{"id":119554,"date":"2026-07-27T00:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/119554\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T00:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:12:08","slug":"payton-tolle-thought-red-sox-trade-was-ai-didnt-think-it-was-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/119554\/","title":{"rendered":"Payton Tolle thought Red Sox trade was AI: ‘Didn\u2019t think it was real’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Payton Tolle thought it was AI.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox rookie left-hander couldn\u2019t believe it when his wife, Devin, showed him the text message from a friend, relaying the trade of Connelly Early<\/a>, his closest friend on the team, to the Washington Nationals late Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Call her, because we got to tell her that it\u2019s AI,\u2019\u201d Tolle said with his trademark chuckle. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it was real for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Tolle realized the tweet came from ESPN insider Jeff Passan, he was forced to accept that for the first time since their Double-A Portland days, his and Early\u2019s roads were diverging, and they would no longer be able to travel together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we got to be able to, like, walk through those parts,\u201d Tolle said. \u201cWe both were in Portland together, and then getting to Triple-A at very similar times, and then being here at similar times. It\u2019s like, first spring training, we got to go through that. So like, we had moments where we could bounce off of each other, which I think was big for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it helped out along the way, but now you got to be a little bird and go flap your wings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolle\u2019s words were further emphasized by the fact that he spoke in front of one full locker, his own, and the bare one beside it, emptied out by Early that morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of guys in there that are very close with Connolly, and he\u2019s been a huge part of this,\u201d said interim manager Chad Tracy. \u201c(Tolle) was one of the first ones here. I checked on him, too. Like obviously, Connelly\u2019s close to everybody, but those two guys are buddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Red Sox selected Early in the fifth round of the 2023 draft, and Tolle in the second round the following year. Tolle debuted Aug. 29, 2025, and Early debuted on Sept. 9. They clinched their first postseason berth together, and mourned the team\u2019s first-round exit together.<\/p>\n

Tracy has a strong bond with both pitchers, having managed them in Triple-A and the majors. He was the one who got to deliver the happy news when it came time for their respective debuts. And Early got to return the favor in a way, as he started Tracy\u2019s first game as big-league manager in April.<\/p>\n

So, Tolle and Tracy were two of the first phone calls Early received Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called him pretty immediately after (Craig Breslow informed him of the trade<\/a>),\u201d Tracy said. \u201cHe\u2019s a smart kid. Not only a really good pitcher. He gets it. We always say he gets it. He knows the business side of this thing. He knows that he\u2019s going to an organization that wanted him \u2026 But he also is going to miss people here. I just expressed to him what I think of him, not just as a pitcher, but as a person. How much we\u2019re going to miss him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then when he came in today, I just gave him a huge hug, and told him the same thing, \u2018We\u2019re gonna miss you,\u2019 and we\u2019re gonna be rooting hard for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Payton Tolle thought it was AI. The Red Sox rookie left-hander couldn\u2019t believe it when his wife, Devin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,60578,60581,60580,60582,13915,60583,60579],"class_list":["post-119554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-chad-tracy","tag-connelly-early","tag-curtis-mead","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-trade-deadline","tag-payton-tolle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}