Papelbon, Sanchez Promoted

The Red Sox develpmental machine continues to turn. Following Saturday's six-inning, no-hit, 10K masterpiece (for which he was named Eastern League pitcher of the week), Jon Papelbon was promoted to the Pawtucket Red Sox on Sunday. Papelbon leaves town having made 14 starts, with a 5-2 record and 2.48 ERA in 87 innings pitched. His peripherals were very strong, as he posted a 0.94 WHIP, 8.6 K/ 9 IP, and 3.6 K/BB ratio. The only "negative", if you can call it that, is that he allowed a team-leading 9 home runs. This equates to less than one per nine innings, however, and he gave up very few in the last month or month and a half of his stay. Given that he’s fairly old for AA (24), it was time for him to see what he can do at the next level. We wish him the best.

While we’re sad to see Papelbon go, we’re excited for the arrival of Anibal Sanchez, another top Sox prospect who tore up the Carolina League while pitching for the Wilmington Blue Rocks. Sanchez’ record this season is very similar to Papelbon’s: 14 GS, 78.2 IP, 6-1, 2.40, 0.98 WHIP, 10.9 K/9, 4.0 K/BB. At the time of his promotion, Sanchez was leading the CL in ERA and tied for first in strikeouts (though in 12 fewer IP than Frederick’s James Johnson). I’m guessing that Sanchez will take Papelbon’s spot in the rotation on Thursday or so.

Papelbon is the third Sox "prospect" to be promoted to Pawtucket this season, following closer Cla Meredith and second baseman Dustin Pedroia. I believe that SS Hanley Ramirez will likely follow in their footsteps sometime around the first of August, whereas other top prospects on the Portland roster (Lester, Moss & West) will probably stick around for the entire season and make the jump in 2006.

And while we focus a lot on the "prospects" here at the Sea Blog, I would also like to acknowledge that a few other Sea Dogs have made the trip to Rhode Island this summer – Raul Nievez and Jim Buckley, who were promoted to serve as AAA backups, and Jeff Bailey, who started the season in Pawtucket, came to Portland for a couple of months to kickstart his bat, then was returned to the PawSox a couple of weeks ago. This type of player is really the backbone of minor league baseball, the guy who comes to the ballpark every day and does whatever is asked of him for the betterment of the team and the organization. We can often easily relate to these players, many of whom become fan favorites (guys like Pookie Wilson from the late 1990’s come to mind). So while we celebrate the accomplishments of the top prospects, we can also appreciate the contributions of all of the (primarily) young men playing minor league baseball.