When Connelly Early was drafted in the 5th round back in 2023, the biggest thing attached to his name was that he was teammates with Kyle Teel at the University of Virginia, who had been picked 14th overall the night before. Fast forward just over 2 years later and Early has quickly made it clear he’s the fourth best starter on the Red Sox, even if the organization had seemingly looked at Payton Tolle, Dustin May, and Kyle Harrison as more likely options to help down the stretch. Still, it’s an interesting turn of events for Craig Breslow and company, who chose to hold on to Early at the deadline instead of shipping him to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Merrill Kelly.
Early has only made 4 starts since being called-up by the Red Sox on September 9th and he’s shown the ability to miss bats, limit walks, and avoid damage in 3 of them. That’s led to a 2.33 ERA/0.91 FIP in just 19.1 IP. Not to mention, 3 of those starts have come against lineups that are currently ranked in the Top 10 for OPS in all of baseball, with the A’s sitting at #7 and the Tigers just a few spots behind at #10. Keep in mind, the A’s saw him in back to back outings as well, which wasn’t an issue for Early because of how advanced his secondaries are.
In the first start against the A’s, Early attacked with a pitch mix that was led by his 4SFB (31%) and Curveball (21%), which led to him tying a franchise record for strikeouts in a Red Sox debut with 11. Next time around, it was his Sinker (28%) and Changeup (25%) as his two most used pitches. As we’ve seen with Payton Tolle, working through a lineup multiple times with your secondaries isn’t an easy task, but Early has shown the ability to do that in back to back starts with different pitch mixes. That’s a rare thing in today’s game, where many pitching prospects are pushed aggressively because of their pitch metrics and not their pitchability.
Still, it’s not like Early’s arsenal doesn’t excite you, with him owning a 13.5 K/9 and 1.9 BB. That’s exactly what you want in a playoff atmosphere where every single baserunner has a chance to sink your season. He’s also shown the ability to miss barrels with a 4.4% Barrel% and forces hitters to go outside of the strike zone, with a 36.7 Chase%. Yes, it’s a very small sample size, but that Chase% would rank in the 99th percentile in all of baseball, putting him just ahead of Tanner Scott and right behind Griffin Jax.
The biggest knock on Early entering the season was whether he’d be able to hold his velocity gains deep into starts. His journey in that department reminds me a lot of Shane Drohan, who experienced similar struggles at Triple-A back in 2023. So far, Early has shown that weakness can be a bit of a problem at times (6.00 ERA in the 5th, 27.00 ERA in the 6th), but that doesn’t really worry me in the playoffs. If you’re leaning on a Game 4 starter at this point, it’s not going to be a very deep outing, so give me 3 or 4 of your best innings and then it’s bullpen time. Especially for a club that has the best bullpen ERA in the AL at 3.43.
Beyond all the on-field stuff, Early has shown some rare maturity between the ears. Alex Cora hasn’t stopped mentioning that Early was the first rookie that ever showed up with notes on how he wanted to attack an opposing lineup in his debut. Then yesterday, the Tigers were fighting for their lives to just limp into the playoffs, and he was absolutely dealing in the first four innings, with 13 retired batters in a row after a leadoff single to Jahmai Jones. Even in the 5th, if it wasn’t for some brutal BABIP luck on a Javier Baez bloop single into RF and Masataka Yoshida having a noodle arm, the final line of 5 IP and 2 ER would look even better. His worst moment of the day was an uncompetitive 4-pitch walk to Parker Meadows in that inning, which unsurprisingly included his 2nd slowest 4SFB of the day, at 92.5 MPH.
In a perfect world, the front office would’ve been able to add a more dependable starter at the deadline to push Bello and Giolito down a slot, but that’s just not reality. So, it will be up to Early to potentially be baptized by fire if the Red Sox can end up forcing their way into a longer series like the ALDS or ALCS. While it’s certainly risky and something that could sink them at that point in the season, Early has shown enough to offer some optimism in that kind of role, which is saying a lot for someone who has only faced major league competition four different times in his career.