Vaughn Grissom has had a turbulent two-year stretch in the Boston Red Sox organization. In 2024, he appeared in just a handful of MLB games, and accumulated 114 plate appearances while notching 20 hits. He dealt with multiple hamstring injuries during an underwhelming first year in Boston while Chris Sale, the seemingly over-the-hill pitcher sent to Atlanta for a fresh start in a new environment, won a Cy Young Award.
Grissom’s time in Boston has officially come to an end with the news of his trade to the Angles. It appeared that his days were numbered when Grissom was mashing the ball in July and still missed a call up to replace the injured Marcelo Mayer.
At the time, Grissom vented his frustrations saying: “I don’t really expect much more opportunity here just because the decisions that were made were made, and it kind of didn’t involve me.”
Grissom appeared to be an interesting return for Sale at the time. Given his injury-prone later years in Boston, Sale (clearly, in hindsight) looked to benefit from a change of scenery. In Boston, filling a middle infield hole was a major priority and the 6-foot-3 Grissom looked to offer a solid answer.
Unfortunately, the injury bug seems to jump from player to player in this exchange, with Grissom missing the entirety of spring training while losing 14 pounds due to illness. Things never got better and it seems that the front office quickly lost faith in the now-24 year old. He would ultimately spend the entire 2025 season waiting for a call up that never came.
The Red Sox can close the book on a disastrous Chris Sale trade and begin to develop new youngster Isaiah Jackson
While the aftermath of the Sale trade was decidedly a loss for Boston, all is not entirely bleak. In the trade made official on December 9, LA sent back Isaiah Jackson, the No. 25 prospect in the Angels organization. They selected him in the eighth round of the 2025 MLB Draft and has yet to feature in a large enough sample size to really hit his stride. Even so, he posted a 1.032 OPS in his junior year at Arizona State and profiles as a power hitting outfielder with above average defensive promise.
Obviously, there’s currently a logjam of talent both in Boston and at the organization’s MLB cusp when it comes to the outfield. Jackson is just 21, weighing in at roughly the same measurements as Grissom (but ironically, 10 pounds heavier), making him a positive improvement for the Red Sox in a few ways.
Moving on from Grissom seemed like it was always going to be the end of the story for one of Boston’s worst trades. But getting back a quality prospect rather than simply cutting Grissom loose puts a silver lining on things.
While we will all wonder what could have been for the rotation had Sale remained in Boston, at least we have a fresh young talent to patiently watch, one without the stain of that ill-fated trade hanging over his head.