Faced with a deadline to add prospects to their 40-man roster and protect them from next month's Rule 5 draft, the Red Sox added four players Friday, and made a few surprising calls by leaving some others exposed.
Added by the Sox were:
* Infielder Jeter Downs
* Righthander Kutter Crawford
* Righthander Josh Winckowski
* Righthander Brayan Bello
Adding the four players puts the Red Sox 40-man roster at 37.
Downs, 23, was a key component in the trade that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February of 2020. Downs had a hugely disappointing season at Worcester, hitting just .190, though he rallied at the end of the year. He also hit five homers and posted an .880 OPS in the Arizona Fall League. Baseball America has him as the organization's No. 6 prospect in the organization.
Crawford, 25, who got a September start for the Red Sox during the team's COVID outbreak, split time between Double A Portland and Triple A Worcester, going 6-6 with a 4.28 ERA. He's currently pitching in winter ball in the Dominican Republic and has an 0.49 ERA over 18.1 innings.
Winckowski, 23, arrived from Kansas City last winter in the Andrew Benintendi deal and was 9-4 with a 3.94 ERA in a season that saw him move up from Portland to Worcester. He's ranked by Baseball America as the organization's No. 9 prospect
Bello, 22, was the organization's Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year. and was 7-3 over 21 starts at High A and Double A.
In protecting the four, the Red Sox passed on a number of other prospects, including outfielder Gilberto Jimenez, pitchers Thaddeus Ward and reliever Durbin Feltman.
Teams selecting players in the Rule 5 draft -- as the Red sox did with Garrett Whitlock last season -- must keep that player in their major league (26-man) roster for the entire season, or offer him back to his original team. It's also possible that players can be selected, and then kept on the IL for the entirety of the season, which would likely be the case for Ward, who underwent Tommy John surgery last spring and likely won't pitch at all in 2022. In a case like that, Ward would then have to spend at least 90 days on a major league roster the following year (2023).
The Red Sox are betting that no one will choose Ward, knowing that he wouldn't be ready to pitch until 2023.
The gamble with Jimenez, although he's considered a top-10 prospect by most sites, is that he hasn't played above Single A, and it would be highly problematic for a major league team to use a roster spot in him for the entire season.
Feltman, a highly regarded bullpen prospect, has, until this past summer, had trouble with his control, averaging 5.4 walks per nine innings in 2019, his last full season before this one.