1 day Ago By Brendan Campbell, Blogging the Red Sox
Rising Red Sox pitching prospect Juan Valera will open the 2025 minor-league season with High-A Greenville, as was revealed when the Drive released their Opening Day roster earlier Wednesday . It is an aggressive assignment for Valera, who turns 19 in May and is easily the youngest player on Greenville’s roster. Still, despite having limited experience above rookie ball , the Red Sox believe the right-hander is deserving of such a challenge after putting together an impressive spring in Fort Myers.
“He had a productive offseason coming into camp strong, physically and mentally,” Red Sox senior director of player development Brian Abraham said of Valera. “We saw a jump in velocity and an improvement in his secondaries with a willingness to challenge in the zone. He earned an opportunity to be challenged in Greenville.
” Valera, who originally signed with Boston for a modest $45,000 as an international free agent coming out of the Dominican Republic in April 2023, was not on many people’s radars at this time last year. The Sabana Grande de Palenque native was coming off a debut season in which he put up a 5.93 ERA (4.
67 FIP) with 31 strikeouts to 20 walks over 15 appearances (27 1/3 innings) in the Dominican Summer League. To open the 2024 campaign, though, Valera began to draw attention to himself thanks to what he was doing in the Florida Complex League. In 11 outings (nine starts) for the FCL Red Sox, the righty posted a 1.
79 ERA (3.25 FIP) with 40 strikeouts to 14 walks over 40 1/3 innings in which opposing hitters batted .128 against him.
He was then rewarded with a promotion to Low-A Salem on July 23 and closed out the season by pitching to a 2.35 ERA (3.54 FIP) with 28 strikeouts to 14 walks in seven starts (23 innings) for Boston’s Carolina League affiliate while holding opponents to a .
120 batting average. Altogether, Valera forged a 1.99 ERA (3.
36 FIP) with 68 strikeouts to 28 walks in 18 appearances (16 starts) spanning 63 1/3 innings between the FCL and Salem. He led all Red Sox minor-leaguers who logged at least 60 innings last season in ERA, batting average against (.125), WHIP (0.
85), line-drive rate (10.3 percent), and groundball rate (56.6 percent), per FanGraphs.
To that end, he was recognized as a 2024 Florida Complex League All-Star and SoxProspects.com’s Pitcher of the Year. Looking to build off the momentum he gained in his first season stateside, Valera came into camp this spring and wasted little time turning heads on the backfields.
He was named to the Red Sox’ Spring Breakout roster last month and pitched against prospects from the Twins organizations in the first-ever “Futures at Fenway South” game at JetBlue Park on March 14. As part of that showcase, in which he struck out four and allowed two runs in three innings, Valera showed flashes of his potential. Valera, as noted by SoxProspects.
com’s director of scouting Ian Cundall , featured a 97-99 mph fastball that reached 100 mph “multiple times.” The 6-foot-3, 205-pound hurler also mixed in an 89-92 mph slider, an 86-88 mph sweeper, and a 91-94 mph changeup. If there were any drawbacks from the performance, it’s that Valera lost the strike zone a bit after his typical three-quarters arm slot got “out of sync.
” Josh Norris echoed the same sentiment in a recent piece for Baseball America. Lauded by club officials for his work ethic and openness to instruction, Valera is currently regarded by Baseball America as the No. 14 prospect in Boston’s farm system, which ranks sixth among pitchers in the organization.
MLB Pipeline has him ranked 18th among its top 30 Red Sox prospects, while SoxProspects.com has him at No. 19 ahead of its next rankings update.
In Greenville, Valera is slated to join a talented pitching staff that includes the likes of Payton Tolle, Jedixson Paez, Hayden Mullins, and Jojo Ingrassia, among others. The 2025 season begins for the Drive on Friday night when they open a three-game weekend series against the Bowling Green Hot Rods at Fluor Field. This article first appeared on Blogging the Red Sox and was syndicated with permission.
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