Red Sox’ Zach Fogell ends first full pro season with impressive showing in Arizona Fall League

Of the eight minor-leaguers the Red Sox sent to play in the Arizona Fall League this year , Zach Fogell was the lone pitcher from the clubs 2023 draft class to make the trip out west.

Fogell, Bostons 18th-round selection out of Connecticut last July , enjoyed a productive fall with the Mesa Solar Sox.

The 24-year-old left-hander allowed two runs (one earned) on two hits, four walks, one hit batsman, and 10 strikeouts over eight appearances spanning 9 1/3 innings of relief.

Opposing hitters batted just .069 against him.

Fogells impressive stint in Arizona comes on the heels of a solid first full season as a member of the Red Sox organization.

The lefty native spent most of the 2024 campaign at High-A Greenville after making a pair of scoreless relief outings for and subsequently earning a promotion from Low-A Salem on April 12.

Appearing in a team-leading 33 games for Greenville, Fogell posted a 3.32 ERA and 4.52 FIP with 67 strikeouts to 32 walks across 57 innings in which he held opposing hitters to a .212 batting average.

That includes a 1.86 ERA and 1.90 FIP in six July outings, which led him to be named the Red Sox Minor League Relief Pitcher of the Month.

He then pitched to a 4.15 ERA and 5.56 FIP in his final nine appearances (13 innings) of the year after the calendar flipped to August.

A 7-inning combined no-no for Greenville! Lefties Dalton Rogers, Jeremy Wu-Yelland, and Zach Fogell putting in the work.

pic.twitter.com/W2W8ZrUwtl Unsurprisingly, Fogell fared far better against left-handed hitters (.118 batting average against) than right-handed hitters (.255 batting average against) between Salem and Greenville this year.

Those lefty-righty splits can be applied to his performance in the Arizona Fall League as well, though it obviously comes from a much smaller sample size.

Anyway, Fogell was one of 85 pitchers to throw at least 55 innings in the South Atlantic League this season.

Among those 85, he ranked 26th in ERA, 27th in batting average against, 32nd in strikeouts per nine innings (10.58), and 38th in strikeout rate (26.8 percent).

On the flip side, he ranked 57th in WHIP (1.35), 78th in walk rate (12.8 percent), and 79th in walks per nine innings (5.05), per FanGraphs.

A native of Rhode Island, Fogell spent the first four years of his collegiate career at Brown before transferring to UConn as a graduate student.

He earned First Team All-Big East honors in his lone season with the Huskies and was taken by the Red Sox with the 538th overall pick in the 2023 draft shortly thereafter.

He then signed for an at-slot $150,000 bonus and made his professional debut in the rookie-level Florida Complex League last August.

Listed at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, Fogell throws from a three-quarters arm slot and incorporates a medium leg kick into his delivery.

As noted in his SoxProspects.com scouting report , the compact southpaw typically sits between 92-94 mph with his sinking fastball while mixing in an 88-90 mph changeup and an 80-82 mph sweeping slider.

Fogell, who does not turn 25 until next July, is not currently ranked by publications such as SoxProspects.com as one of the top pitching prospects in Bostons farm system.

He is projected by the site to return to Greenville for the start of the 2025 season but could rise up the organizational ladder quickly if he can cut down on the walks moving forward.

This article first appeared on Blogging the Red Sox and was syndicated with permission..

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