Who is he and where did he come from?
He’s Jake Bennett, the former Oklahoma Sooner and 2022 second-round draft pick who the Red Sox acquired for Luis Perales earlier in the offseason. This is curious because Perales had just returned from
a 2024 UCL tear and still is just 22 years old, but the 25 year-old Bennett had a pretty fantastic 2025 season, albeit capping out at double-A; he even ended his campaign after fall ball as the organization’s number 10 prospect. Although he’s primarily been a starter in his career, Bennett is on the 40-man roster and, amongst a lack of lefty relief arms, definitely stands to have an opportunity at some Spring Training innings come March.
Is he any good?
Too early to really tell, but he could be. If nothing else, Bennett’s archetype is definitely a favorite of Craig Breslow’s since his appointment as Chief Baseball Officer. He’s a towering lefty, sizing up at 6’6”, 234 pounds. In the 2025 MLB draft, the Red Sox used six of their first eight picks on SEC pitchers who are at least 6’2”. It helps that Bennett, who missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery (another possible favorite trait of this front office…) is a lefty. Between Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, Johan Oviedo, and an emerging Brandon Clarke, Bennett joins a room full of giants. And I don’t mean the ones in San Francisco!
To get more into Bennett’s skillset, though, he certainly has some velocity across all five of his pitches (he goes to three more often, though). His fastball is creeping back up towards he 97 mile per hour peak it reached before his elbow injury. His cleanest pitch, a mid-80’s changeup with 7.1 feet of extension (which, had he pitched in the Majors, would have placed him in the top 10 percentile) is graded at a 60 on a 20-80 scale on Baseball America. His cutter is quite a bit shorter, but tops out at 88. As a whole, though Bennett struggles with control, he gets a 47.3% groundball percentage, which is definitely a positive sign in a guy with his velocity.
Too long didn’t read: big guy throws hard. And throwing hard certainly comes with advantages, as he worked his way up the Nationals’ system after returning from a year’s absence, proving himself to be up to the challenge at each level. He finished 2025 with a cumulative 2.27 ERA and 1.08 WHIP and allowed just three home runs in 75 innings.
Tl;dr, just show me his 2025 stats.
Man, can’t you read one line up? No, well, okay.
75 IP (19 G), 2.27 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 2.96 FIP, 64 K, 19 BB
Show me a cool highlight.
His extension is on display here, along with his velocity, as he punches four consecutive batters, going four innings in relief while allowing a run, earning him the hold in this particular contest in front of an attendance of 488 that, at first glance, seems a bit embellished, but it’s fine.
What’s he doing in his picture up there?
I’d like to take the opportunity to say that, with his shoulder length hair and big frame, Bennett definitely looks like a guy in a mid-2000’s coming-of-age film named “Jake.” His facial expression up there adds to that.
For one more fun fact: he went to high school AND college with Nats hurler (and 2020 1st round pick) Cade Cavalli. Bennett was actually the first one drafted late in the 2019 MLB draft, but went to Oklahoma instead. Here’s the rapport between the two of them and Jake Irvin.
Jake Irvin, Cade Cavalli & Jake Bennett have a ton in common – they all pitch, they all went to Oklahoma, they all got drafted by the Nats, and they all had to come back from Tommy John.
— Dan Kolko (@DanKolko_) April 7, 2024
I sat down with them in spring to discuss the bond they share & how they lean on each other. https://t.co/rWUdD9kKcL
What’s his role on the 2026 Red Sox?
There are a few ways this can go given that the Red Sox still have about 100 lefty relief appearances to fill between the absences of Justin Wilson and Brennan Bernardino (note that the former, at 38 years old, has not opted to retire yet amidst rumors of him doing so but is a free agent currently.) It’s possible that Bennett still lacks the stamina or the control to give the rotation five strong innings, especially at a Major League level, and especially coming off of a lengthy injury.
Luckily, he won’t have to worry about the pressure of performing the rotation, given the big bodied southpaws ahead of him in the depth chart, like the aforementioned Connelly Early and Payton Tolle, and obviously the staples of the rotation like Crochet and a newly acquired Ranger Suarez. But, it stands to question whether, should Bennett really impress, he could be this year’s version of a Zack Kelly or Darwinzon Hernandez, who fights his way into the bullpen, wins over some goodwill and, even better, unlocks some potential in a pitching staff that holds pitchers like Bennett so dearly. Here’s hoping that Bennett has more staying power than either of those. He certainly has the mechanics to.
