner one for the stolen base. Between soaring home run rates and the influence of analytics on front offices, the tactic has gone out of style, and per-game rates have fallen. As one-run strategies go, teams seem content to wait for a player to knock a ball over a wall rather than manufacture a run. During the first decade of the 2000s, as home runs kept flying, Carl Crawford stood out for his electrifying speed and skill on the basepaths.

In the first eight full seasons of his 15-year career (2002-16), Crawford led the American League in stolen bases four times, finished second once and third twice, stealing at least 46 bases in each of those seasons. He topped an 80% success rate in the first five of those seasons, and led the league in triples three times as well. Crawford’s wheels — as well as his midrange power and strong defense — helped him make four All-Star teams and win a Gold Glove while starring for the Rays’ first two playoff teams.

Alas, Crawford hit free agency, signed a massive seven-year deal with the Red Sox, and almost immediately went into the decline phase of his career due to injuries. After totaling 35.6 WAR with Tampa Bay from 2002-10, he managed just 3.5 WAR over his final six seasons spent with Boston and the Dodgers while missing substantial time due to Tommy John surgery, plus wrist, finger, oblique, and hamstring woes. He was released by Los Angeles with a year and a half still to go on his contract, and never played again. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

For the sake of diplomacy, we’ll call A.J. Pierzynski a polarizing player, even if much of that polarization tended towards the negative end of the spectrum. “If you play against him, you hate him,” said his own manager Ozzie Guillen in 2006, the year after Pierzynski served as the starting catcher for the World Series-winning White Sox. “If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”

Pierzynski spent parts of 19 seasons in the majors provoking extreme reactions among players, fans, and everyone else, that while making two All-Star teams, helping five teams to the playoffs, and catching more games than all but eight other backstops. A November 2013 article by NESN’s Ricky Doyle, at a point just a few weeks before the defending champion Red Sox signed him as a free agent, summarized the book on Pierzynski to that point:

The most obvious risk of signing Pierzynski involves his accompanying baggage. There’s a difference between having a colorful personality and having a personality that evokes disdain, and Pierzynski’s behavior seemingly strikes a chord. According to an August 2012 article on SI.com, Pierzynski has in his career been voted by his opponents as the player they would most like to see beaned (2006), baseball’s meanest player (2011) and baseball’s most hated player (2012). Men’s Journal polled 100 MLB players on various topics in 2012, and 34 percent of respondents voted Pierzynski the most hated player in the game.

“Everyone wants a villain,” Pierzynski told SI.com’s Ben Reiter in the aforementioned profile. Reiter was able to penetrate the persona to find an introspective, intelligent and hard-working player, not to mention a devoted family man. “Look at what LeBron James has gone through the past few years. My teammates get the best kick of it,” Pierzynski continued. “When we go to Oakland, Anaheim, San Francisco, Minnesota, Cleveland, I get loud boos. Guys on my team can’t wait to see that and to hear that… Now, when those polls come out, it’d be a big upset if somebody else won.” Read the rest of this entry »