Red Sox Prospect Watch: Halfway Point of the Season
By Mike El-Far
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox have this great young core of players, but all have passed their prospect status. Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Jackie Bradley Jr are all young players, but have logged too many innings to be considered a prospect. But, there are currently only two prospects on this current team.
That would be Sam Travis and Tzu-Wei Lin. I’ve spoke my praises on multiple occasions on Travis, so this is going to be all about the “Tzunami”. Lin was signed as an international free agent all the way back in 2012. Ben Cherington saw something in an undersized 18 year-old from Taiwan.
Lin was not ranked in the top 30 Red Sox prospects by MLB. In fact, if a Red Sox fan was asked even a month ago who Tzu-Wei Lin is, they would more than likely not know who he was. But, after getting called up, Lin has done nothing but been a hot bat that the team has utilized in his short time with the club.
It is obvious that the third base situation has been an absolute mess from day one for the Red Sox. Pablo Sandoval will go down in the history of Boston sports as the worst free agent signing this city has ever seen. When you somehow make Carl Crawford‘s time in Boston pale in comparison to your time, there is a serious problem.
Make no mistake about it, Tzu-Wei Lin is not the “key piece” that the Red Sox have been missing. If he was, maybe the reports that Boston is still looking at upgrading the third base position wouldn’t keep popping up. But in the mean time, there are very few times sports can be this fun. So let’s enjoy the ride, and see where the Tzunami takes us next.