The Red Sox evaluate every single player who is released across Minor League Baseball.
“Whenever they come available, we’re on it,” director of professional scouting Harrison Slutsky said.
Eduardo Rivera — a young southpaw with a 6-foot-7, 237-pound frame — stood out among the others after the Athletics released him May 21, 2024.
“Age, physicality, velo, left-handed,” Slutsky said. “Let’s not overthink this one. We wanted to get him in our program.”
Rivera has dominated since the Red Sox signed him to a minor league deal June 12, 2024, the day before his 21st birthday.
Now 22, the lefty received a promotion to Double-A Portland last week after he posted a 1.61 ERA (44 ⅔ innings, eight earned runs) and 0.83 WHIP in 10 outings (six starts) for High-A Greenville. He allowed just 4.2 hits per nine innings and held opponents to a .138 batting average.
Rivera, who throws his fastball 93-97 mph, struck out 39.5% of the batters he faced in High A.
“He’s really taken off and thrived,” Slutsky said. “I’m really excited to see him get the challenge at Double A. I think it was about due and it’ll be fun to watch.”
Slutsky said left-handed pitchers in their early 20s with Rivera’s size and velocity typically don’t land in the group of released players.
“We do not want Eduardo Rivera to get released and not get flagged,” Slutsky said. “And then part of this thing is flagging them quickly. Moving quickly is important because (every) other team is doing the same thing, you think. … And so you don’t want to get beat. You want to be the first one to call the player. You want to start the process. You want to show them some love because you’re in a competition to sign them.”
Rivera — an Athletics 11th round pick out of Puerto Rico in 2021 — was a familiar name to the pro scouting department. The Red Sox had seen him pitch live during the 2023-24 offseason in the Puerto Rican Winter League for Cangrejeros de Santurce. He posted a 3.15 ERA in 20 innings.
“We went down there to scout that league and he had thrown,” Slutsky said. “And he showed some traits down there similar to what we saw when he was released.”
MLB teams have access to every minor leaguers’ pitch data and video for scouting purposes.
“We’re able to evaluate every minor leaguer that way,” Slutsky said.
Why does a young kid with his massive body and mid-to-upper 90s velo get released?
“Sometimes things run their course and a change of the scenery is what’s needed,” Slutsky said. “We’re in a world where roster spots are at a premium and sometimes things like this can happen. … He was demoted a level and had been moved to the ‘pen at that moment in time.”
Rivera struggled with control in the A’s system, posting a 12.9% walk percentage from 2021-24.
Command looked like it was becoming even more of an issue at the beginning of the 2024 season. He began the season with High-A Lansing where he walked 10 batters and allowed 11 hits in 8 ⅔ innings. The A’s demoted him to Low-A Stockton where he walked three batters in 2 ⅔ innings before his release.
“Our job is to evaluate them when they shake loose,” Slutsky said. “And we did enough homework to figure out that this was a guy we felt very comfortable bringing into our environment.”
The walk rate didn’t scare the Red Sox because they looked at it as a relatively small sample size. Slutsky also thought maybe some of the uncertainty he experienced (changing roles, demotion) could have factored into it.
“I wasn’t overly concerned because I felt like he had shown the ability to throw strikes at times,” Slutsky said.
It was a low-risk, high-reward signing.
“He flashed a decent breaking ball,” said Slutsky who added that the Red Sox saw clear development opportunities and the ability to develop his arsenal.
“Oftentimes I think on these types of lower level releases, guys that are in the lower minors, you’re kind of just looking for some building blocks and potential upside,” Slutsky added. “And he just checked quite a few of those boxes. You can’t teach that kind of physicality. He had the present arm strength and he had been moved into a ‘pen role. But we kind of said, ‘OK. He was starting not that long ago.’ That kind of tells you something as well, too. So just you start adding up these pieces.”
Slutsky said the Red Sox player development and pitching department have done a terrific job working with Rivera who throws a fastball, slider, split-finger fastball and sweeper.
“I think it’s just a good example of the pro group and the development group working together,” he said. “Us identifying players we think can kind of thrive in our development environment and then that happening, at least to date.”
The process includes the pro scouting department looping in the player development department after they identify a released player.
“You’ve got to know what boxes to look for and to check off to see if there’s some upside and if it’s somebody that could thrive in our environment,” Slutsky said.
The Red Sox have a system in place to alert them about every released player.
“We evaluate every available player,” Slutsky said. “The pro group’s in charge of the foreign leagues and independent leagues and released players and minor league free agents and all of that stuff.
“There’s not a player that goes out there that we don’t at least look at,” he added.
The Password picked for the Futures Game
Prospect Jhostynxon Garcia — also known by his nickname “The Password” — will represent the Red Sox in the 2025 All-Star Futures Game.
He is batting .292 with a .363 on-base percentage, .569 slugging percentage, .932 OPS, nine homers, five doubles and two triples in 33 games (146 plate appearances) since his promotion to Triple-A Worcester.
More than Garcia’s swing stood out to manager Alex Cora when the 22-year-old center fielder participated in his first big league spring training camp earlier this year.
“We saw him in spring training and we didn’t see the best version offensively,” Cora said before Boston’s 13-6 win over the Reds on Monday. “In between (pitches), mechanics-wise he was off. But the way he played the outfield was eye-opening.”
The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked Garcia No. 46 on his most recent Top 50 MLB prospect rankings. Baseball America ranks him Boston’s No. 6 prospect behind Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Franklin Arias, Payton Tolle and Brandon Clarke.
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