Breaking Down The Red Sox Acquisition of Jake Bennett

[Nick John]

Craig Breslow and the Boston Red Sox pulled off a surprise trade Monday night as electric pitching prospect Luis Perales was traded to the Washington Nationals for left-handed pitching prospect Jake Bennett. The trade is a strange and rare prospect-for-prospect trade but with Paul Toboni now calling the shots for the Nationals it makes sense that a trade between the two teams was bound to happen. Toboni does have an excellent understanding of the Red Sox farm system after all. With the trade, Breslow continues his acquisition of pitchers who fit a certain, preferred mold.

Bennett, who was the Nationals’ second round pick back in 2022 stands 6-foot-6 with elite extension (during his time in the Arizona Fall League Bennett averaged 7 feet in extension) and a fastball that just averaged under 94 mph. His pitch arsenal is made up of six pitches, his fastball, changeup, sinker, cutter, curveball and slider. Depending on which side the batter hits from also determines his pitch usage as against left-handed batters he relies heavily on his sinker as he tossed it 55.3% of the time in the AFL. His cutter and fastball are used 18.1% and 14.9% of the time while his slider was used just 6.4% of the time and his changeup and curveball were used a combined 5.4%. Against right-handed batters it’s a different story as his fastball and changeup make up 75.6% of the pitches he threw in the AFL. His sinker saw a huge drop off to just 4.1% usage while his cutter also dropped to 10.6%. His curveball saw an increase as it was used 7.4% of the time while his slider was used even less, being thrown just 2.3% of the time.

 

Bennett’s fastball, while averaging 93.8 mph did top out around 96 mph and he’s already shown an increase in velocity compared to his professional debut. Spending the remainder of the offseason following the Red Sox pitching program could see it increase another tick or two for the 2026 season. Though thanks to his low three-quarters release, his pitches seem to have deception to them. His sinker and cutter are mixed with his fastball in order to change how his fastball typically looks to add to the deception while his changeup will fade to his arm side, working best against right-handed batters. Meanwhile his slider and curveball are not used often but he manages to use them to spot a strike or get the opposing batter to chase. Overall, he has excellent control of all his pitches.

Bennett recently turned 25-years-old at the start of December and returned in 2025 from Tommy John surgery as he appeared in 19 games across three levels. Bennett finished the season with Double-A Harrisburg where he pitched in 10 games, making nine starts and going 1-2 with a 2.56 ERA in 45 2/3 innings. For the entire season he wound up going 2-5 with a 2.27 ERA across 75 1/3 innings. Bennett struck out 64 batters and walked 19. Following the season, Bennett was sent to the AFL where he was dominant in an otherwise hitter friendly league.

Tossing 20 innings he led the AFL in strikeouts with 25 while walking just five batters. Of his pitches, the only one that had under a 20% chase rate was his curveball while every pitch had at least a 33% whiff rate as his slider was particularly high with 66.7% of swings against it ending in whiffs. Along with his slider, his changeup was a great pitch, being chased 45.6% of the time and being whiffed on 43.8% of the time. Overall, during his time in the AFL, Bennett managed to get opposing batters to chase on 34.1% of his pitches and whiffing on 39.9%.

Breslow appears to be incredibly high on the pitcher, going as far as to say “we feel like Bennett is a high probability starter that excels in some things that are hard to teach. Fastball playability driven by above average extension and strike throwing ability. His whiff rates and ability to manage hard contact have us confident in his ability to be a major league starter”.

During his time in the AFL, Bennett held batters to just a 44% hard-hit rate while the average exit velocity off of him was just 88 mph, a stat that had him in the 72nd percentile.

Bennett, who was the Nationals’ sixth ranked prospect by Baseball America, has shown improvement since being drafted and between his wide arsenal of pitches, being a left-handed pitcher, and his excellent ability to control his pitches should be in the rotation if he makes it up to Boston. His time in Double-A (while short) can be compared to two other talented lefties in Connelly Early and Payton Tolle. Though older than both of them, Bennett had an ERA that was very close to Early while his FIP was lower. While also having the lowest strikeout rate of the three, Bennett edged out Tolle for a lower walk percentage at 6%. Along with that, Bennett’s ability to keep the ball on the ground rivals both pitchers, his 48% falling just short of Early’s 50%, but being much higher than Tolle’s 40%.

 

Of course, you can’t get without giving up and in return the Red Sox sent Perales back to the Nationals. Perales, who is Talk Sox’s fifth ranked prospect, was a talented yet injury prone pitcher. Perales missed all but one game of the 2021 season due to injuries and the only season where he made at least 20 appearances was in 2023. Otherwise, his next highest was 13 games in 2022. Perales was coming off of Tommy John surgery he had in 2024 and made three appearances in 2025. Like Bennett, the talented prospect pitched in the AFL where he made six starts and tossed 11 1/3 innings where he struck out 19 batters.

Despite Perales’ talent, there was worry of the risk he would wind up being a reliever due to his history of injuries along with his struggles with his control. While not confirmed, Breslow must have had that in mind when he traded what was known as the arm with the best raw stuff in the system.

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