Red Sox Traded Away Prospect With Organization-Leading 30 Home Runs

The player to be named later in the Tommy Pham trade has a ton of pop.

Scott Neville | Sep 14, 2022

Red Sox Traded Away Prospect With Organization-Leading 30 Home Runs /

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The Boston Red Sox departed with the player who leads all levels of the organization in home runs Wednesday.

Corner infielder Nick Northcut was sent to the Cincinnati Reds as a player to be named later, completing the Tommy Pham trade made on Aug. 1.

On the surface, trading away a prospect with more home runs than everyone in the organization, including the big league club, would sound like a bad move. However, Northcut is a flawed prospect who would have struggled to breach the lineup at the higher levels of the minor leagues.

The 23-year-old hit .219 with 18 doubles, 30 home runs, 75 RBIs and a .767 OPS in 103 games between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland. His most notable flaw is an extremely lopsided 151-to-25 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He'd have to come a long way to be even below average in that department as he's currently about as bad as it gets in terms of plate discipline.

Another factor that made the decision to ship out Northcut easier for Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom was the logjam of corner infielders.

Northcut already was trailing third baseman Alex Binelas and first baseman Niko Kavadas on the Portland Sea Dogs' depth chart with corner infield prospect Blaze Jordan on the fringe of a call-up to Double-A as well.

The Red Sox boast two young talents on the corners already in Rafael Devers and Triston Casas. Jordan (No. 10), Kavadas (No. 22) and Binelas (No. 25) are all top 30 prospects in the Red Sox organization according to MLB Pipeline.

With context, the decision to ship out Northcut was an easy one.

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Published Sep 14, 2022

SCOTT NEVILLE

Scott Neville covers the Boston Red Sox for Sports Illustrated's new page "Inside The Red Sox." Before starting "Inside The Red Sox", Neville attended Merrimack College, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Media with a minor in Marketing. Neville spent all four years with Merrimack's radio station WMCK, where he grew as a radio/podcast host and producer. His propensity for being in front of a microphone eventually expanded to film, where he produced multiple short films alongside his then-roommate and current co-worker Stephen Mottram. On a journey that began as a way to receive easy credits via film classes, he received a call from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" star Charlie Day. Day advised him to make a feature-length film, which he completed his senior year. While writing the film, Neville completed an internship for United Way as part of their NFL Partnership Program. Neville ran the blog for a team of interns and hosted an internet show called "United Way's NFL Partnership Series" where he interviewed NFL alumni. After college Neville wrote for SB Nation's "Over The Monster," a Red Sox sister site of the flagship brand. His work would eventually lead him to a job as a content producer with NESN, where he would cover all sports. After developing as a writer with the top regional network in the world, he was given the opportunity to join the Sports Illustrated Media Group in his current endeavor as the publisher of "Inside The Red Sox." The successful launch and quick rise of "Inside The Red Sox" led to Neville joining the Baseball Essential ownership group, a national baseball site under SIMG. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottNeville46 Email: nevilles@merrimack.edu