Red Sox have ‘massive human,’ former first-round pick as roster candidates

LAS VEGAS — The Rule 5 Draft didn’t take place during the 2021-22 offseason, the last time Major League Baseball owners locked out players. This offseason’s Rule 5 Draft again is in jeopardy with a lockout expected to begin at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1. “We’re operating as though that would go on as normal,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said at the GM Meetings. Teams have until Nov. 17 to add eligible players to their 40-man roster to protect them from being available to other teams in the draft. The Red Sox have several borderline candidates to be protected in Mikey Romero , Blake Wehunt , Brooks Brannon , Hayden Mullins , Johanfran Garcia , Braiden Ward , Angel Bastardo and Yordanny Monegro. Baseball America ranks Bastardo, who Boston re-signed to a minor league contract at the start of the offseason, the highest-ranked prospect of the group. It lists Bastardo No. 15 organizationally, Romero No. 18 and Wehunt No. 19. SoxProspects.com ranks Wehunt No. 13, Bastardo 18th and Romero 22nd. The Sox don’t have any obvious no-doubt-about-it additions. So although Breslow said Boston will operate as if the draft will happen, perhaps the Sox will take their chances and add nobody to the 40-man roster with roster spots limited anways this offseason. That said, Romero, Wehunt and Bastardo are all interesting names to watch at the deadline next Tuesday. Romero might be the most intriguing Rule 5 Draft eligible player of the group because of his background as a first-round draft pick. The Red Sox selected him 24th overall in 2022, he’s still young and injuries have limited his development time in the minors. There’s still plenty of room to improve with more reps. Meanwhile, the Red Sox have a shortage in starting pitching depth, making Wehunt and Bastardo potential additions. Bastardo pitched out of the bullpen for the WooSox in 2026 in his return from Tommy John surgery but had previously been a starter throughout his minor league career. Romero, who turns 23 in January, posted disappointing overall statistics in 113 games for Triple-A Worcester in 2026. He batted .239 with a .305 on-base percentage, .375 slugging percentage, .680 OPS and 30 extra-base hits in 490 plate appearances. The left-handed hitter’s OPS was 112 points higher against righties than lefties. But some of the advanced metrics told a more positive story. Romero had the second highest hard-hit percentage (41.7%) among Worcester players (minimum 120 plate appearances) behind only Mickey Gasper , who had a 46.5% hard-hit percentage in 238 plate appearances. He also trailed only Gasper in average exit velocity (90.8 mph) and adjusted exit velocity (92.5 mph) for WooSox hitters with 120 or more plate appearances. Additionally, he cut down on his strikeout percentage considerably, going from 30.2% with Worcester in 2025 to 21.0% in 2026. He closed out the year fairly strong, batting .270 with a .350 on-base percentage, .421 slugging percentage and .771 OPS in 143 plate appearances in August and September. Breslow said to evaluate Romero’s year it’s important “to dig in a couple layers deeper” to the underlying numbers. “And also look at who was Mikey when he was perfectly healthy?” Breslow said. “We saw like the ability to impact the ball. It started in spring training and still think that he’s got a ton of potential. Want to make sure that he is healthy and on the field. He’s a good defender. Took reps obviously at third base and we’re excited about what the future holds for him.” Wehunt and Bastardo are candidates because the Red Sox have already traded away several young depth starters. In the past two years, Breslow has dealt Connelly Early, Kyle Harrison, Hunter Dobbins, Richard Fitts and Quinn Priester. One concern with Wehunt is the drop in his strikeout rate from Double A to Triple A. It went from 33% with Portland to 15.9% with Worcester. But the 26-year-old still finished 2026 with a 3.47 ERA in 10 starts for the WooSox after posting a 3.52 ERA in 13 starts for Portland. The 6-foot-7, 250-pound righty has reached 98 mph with his fastball and has a vast pitch mix, including adding a sinker during the 2026 season . “With Blake, just a massive human is a good place to start,” Breslow said. “And still some projection left and velo that’s been climbing year over year. Not quite as dominant at Triple A as he was in Double A but I think that’s pretty natural.” Breslow said the Red Sox view Wehunt as a future major league starting pitcher. “Huge, huge swing-and-miss stuff,” Breslow said. “Big fastball.” Two other Rule 5 Draft candidates Brannon and Garcia are two interesting Rule 5 eligible players because of their raw right-handed power. Brannon, who spent the entire season with Portland, had the third-highest slugging percentage (.560) among Red Sox prospects minimum 225 plate appearances behind Franklin Primera (.581) and Gasper (.566). His 22 home runs ranked second in the Red Sox system behind only Franklin Arias’ 25. Meanwhile, Garcia slugged .494 with 18 home runs in 348 plate appearances for Portland. The Red Sox as an organization place heavy importance on hitting the ball hard in the air to the pull-side — and they should. Fenway Park has seen the most pulled doubles by right-handed hitters (1,811) among major league venues since 2008. It also has the second-highest slugging percentage (.751) among active major league parks for right-handed hitters pulling the ball from 2008-26. Sox want Arias, at 179 pounds, to add more weight again this offseason Will shortstop prospect Franklin Arias enter spring training with a chance to win a spot on the Opening Day roster? Breslow said it’s premature to speculate. “All the conversations that we’ve had with and about Franklin at this point are targeted on how we make the most of this offseason for him — getting bigger and stronger, continuing to push him on both sides of the ball. Base running as well,” Breslow said. “So that’s what our focus is and we’ll figure out the rest down the road.” Arias weighs 179 pounds right now and the expectation is for him to come into camp bigger after he gained significant size last offseason. Trading more from farm system MassLive published a story in October examining whether Boston’s farm system has enough talent left to trade for a slugger . Boston dropped 12 spots in Baseball America’s farm system talent rankings , going from No. 9 on the midseason list to No. 21 after trading three top five organizational prospects for catcher Adley Rutschman . Nine days later, the Sox sent their No. 10 prospect, Harold Rivas, to the Orioles as the player to be named later to complete the trade. Would Breslow prefer to swap major leaguers for major leaguers, rather than dealing more prospects, to avoid further depleting the system? “My job is to balance our ability to compete for a World Series, particularly in 2027, with kind of the longer term outlook of the organization,” Breslow said. “I think one thing that’s really important to consider here is that a number of our players are young and under control for multiple years into the future, which means we’ve got a number of drafts and international signing periods and opportunities to make sure that we replenish the talent pipeline so that we don’t face a situation where our major league team is kind of maturing and there isn’t a talent pipeline behind them that can continue.” More On Red Sox Prospects How Red Sox prospects from 2026 Draft did in their debuts (and other notes) Red Sox have baseball’s No. 2 prospect; what are realistic expectations in 2027? Red Sox roster decisions with prospects coming; reliever suffered stress fracture Do Red Sox have enough left in farm system to trade for 30-home run slugger? Overlooked Red Sox prospect (54 stolen bases) didn’t ‘let up on the gas’ Read the original article on MassLive . Add MassLive as a Preferred Source by clicking here .