Red Sox Prospect Watch: More changes could be coming to top-30
By Hunter Noll
The Boston Red Sox top-30 prospect list has already seen changes this season. Even more could be coming soon though, making things much more interesting.
Bobby Poyner is pretty good at this whole pitching thing. The left-handed reliever threw a scoreless inning on Sunday for the Boston Red Sox. That lowered his earned run average to 1.86 over 9 2/3 Major League innings. He’s earned his spot on the big league roster, which means he’s getting closer and closer to losing prospect status.
Not long ago, Tzu-Wei Lin dropped his prospect status too. That meant there was an open spot on the Red Sox top-30 prospect list and it went to catcher Roldani Baldwin. Poyner is currently Boston’s No. 23 prospect.
Again, this shows that their minor league system isn’t nearly as bad as everyone pretends it is, but I won’t get into that right now.
Once Poyner graduates from prospect status, his spot will be open as well, and there are plenty of worthy candidates. Baldwin’s fellow catcher Jhon Nunez could steal the spot, as could shortstop Santiago Espinal. Victor Acosta and Michael Osinski are making strong cases as well.
Then there are the two original clients to my Paul Heyman ways, Danny Mars and Dedgar Jimenez.
Of course, there’s plenty of other options as well. Whoever gets the spot, it will be exciting to see more movement in the Red Sox organization, as someone else is granted some of the spotlight.
For now, Poyner still holds the spot and all we can do is speculate. Due to that, there’s no reason to worry too much about it.
With that in mind, let’s jump right into this week’s recap as we head to Pawtucket.