{"id":404135,"date":"2025-11-25T18:08:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T18:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/404135\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T18:08:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T18:08:16","slug":"red-sox-trade-whos-brandon-clarke-top-prospect-boston-sent-to-cardinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/404135\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox trade: Who\u2019s Brandon Clarke, top prospect Boston sent to Cardinals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox trade package to acquire starting pitcher Sonny Gray<\/a> on Tuesday included them sending a top pitching prospect to the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

Boston traded lefty Brandon Clarke, who MLB Pipeline had ranked Boston\u2019s No. 5 prospect, to St. Louis. The Sox also parted with 25-year-old righty Richard Fitts, who missed the final 30 games of 2025 on the 15-day injured list<\/a> with right arm neuritis. <\/p>\n

The 22-year-old Clarke posted a 4.03 ERA in 14 starts for Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville in 2025. Boston drafted him in the fifth round (148th overall) in 2024 out of State College of Florida, Manatee\u2013Sarasota and gave him a $400,000 signing bonus.<\/p>\n

MLB Pipeline grades Clarke\u2019s fastball 60 (above average) and his slider 70 (well\/well above average) on its 20-80 grading scale.<\/p>\n

Baseball America wrote in late July that Clarke \u201chad more helium than any prospect to start 2025<\/a>” and \u201cthere are very few lefthanders that sit in the upper 90s after being drafted, and even fewer that feature a plus slider.\u201d Clarke went from an unranked Red Sox prospect entering 2025 to No. 81 on BA\u2019s Top 100 list by midseason.<\/p>\n

But some of the top-prospect hype fizzled out when he posted a 7.71 ERA in his final seven starts compared to a 1.88 ERA in his first seven starts. He\u2019s no longer ranked on Baseball America\u2019s Top 100 list. He also didn\u2019t appear on BA\u2019s top 10 Red Sox prospect list released earlier this week. <\/p>\n

He dealt with a blister issue that limited him to just 38 innings total and could have affected his late-season struggles. <\/p>\n

The lefty, who underwent Tommy John surgery in college, has struggled with command. While he struck out 60 batters in his 38 innings last year, he also issued 27 walks.<\/p>\n

He grew up a Red Sox fan and roomed with David Ortiz\u2019s son, D\u2019Angelo Ortiz, during spring training 2025<\/a>. He has a six-pitch mix with a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, sweeper (slider), curveball, cutter and changeup.<\/p>\n

MLB Pipeline recently named him as a 2026 breakout prospect candidate and wrote<\/a>, \u201cScouts have been dreaming on Clarke\u2019s potential since he was touching 97 mph in high school, and he\u2019s added another three ticks since. The 22-year-old unleashes it from a three-quarters release point, and his long arm action, high leg kick and elite extension add a bit of deception. The pitch doesn\u2019t get as many whiffs as you might expect, given the velocity, but the downhill plane on the pitch has enabled him to rack up massive ground ball numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox trade package to acquire starting pitcher Sonny Gray on Tuesday included them sending a top…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":404136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[190935,30014,590,591,72663,190936,190937,190938,72664,1884,1266,180314,98324,592,98326,33899,62,170848,190939,190940,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-404135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-2025-spring-breakout","9":"tag-al","10":"tag-american-league","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-bos","13":"tag-bosgf","14":"tag-future-star","15":"tag-gamepk-778967","16":"tag-gettyimages","17":"tag-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-mlb-pipeline","20":"tag-mlbgf","21":"tag-national-league","22":"tag-playersocial","23":"tag-prospect","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-spring-training","26":"tag-tb","27":"tag-teamid","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115611679394673981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}