Red Sox's 22-Year-Old Future Ace Just Earned Key Promotion

A bad weekend for the Boston Red Sox still came with some good news.

It's been a fantastic season for left-handed pitcher Payton Tolle, the Red Sox's second-round pick in the 2024 Major League Baseball Draft. After making his professional debut at the start of the season, the 22-year-old has been on a strikeout tear for the last three months at High-A Greenville.

After his latest dominant outing on Sunday, Tolle learned that he was being promoted to Double-A Portland, alongside teammates Eduardo Rivera, a fellow southpaw, and catcher Brooks Brannon.

Josh Ball of Beyond the Monster was the first to report the news of the promotions.

Tolle, who is 6-foot-6, 250 pounds, struck out nine batters in six innings of one-run ball on Sunday against the Greensboro Grasshoppers. He now owns a 3.62 ERA on the season, but it's the 79 punchouts in 49 1/3 innings that truly illustrate how dominant he can be.

There are other exciting arms in the Red Sox farm system, and of course, there's Kyle Harrison, the former top San Francisco Giants prospect who came over in the Rafael Devers trade.

But in this writer's opinion, of anyone wearing a Red Sox cap of any kind, Tolle has the best chance to become the secondary ace of the staff behind Garrett Crochet.

MLB Pipeline only has Tolle as their 15th-ranked Red Sox prospect at the moment. He's fourth among pitchers, trailing righty Luis Perales, lefty Connelly Early, and righty David Sandlin. But that should change in the near future, because Tolle's arsenal is proving to be as lethal as anyone in the bunch.

This promotion is a huge one. Tolle bulldozed his way to the next level ahead of schedule, but the leap from High-A to Double-A might be the most difficult transition to make.

We'll see what the youngster is made of, and if he keeps striking batters out anywhere close to this rate, it shouldn't be long before he's making his way up to Boston.