When the Red Sox pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Dodgers in August, they were immediately praised for being able to shed a significant amount of salary. The talent they brought in isn’t too shabby either, though.
The Sox acquired Rubby De La Rosa, Allen Webster, James Loney and Ivan De Jesus in the deal that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to Los Angeles. De La Rosa and Webster are considered to be very solid pitching prospects.
Pedro Martinez placed a crazy amount of praise on De La Rosa, whom he’s known since De La Rosa was a child. Martinez threw out the likes of Roger Clemens and Juan Marichal when talking about De La Rosa’s pure stuff, and he thinks that the young right-hander could become one of baseball’s elite players when all is said and done.
De La Rosa already has some big league experience, even if it’s minimal. The 23-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, who the Dodgers signed as an amateur free agent back in 2007, went 4-5 with a 3.71 ERA in 13 appearances (10 starts) for L.A. in 2011. De La Rosa then missed a significant amount of time because of Tommy John surgery, though, so the hope is that 2013 will be a healthy year.
Webster has no big league experience to his credit yet, but it shouldn’t be long before he does. The 23-year-old was rated the No. 95 prospect in baseball by Baseball America before the 2012 season. The right-hander then went 6-9 with a 3.86 ERA in 29 games (24 starts) at the Double-A level, and he’s now ranked No. 49 on Baseball America’s pre-2013 prospects list.
Perhaps De La Rosa will end up arriving in Boston sooner because of his big league experience, but who will carve out the better major league career?
Allen Webster photo (right) via Facebook/Allen Webster
