Red Sox pitching prospect Jedixson Paez was one of just eight teenagers to throw 50 or more innings in the Carolina League last season.
Paez, who celebrated his 20th birthday on Wednesday, emerged as a steady presence on the mound for Low-A Salem in 2023. The then-19-year-old right-hander posted a 3.31 ERA and 3.69 FIP with 73 strikeouts to just 12 walks in 18 outings (16 starts) spanning 84 1/3 innings of work.
Trailing only Jose Ramirez, who has since been scooped up by the White Sox in the minor-league phase of last month’s Rule 5 Draft, for the team lead in innings pitched, Paez initially got his year off to a rough start and wound up hitting the injured list with shoulder stiffness after giving up a season-worst nine runs (six earned) in four innings as part of a 13-4 loss to the Lynchburg Hillcats in April.
Upon returning to action in mid-May, however, Paez seemingly turned a corner and carried with him a 3.04 ERA (3.60 FIP) over his next 11 starts (50 1/3 innings) through the end of July. After being selected as SoxProspects.com’s Pitcher of the Month for July, the righty produced a 2.65 ERA in three August starts (17 innings) before moving to Salem’s bullpen for the season’s final stretch.
Operating in a bulk relief role in games against the Fredericksburg Nationals (Aug. 27) and Augusta GreenJackets (September 3), Paez yielded a total of three runs (two earned) on nine hits, zero walks, one hit batsman, and nine punchouts over nine frames.
Altogether, it was a solid showing for Paez, who was recognized as a 2023 SoxProspects.com All-Star. Among the 28 other pitchers who eclipsed the 80-inning threshold in the Carolina League last year, Paez ranked first in walks per nine innings (1.28) and walk rate (3.6 percent), second in WHIP (1.01) and groundball rate (49.4 percent), ninth in batting average against (.228), and 10th in swinging-strike rate (14.3 percent), per FanGraphs.
A native of Venezuela, Paez originally signed with the Red Sox as an international free agent around this same time three years ago. The Tinaquillo native received the highest bonus ($450,000) of any pitcher Boston brought in during the 2021 signing period and made the most of his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League (3.86 ERA in 13 starts) to earn organizational Latin Program Pitcher of the Year honors.
After pitching about once a week in the Florida Complex League in 2022, Paez stuck to a similar schedule with Salem last year and subsequently experienced an uptick in fastball velocity. To complement his fastball, which sits between 89-91 mph and tops out at 92 mph, the 6-foot-1, 170-pound hurler also mixes in a 76-79 mph curveball that features 10-to-5 break and an 82-84 mph changeup that shows late dive.
Paez is currently regarded by SoxProspects.com as the No. 39 prospect in Boston’s farm system, which ranks 17th among pitchers in the organization. Another notable evaluator, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs, tabbed Paez as his 35th-ranked Red Sox prospect over the summer and compared him to a former big-leaguer.
“Paez is Vance Worley with a shorter arm action,” Longenhagen wrote last June. “An athletic little righty with a sinking/tailing fastball that runs off the hip of lefty batters and back into the zone. He doesn’t throw very hard, he isn’t especially projectable, and he’s already liberally mixing in his secondaries just to get by in the lower levels of the minors, but Paez has remarkable command for a 19-year-old and his fastball/changeup duo diverge from his slider in a way that keeps the baseball off the barrel.”
Barring a trade or other surprising move, Paez is expected to make the jump to High-A Greenville for the start of the 2024 minor-league season. As others have pointed out, Paez would benefit from adding more velocity to his arsenal as he continues to rise through the prospect ranks. Given how the Red Sox have overhauled their pitching infrastructure under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow this winter, that could be within reach.
(Picture of Jedixson Paez: Gary Streiffer/Flickr)
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