Blaze Jordan's Resurgence At Double-A Creates Interesting Questions For Red Sox

[Billy Mock]

We are roughly a month and change into the Minor League Baseball season. With sample sizes growing, some of these hot starts players are off to look more and more like sustained success. A number of underrated Red Sox prospects have opened their 2025 campaigns on good notes, which includes Blaze Jordan, the 2020 third-round pick out of DeSoto Central High School in Mississippi.

Jordan is a 22-year-old corner infielder that has spent a lot of time in the Red Sox system to this point in his professional career. When entering the pro ranks as a high school draftee, the expectation is that said player will take longer to advance through the minors than their college counterparts. That has very much so been the case for Jordan, as he has had a pretty conventional journey through the minors. He opened his pro career in 2021 at the age of 18 in the Florida Complex League before a promotion to Low-A Salem later on that season. In each year since, Jordan has advanced one level, but spent the entirety of 2024 at Double-A Portland, which is a pretty common situation for minor leaguers.

Double-A pitching has been a bit of a road block for Jordan, as he struggled to hit at a league-average level, both during his 49-game stint in the second half of 2023 and his entire season last year. In 380 plate appearances in 2024, Jordan posted just a 95 wRC+ (up from his 86 wRC+ a year prior) after finding success at each stop before Double-A. Now 26 games into 2025, however, Jordan seems to be getting over the hump. In 110 plate appearances, he's hitting .261/.373/.413, good for a 127 wRC+. In fact, he has gotten hotter as of late, tearing it up since the start of May. In eight games in May thus far, Jordan has hit both of his home runs on the season while hitting .333/.500/.667, ranking fifth in the Eastern League in OPS at 1.167. 

There does seem to be a pretty distinct change in his game this year, and it's simply that he's been much more patient at the plate. His walk rate is up to 13.6% on the season, while his strikeout rate is down to 10.9%. Both marks are career bests. His highest walk rate prior was 10.4% during a 25-game stint at High-A Greenville, while his lowest strikeout rate was 12.1% a year ago. It has always been about average to above-average contact skills for Jordan, who pairs those bat-to-ball abilities with above-average power. Pitchers have to respect that carrying tool, so if he's laying off of pitches out of the zone, he's laying some solid groundwork for offensive success. 

Jordan had a lot of buzz around him coming out of the draft in 2020, but fell to the Red Sox in the third round due to his strong commitment to Mississippi State. Fortunately for both Jordan and the Red Sox, the long game appears to be paying off. 

With the run Jordan is currently on, he's starting to catch some steam among Red Sox fans. A promotion to Triple-A Worcester should be on the horizon as he continues to hit. Although he has split time between third base and first base for the majority of his professional career, Jordan has spent the bulk of 2025 at first base. There are obviously some current issues at the first base position in Boston due to Triston Casas's knee injury and Rafael Devers' unwillingness to take on the position. With that being said, there have been some rumors floating around about Jordan potentially earning an early call-up to Boston to plug in at first. He definitely needs some more seasoning before he's ready for the big leagues, but sometimes the game simply doesn't care if you're ready or not. The options at Triple-A are bleak at best, so if Jordan continues to hit at an above-average level in Double-A, I don't find it out of the realm of possibility that he can at least join the Red Sox in a first base platoon role at some point before the end of the season. Whether or not this becomes a reality, Red Sox fans should still be excited about Blaze Jordan's resurgence.

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[mvp 78]

After this weekend, his May OPS is back down to 1029. I think he had a nice series against NH, but I don't think we should get too worked up over a guy repeating AAA for the third year. His is still young, but is a potential Rule 5 guy this offseason. I think I'd rather see him at 1b in WOO than Grissom though. 

[Larry Cook]

6 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

 I think I'd rather see him at 1b in WOO than Grissom though. 

I agree 100 percent. I was hoping Grissom could play 2nd base and create some trade value for himself 

[moonslav59]

49 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I agree 100 percent. I was hoping Grissom could play 2nd base and create some trade value for himself 

I'm not sure Grissom can ever be even okay at any position. His D will not add value, no matter where he plays.

We need a 1Bman, so I think they moved a semi-hot hand to 1B, just in case. He's not hot, anymore.

[mvp 78]

56 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I agree 100 percent. I was hoping Grissom could play 2nd base and create some trade value for himself 

They’ll trade him for a rule 5 eligible guy or an arm.

[moonslav59]

15 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

They’ll trade him for a rule 5 eligible guy or an arm.

They may trade Grissom & Jordan.

[mvp 78]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

They may trade Grissom & Jordan.

It wouldn't be surprising. The only issue is that they don't really have a lot of positional depth. They will have promoted the big three as well as traded Teel/Montgomery and guys at last year's deadline. The AA/AAA roster has very few bright spots aside from the well known guys. 

[moonslav59]

8 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

It wouldn't be surprising. The only issue is that they don't really have a lot of positional depth. They will have promoted the big three as well as traded Teel/Montgomery and guys at last year's deadline. The AA/AAA roster has very few bright spots aside from the well known guys. 

We did and will lighten those rosters a bit, and beyond those you mentioned.  Some of these not-so-promising guys were not AA/AAA, but some might have been in 2025:

Meidroth & Wikelman with Teel & Monty.

Elmer Rodriguez (for Narvaez) & Gasper (for J Moran)

Yorke (for Priester)

Lugo, Kavadas, Zeferjahn & Vargas (for L Garica)

Paulino, C Coffey & G Batista (for Jansen)

Portes (for Sims)