Early impressing in Portland, winter work paying off

This story was excerpted from Iah Browne's Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- When the Red Sox selected lefty Connelly Early with their fifth-round selection (151st overall pick) in the 2023 Draft, there could have been a temptation to say that pick was a little, well, early.

In his one season at Virginia -- where Kyle Teel, Boston’s first-round selection in that same Draft, was his catcher -- Early didn’t exactly light up the radar gun.

But there was a reason: Early had started his collegiate career at Army, and his rigorous physical activity fulfilling his military duties wasn’t all that conducive to maxing out swiftly as a college pitcher.

The Red Sox made that pick based on upside, and it's already paying dividends.

The case can be made that Early, the Red Sox's No. 9 prospect, is performing the best of any Red Sox pitching prospect so far this season.

Backed by his latest sparkling effort at Double-A Portland on Sunday (five innings, three hits, one earned run, two walks and eight strikeouts), Early’s ERA in five outings is 2.41 with a 1.02 WHIP.

Opponents are hitting him at a .156 clip. In 18 2/3 innings, he has 30 strikeouts and nine walks.

This isn’t happening by chance.

“Connelly has had a strong start in Portland, which stems from the dedication he showed throughout the offseason,” said Red Sox senior director of player development Brian Abraham. “He spent the entire winter in Fort Myers [Fla.], focused on adding quality weight and strength, followed by a deliberate build into his mound progression. His throwing program emphasized consistency, athleticism, pitch design and improved velocity. “

When a pitcher really has something going, the winter work translates into results in the spring and summer.

“That offseason work has carried over into his daily routine, showing up in his intentional approach on the mound, in the weight room, and even in his nutrition,” Abraham said. “A continued emphasis will be placed on attacking the strike zone with his best stuff -- maintaining and even pushing his velocity deeper into outings, not only with his fastball but with his secondary pitches as well.”

Early has added roughly 10-mph of velocity from his days at West Point and a decent tick up from his low 90s heater at UVA.

“He has always been a relatively mature young athlete, but over the past two offseasons, he’s added significant quality weight and strength, which has driven noticeable velocity gains,” Abraham said. “His stuff continues to trend upward, with his fastball touching 97 this year -- a major jump from where he was when we drafted him. A lot of credit goes to our amateur scouting group for identifying a young, athletic, and intelligent college arm who still had room to grow and wants to grow -- and to the player himself for consistently pushing to improve every time he walks into a Red Sox facility.”

While the Red Sox have developed key righty starting pitchers in recent years (Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, Hunter Dobbins), Early has a chance to be player development’s biggest success story from the left side since Jon Lester.

“Any time you have a left-handed starter who can maintain mid-90s velocity and challenge hitters in the zone with multiple swing-and-miss pitches, it’s exciting,” said Abraham. “We’re encouraged by his progress so far and his continued commitment to improving -- whether it’s refining his arsenal, gaining strength, throwing harder, or simply taking the ball whenever asked. We’re looking forward to seeing him continue to trend upward.”

Here are some other happenings on the farm.

Triple-A Worcester

Vaughn Grissom had a chance to be the starting second baseman for the Red Sox this spring but was beaten out by Kristian Campbell. How is Grissom doing in Worcester? After a solid April at the plate (.298/.365/.479, three homers and 11 RBIs), he has cooled off in May, getting just one extra-base hit in his first 30 at-bats of the month while hitting .133. Grissom has shown versatility on defense, starting 25 games at second base, seven at first and four at third base.

High-A Greenville

An early-season promotion to Greenville has done nothing to cool off shortstop Franklin Arias from his hot start to the season. In his 19 games and 78 at-bats for Greenville, Boston’s No. 3 prospect had a batting slash of .326/.404/.522 with three doubles, two homers and seven RBIs.

Class-A Salem

Playing his first full season for an affiliate, No. 6 prospect Yoeilin Cespedes, yet another shortstop in an organization loaded with them, is batting .323, with two doubles, two homers and five RBIs this month.