TRADE REACTION: Adley Rutschman to the Red Sox
The Orioles officially give up on Rutschsman
Adley Rutschman will be a Boston Red Sock. He was rumored leading up to today, but it wasn’t a sure thing by any means.
It ends a darn disappointing career in Baltimore for the former #1 overall prospect. The Orioles seem to have some trouble converting these top prospects into true big league studs. You don’t want to be too harsh on them; baseball is hard. Predicting the future is hard. And stud prospects don’t turn into big league All Stars at the rate most people think.
But Rutschman’s career arch has been unexpected and disappointing, no doubt about that.
We don’t defense much thought here on this fantasy baseball publication, and that’s really important in real life, especially for a catcher. But we were told that Rutschman would be the #1 fantasy catcher for years to come. His best season in Baltimore was 20 homers and an .809 OPS back in 2023.
We’ll see what the Red Sox can do with him. They have the best record in baseball over the last month plus, and it’s not close. They have a deep rotation and some good bats. But offensive production from their backstop has been a big issue. Carlos Narvaez has a .535 OPS, and Connor Wong is at .707 in less playing time.
So this is an upgrade for the Red Sox offensively, and Rutschman is a perfectly good defender behind the plate. Being a switch-hitter is nice too, I guess. At least in theory it is. Here are Adley’s splits this year:
You can’t really divide a portion of a season into lefty/righty splits and think you’ll learn anything. He makes a ton of contact as a right-handed batter, but has a much higher SLG as a lefty.
I don’t think this makes the Red Sox a great World Series shot or anything like that. But if they do manage to get into the playoffs and get Garrett Crochet healthy, they could make some noise. We’ve seen what they’re capable of these last several weeks with them just beating everybody. It still doesn’t really look like a World Series roster to me, but the recent success has them buying here, and it should be a fun rest of the season in Fenway if nothing else.
The Return
Anthony Eyanson goes back to Baltimore as the headliner. And they get high-upside Kyson Witherspoon as well.
Eyanson is our #45 prospect here at MLB DW, and Witherspoon isn’t far behind at #61. That’s a good haul for Rutschman for Baltimore, especially with Sam Basallo being their preferred catcher of the future anyways.
Here are the numbers on these two guys:
Witherspoon has slipped a bit this year. Down to a 24% K% with a weak 14% K-BB%, but he’s a well regarded prospect. Here’s Tim’s take:
Eyanson has been extremely good in the minors this year. A 1.32 ERA on a sick 26.5% K-BB5 and 0.53 HR/9 in A+ and AA:
So you have to like the return if you’re an Orioles fan. They need pitching badley, and they get two pretty high-upside arms here.
Enddy Azocar is the Red Sox #5 prospect per MLB, but he’s not in our top 150 at MLB DW. He’s just 19 years old and having a nice season in A+ right now.
Really nice return for the Orioles who don’t exactly miss a beat with Basallo being their guy at catcher.
Maybe it will be the upgrade the Red Sox need behind the plate to have them making an October run, but to me it seems like a pretty high price to pay for Adley Rutschman.