Boston Red Sox Reportedly Promote Hard-Hitting Prospect to Double-A
Power hitting outfielder Justin Gonzales is reportedly heading to Portland.
Video Transcript
What's up everyone?
Zach Coe here for Roundtable.
According to Andrew Parker of socksprospects.com, the Red Sox are promoting the number two organizational prospect, outfielder Justin Gonzalez, from High A Greenville to Double A Portland.
And to me, I know the hype around Franklin Arias.
I think he's gonna be a fantastic player, and he's obviously a lot closer to the big league level.
But for my money, Gonzalez is the most intriguing prospect in the Red Sox organization just because of the massive power potential that he has.
He of course stands six foot five, two hundred and ten pounds at just 19 years old, and in 89 games with Greenville this year, he's hit two seventy-one, three ninety-one, four sixty-three, with an eight fifty-four OPS and 17 home runs.
And the main knock on Gonzalez is actually pretty similar to that of Roman Anthony when he was being developed as a prospect.
The bat speed and the exit velocity numbers that he's putting up are absolutely massive, but he just doesn't lift the ball enough.
The ground ball rate is way too high for him to really be on the radar as a big-time prospect, and now he's finally starting to put the pieces together in that regard.
In 2024, when he was in the Dominican Summer League, he hit only five home runs.
He made his stateside debut in 2025, appearing across three levels from the FCL all the way to Greenville, where he hit only four, and like I said, this year he's already hit 17.
And obviously it's not an exact one-to-one comp.
I think Roman Anthony had a lot of different things that made him a better prospect than Justin Gonzalez.
I don't think you'll be seeing Justin Gonzalez being ranked as the number one prospect in the entire sport anytime soon, but pretty similar in that mold in that just if he can elevate the ball at a more consistent rate, he'll be a really dangerous prospect.
Now he'll take the jump to Double A, where a lot of people will tell you that that's where the biggest jump gets made in the minor leagues, from Single A to Double A, that's the biggest talent jump.
So we'll see how he adjusts for the home stretch of the Double A season.
