Red Sox Fans Shouldn’t Forget About This Frontline Pitching Prospect

Before the start of the 2025 season, NESN.com is evaluating several noteworthy prospects in the Boston Red Sox organization, using insight and analysis from industry experts to gauge each player’s outlook for the upcoming campaign. Next up: Luis Perales.

The Red Sox revamped their entire farm system over the last five years with elite position players.

Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow molded a few young pitching prospects at the Triple-A level in Quinn Priester, Richard Fitts and Hunter Dobbins. Moving forward, the Red Sox hope to build on an internal pitching pipeline of homegrown arms, and that really starts with talented right-hander Luis Perales.

Perales’ progression is on hold after he underwent Tommy John surgery in late June following a promotion to Double-A Portland. That said, he’s still undoubtedly the prized arm of the Red Sox system heading into 2025.

Here’s how Perales got here.

Background
Perales signed with the Red Sox as a 16-year-old from Venezuela. His fastball impressed early on when Boston invested in him as an international signing.

He quickly made one appearance in the Dominican Summer League in 2021. He impressed in his first taste of the minor league season in 2022, to the tune of a 1.77 ERA and 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings. He looked solid in 2023 but really seemed to find his form in 2024.

Perales looked sharp in High-A Greenville and earned a promotion to Double-A Portland late in the spring. Once he took the mound with the Sea Dogs, he showed quality stuff before his season came to a close with a brutal elbow injury on June 8. He had Tommy John surgery just weeks later, setting up a recovery timeline that could continue until the end of the 2025 season.

There’s still plenty to like about the Red Sox prospect when he returns from his rehab, though. Perales has a ton of talent.

Scouting Report
Perales truly overpowers hitters with pure stuff, though it starts and ends with a tremendous fastball for the highly regarded Red Sox prospect.

“Good arm speed,” Salem Red Sox manager Ozzie Chavez told NESN.com. “He has confidence in his pitches, especially his fastball.”

“He has swing-and-miss stuff with a power fastball,” Red Sox senior director of player development Brian Abraham told NESN.com. “A guy who strikes guys out, misses bats and keeps guys off the bases. Anytime you have a combination like that with a pitcher who has the stuff, it can be really exciting.”

Perales still has innings to log in the minor leagues and still can take numerous steps forward in perfecting his arsenal with better command. Luckily for him, voices such as Breslow and big-league pitching coach and Red Sox director of pitching Justin Willard can properly chime in.

Perales also mixes pitches well, with a capable slider and a changeup. He added a cutter last season that could bring that arsenal to another level.

“He had started to click,” Baseball America’s Geoff Pontes told NESN.com. “The stuff, particularly the ride on the fastball, blended with that velocity is a plus, plus-plus fastball. He misses a ton of bats with it. Hopefully that all comes back. He was starting to really get command of his stuff, which I think was the biggest hurdle he had to overcome.”

“It’s an arsenal you can dream on, with four at-least-average pitches, with three of them above average to plus,” SoxProspects.com director of scouting Ian Cundall told NESN.com. “The fastball plays even higher. That’s not a profile you can find very easily. That’s not someone you can sleep on.”

Most-likely outcome: Plus-stuff reliever.

Perales clearly has the stuff needed to attack MLB hitters and perform at a high level. At the very least, he’ll be able to settle in as a middle reliever and unleash his arsenal in a suitable volume for the Red Sox. If he’s not going to start, Boston can let him free to go right at hitters out of the bullpen.

Best-case scenario: Capable starter.

Perales started games through this point in his career as a professional, and the expectation is that will continue when the Red Sox prospect returns healthy, likely for the start of the 2026 season. For a system that needs homegrown starters down the line, Perales should absolutely continue to develop in that role.

“That’s the profile of a guy that’s a No. 3 starter,” Cundall said. “Maybe higher. If he’s healthy, he’s a top 40-50 national prospect.”

Fenway forecast
Perales’ arrival to The Show isn’t imminent, given the year-plus recovery timeline of his Tommy John surgery. Cundall projects him to be ready to roll again for spring training in 2026. And that can allow Perales’ production in Double-A to continue.

An MLB debut in the second half of the 2027 season feels like an obtainable path for Perales and the Red Sox. And he could be a huge part of Boston’s long-term plans.

“If you take out the ‘Big Three’ (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell), he might be the most important player in the system,” Cundall said.

SoxProspects.com ranking: No. 4
Perales could stay as the organization’s top pitching prospect for the foreseeable future, though graduations and rises from other places could impact his overall spot on the list.