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Will Red Sox trade Vaughn Grissom? What can make Payton Tolle’s 100 mph fastball better?
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- Will Red Sox trade Vaughn Grissom? What can make Payton Tolle’s 100 mph fastball better?
Vaughn Grissom is one of three players on the Red Sox ' 40-man roster who will be out of minor league options for the first time in 2026.
He must make the Opening Day roster and remain on the active roster throughout the season (barring an IL stint) or else be designated for assignment.
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Pitchers Cooper Criswell and Jovani Morán are the other two players without options for the first time.
Grissom's situation is the most interesting considering Boston acquired him from Atlanta for Chris Sale and considered him a long-term option at second base less than a year and a half ago.
But he has fallen out of favor since then because of injuries and lack of production. He spent all of 2025 at Triple-A Worcester and he even admitted in July that he "doesn't expect much more opportunity" with the Red Sox .
It's doubtful that he will be on the 40-man roster come spring training to fight for one of those Opening Day roster spots.
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He and Morán are certainly candidates to be designated for assignment when the Red Sox add players via trade or free agency this offseason. If Grissom is DFA'd and clears waivers, he would remain in the organization as a minor leaguer.
But does Grissom, who turns 25 in January, still have some trade value?
At this point, he's a fringe 40-man roster member.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow did a nice job of dealing fringe-40-man roster players last offseason for mid-level prospects with upside. He dealt lefty reliever Cam Booser to the White Sox for 19-year-old pitching prospect Yhoiker Fajardo and traded righty reliever Chase Shugart to the Pirates for 23-year-old pitching prospect Matt McShane .
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Moving Booser last Dec. 21 opened a 40-man roster spot for then-free agent signee Patrick Sandoval . Breslow then found a trade partner for Shugart on Jan. 17, after designating the righty for assignment to open up space on the 40-man roster when they claimed catcher Blake Sabol off waivers .
Both prospects, especially Fajardo, made significant strides during the 2025 season in Breslow's pitching infrastructure . Baseball America's latest top 10 Red Sox prospect list released earlier this week has Fajardo ranked Boston's No. 9 prospect. He wasn't even a top-30 organizational prospect entering '25. McShane began the 2025 season unranked on SoxProspects.com's Top 60 . He's now No. 40.
Last offseason, Breslow also traded another fringe-40-man roster player, catcher Mickey Gasper , for Morán, who came to spring training as a non-roster invitee. Boston dealt Gasper because it needed to make room for free agent signee Walker Buehler .
Perhaps Breslow can make another one of these types of deals, with Grissom's time in Boston likely to end anyway because he's out of options.
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Other minor league options
Tristan Gray , a 30-year-old infielder who Boston acquired from the Rays for Luis Guerrero last week , has one minor league option remaining.
David Hamilton still has one minor league option remaining and Nick Sogard has two remaining. Nate Eaton , an infielder/outfielder, has one option left.
The Red Sox also still have the ability to move reliever Zack Kelly back and forth between Worcester and Boston as he has one option remaining.
Depth starter Kyle Harrison, who Boston acquired for Rafael Devers , has two options remaining.
The Athletic recently reported the Red Sox have interest in free agent catcher J.T. Realmuto . Connor Wong , who as of now is expected to be starting catcher Carlos Narváez 's backup, still has one option remaining.
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Tolle's fastball
Top Red Sox prospect Payton Tolle threw his fastball 64.1% of the time during his seven regular-season outings for Boston. The pitch averaged 96.6 mph, which was in the 85th percentile among major league pitchers.
He gets excellent extension to the plate, making his fastball look even harder to batters. He ranked in the 99th percentile in that category (7.5).
His fastball has the ability to be an elite pitch. MLB Pipeline grades it 65 (between above average and well-above average) on the 20-80 grading scale.
Still, opponents hit the pitch hard in a limited 16 ⅓-inning sample size after his promotion to Boston on Aug. 29. They went 13-for-46 (.283 batting average) with a .565 slugging percentage and five extra-base hits (four homers, one double) against it. The expected average and slugging percentage (.252/.412) were better.
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What can make the fastball more effective?
First, better execution of his secondary pitches will help it, Breslow said. Location also is important.
"I think there's an opportunity for him to pitch at the top of the zone a little bit more and to probably pitch above the zone for chase," Breslow said. "And then if you look at the home run to fly ball ratio, it's hard to imagine that that will continue. At some point that should just normalize."
Tolle does need to increase his chase rate. While he had an impressive 30.1% whiff percentage and 25.7% strikeout percentage, he had only a 20.6% chase percentage.
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Tolle was able to limit hard contact and barrels. Meanwhile, his walk rate increased from 6.3% in the minors (133 strikeouts, 364 batters faced) to 10.8% in the big leagues (eight walks, 74 batters faced).
Developing his secondary pitches is a priority this offseason. There's not one secondary pitch they have told him to focus on the most.
"I think there are a few different iterations of what that could look like, and some of it will require the feedback from him about subjectively his comfort levels and his ability to execute and command those pitches," Breslow said. "So much of the last 12 months was focused on his physical development and as a result we saw the 91, 92 mph fastball reach 100 mph. Now what suffered in prioritizing that was the development of secondaries. We also didn't think a year ago he was going to be pitching for us in September. So certainly the development of secondaries will be his primary goal this offseason. But exactly whether that is something a little bit bigger and slower, shorter and harder, I think we'll figure out it as we go."
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