Fort Report: Camp opens

The Red Sox held their first full team workout on February 22 and with the start of spring training comes another year of the SoxProspects.com Fort Report. The Fort Report will run every Tuesday throughout spring training, catching you up on all things prospect-related in Fort Myers.

Here are this week's minor league notes:

• The SoxProspects.com podcast team has been on a roll, with recent podcasts featuring Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom on Episode #200 followed by Senior VP of Baseball Operations Ben Crockett on Episode #201. After an excellent, guestless Episode #202 focusing on the recent trade of outfielder Andrew Benintendi, they continued that incredible run with Episode #203 featuring Red Sox Executive VP and Assistant General Manager Eddie Romero.

• The Benintendi move returned three players to be named later but also included major league outfielder Franchy Cordero and prospect pitcher Josh Winckowski. The SoxProspects.com scouting team got right to work, giving a detailed scouting report of the newly acquired right-hander.

• In a second trade last week, the Red Sox traded left-handed pitcher Jeffrey Springs and right-handed pitcher Chris Mazza to the Tampa Bay Rays for catcher Roberto Hernandez and infielder Nick Sogard on February 17. Scouting reports for Hernandez and Sogard were updated in a subsequent post.

• Unable to quit his podcast obsession, SoxProspects.com executive Editor Chris Hatfield joined Matthew Kory on Episode Six of his Sox Outsider podcast. The two discussed the off-season, the Benintendi trade, and more.

• Peter Gammons, writing for The Athletic, joined the growing list of people in the industry who are excited about Jarren Duran's game, and thinks it is possible that Duran could be the firestarter for the next generation of Red Sox.

• ESPN's Kiley McDaniel released his Top 100 Prospects list this week with two Red Sox making the list - Jeter Downs (pictured, above) at 41 and Triston Casas at 52. After ranking the Red Sox farm system 21st in baseball, he also put out his rankings of the Red Sox top 10 prospects and notes on a bunch more who didn't make the top 10. In a third piece, McDaniel also gave a breakout prospect for each of the 30 teams with righty Garrett Whitlock listed for the Red Sox.

• Eric Longenhagen also put out his Top 100 for Fangraphs, and while he had the same two in his ranking, he ranked them back-to-back at 52 and 53.

• MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo picked a prospect to watch this spring for each time. His selection for the Red Sox is SoxProspects.com's second-ranked prospect, infielder Jeter Downs.

• The Red Sox announced they have claimed RHP John Schreiber off waivers from Detroit. To make room, lefty Chris Sale was moved to the 60-day injured list as he continues his recovery from Tommy John surgery.

• The Red Sox also announced on Monday that they have claimed righty Joel Payamps off of waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays who had claimed him from the Red Sox earlier this month. In the corresponding move, they placed newly acquired Franchy Cordero on the Covid-19 injured list.

• How many major leaguers are in the 2021 Red Sox minor league system right now? That is a question we won't know the answer to for a decade or more. Baseball America took a look at teams' farm systems from 1998 to 2012 to try and get a historical perspective on this difficult question. It may not be surprising, but the Red Sox averaged the seventh most All-Stars (4.13/year), were 13th (11.3/year) on major leaguers with careers of 3+ years, and 19th (33.8/year) on prospects who appeared in the majors at any point.

• As spring training gets going, there are a couple of changes to keep in mind this year:

• MLB Spring Training is currently scheduled through March 30. The MLB Spring Training Roster Limit will be 75, inclusive of NRIs and players on the IL. 

• 
  Minor League Spring Training will not commence until MLB camp breaks on or around March 30. The Double-A season is scheduled to start on May 4. We expect that a small number of Triple-A level players who were not invited to MLB Spring Training will not play in Worcester in April, but may be assigned there when minor league camp breaks.

• As SoxProspects.com does every year, the site lists a projection for each of the rosters in the system. That is far more complicated this year and the page explains some of those short-term considerations for each level.

• MassLive's Christopher Smith also took a look at the likely landing places of Boston's top prospects.

• Earlier this month, the Red Sox announced their non-roster invitees to MLB Spring Training. Some of the interesting names were Triston Casas, Jarren Duran, Jeter Downs, and Nick Yorke (pictured, right).

• WEEI.com's Rob Bradford took note of the Yorke addition and explores why the Red Sox are letting Yorke mingle with the major leaguers this spring training.

Photo Credit: Jeter Downs and Nick Yorke by Kelly O'Connor

Will Woodward is a Co-Owner and Senior Staff Writer for SoxProspects.com. Follow him on Twitter @SPWill.

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