In the rare prospect for prospect, pitcher for pitcher, and guy already on the 40-man roster for guy already on the 40-man roster swap, the Red Sox are sending right-handed pitching Luis Perales down I-95 to Washington for left-handed pitching Jake Bennett. Jeff Passan, as usual, was first on the news.
It’s certainly an unusual trade, and one that’s difficult to fully make sense of without being inside of either from office, but Chris Cotillo did manage to grab the following quote on Bennett from Craig Breslow.
As you can probably surmise from that quote, Bennett is a big boy, coming in a 6-6, 235 lbs. He was selected in the second round of the 2022 MLB draft (45th overall), has a 2.67 ERA in 138.1 innings of minor league work (good), and is a bit old for never having pitched above Double-A as he turned 25 a fortnight ago (not so good – Buy hey, happy belated birthday!).
If you’re keeping track at home, that’s three certified moose that Breslow and the front office have acquired just this month, with 6-6, 275 pound Johan Oviedo coming over in the trade from Pittsburgh back on December 4th, and 6-5, 225 pound Ryan Watson coming over from the A’s on the back of the Rule 5 draft last week.
With Perales going back in the other direction, the Red Sox give up a right-handed flame thrower with a high ceiling, and as you might imagine, that’s already made some people very upset. But before we dive too far down that rabbit hole, it’s worth pointing out that we have two guys here with pretty significant injury history. Both have already had Tommy John before even making it to the majors, and Perales’ size is likely an addition red flag in some circles. In other words, it’s largely a matter of if you like Perales’ youth and velocity better, or Bennett’s size and command better.
Director of scouting at Sox Prospects Ian Cundall broke things down like this:
Lastly, it’s also worth noting that Paul Toboni is the President of Baseball Operations for Washington, and Toboni of course is relevant here because he was the Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager with the Sox until last September. So it’s likely that Toboni knows Perales well, liked him more than other people in the Red Sox organization, and knew what guys in the Nationals system the rest of the Red Sox front office valued.
Who will be right? Only time will tell, but this is one of those trades that could easily range anywhere from a complete nothingburger to either side winning it by a pretty substantial margin. Let’s see what you guys think.
