Why Payton Tolle Won't be Considered for Red Sox's Opening Day Rotation

Garrett Crochet and Sonny Gray are locks to toe the rubber in the first two games of the Boston Red Sox's season, barring injury or a subsequent addition. And, barring a trade involving Brayan Bello, the young right-hander should be a shoo-in to handle the final game of the opening series against the Cincinnati Reds.

That's three of the five spots in Alex Cora's starting rotation accounted for, and if you're like me and a strong believer in the Red Sox's faith in Johan Oviedo after dealing Jhostynxon Garcia (and more) for the hulking starter, you're just about ready to hand him the fourth spot. With the amount of depth the front office has accumulated over the past few years, that should create a fierce competition for the No. 5 starter gig in spring training.

I've already gone on the record to suggest that Kutter Crawford is my personal pick as the most-likely candidate to emerge victorious in that competition, at least for the first few months of the season. What he lacks in upside he makes up for in pitch-ability and durability, so long as he can overcome the wrist and knee injuries that held him out from participating in the 2025 campaign. Even if he doesn't strike your fancy, though, there's no shortage of options to choose from. Patrick Sandoval, who also missed all of last year with an elbow injury, brings a career 4.01 ERA and deep six-pitch arsenal to the mix. Connelly Early was impressive enough in his first big-league cup of coffee that he earned the nod in Game 3 of the Wild Card Round. Kyle Harrison, a fellow southpaw who arrived via the ill-advised Rafael Devers trade, has top-prospect pedigree and flashed in his limited exposure in Boston last year. Prospects David Sandlin and Tyler Uberstine are both knocking on the major-league door and already own places on the 40-man roster.

That's a ridiculous amount of depth, which is a testament to what Craig Breslow and company have been building. You'll notice, though, that I didn't include Payton Tolle among that loaded crop of contenders, despite the fact that he made his MLB debut at the end of last season and flashed his immense upside in a few impressive appearances. The reason for that is simply: Tolle isn't ready to handle a full-time role in the big-league rotation yet.

Now, that's not meant to be a slight against the 23-year-old southpaw. What he brings to the table — a 6'6" frame, elite extension, and a high-90s fastball — can't be taught. There's a reason he was fast-tracked from High-A to MLB in his first professional season, but that also means that he's thrown all of 58 1/3 innings above A-ball in his career. His four-seamer was simply too dominant for minor-league batters to stand a chance, but against the best of the best, one pitch won't cut it as a starter.

Let's start there, then. His fastball is great, and the raw numbers (96.7 mph average velocity, 28.3% whiff rate, 23.3% put-away rate) are tantalizing. But he also used the pitch 64% of the time in his brief major-league stint, hence why hitters were still able to tag it for a .565 slugging percentage and .402 wOBA despite its elite shape and relatively solid command up in the zone.

That's the product of a five-pitch arsenal that featured no other pitch more than 13% of the time. His cutter and slider both hold very similar shapes and movement profiles, and his changeup is disastrously flat. Tolle only mustered the courage to throw that latter pitch 21 times in the big leagues (all against righties), and it was hammered to the tune of a .711 wOBA. When your primary off-speed offering to opposite-handed batters gets hit that hard and has a pitch map that looks like this, you're going to run into serious trouble.

*Chart courtesy of Baseball Savant

This is simply the case of a very talented pitcher needing more seasoning; had the Red Sox not promoted Tolle so aggressively in 2025, he wouldn't even be a part of this discussion right now. A second offering against both righties and lefties are works in progress, as is the young lefty learning how to pitch around his fastball. There are a lot of nuances to being a pitcher that Tolle will only learn through experience — better to let him get those reps against Triple-A batters rather than in games that actually matter.

With the proper amount of time to develop his other offerings and feel for the course of navigating a lineup multiple times, the young southpaw should eventually emerge as the frontline pitcher so many of us were dreaming about during his MLB debut. But patience is needed here; rushing Tolle any further only stands to damage his long-term upside.