The Boston Red Sox finally squared the ledger on Jahmai Jones. Left-handed pitching prospect Jojo Ingrassia went to the Detroit Tigers on Saturday as the player to be named later in the deal, closing out a trade struck back on July 14, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.
Shortly before taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second of a three-game series, Boston announced it would send Ingrassia, a 24-year-old High-A starter, to complete the deal that brought Jones to Fenway Park three weeks earlier. Jones, a corner outfielder, had been designated for assignment by Detroit on July 9, and the Red Sox scooped him up for the price of a lightly regarded arm buried in the low minors.
Jahmai Jones’ Turnaround With the Boston Red Sox
Jones was a legitimate weapon for the Tigers a year ago, hitting .287 with a .550 slugging mark and seven home runs in 150 plate appearances as a short-side platoon piece, according to Speier. This season, Jones hit just .137 with Detroit, and his whiff rate climbed by more than a dozen points before the Tigers cut bait.
Boston made room by optioning outfielder Nate Eaton to Triple-A Worcester, the corresponding move that followed Danny Coulombe’s designation for assignment days earlier. Jones, out of options himself, had nowhere else to go but the active roster.
Since landing with the Red Sox, over his last 15 games he’s batting .385 with a 1.000 slugging percentage, two home runs and five RBI, according to MLB.com’s official Red Sox stats. His season line across both stops now sits at .167 with four homers and 12 RBI in 108 at-bats. The Roswell, Georgia, native has bounced through five organizations since the Angels drafted him in 2015, and Boston marks his sixth uniform.
Jojo Ingrassia’s Path Through the Red Sox System
Ingrassia never got past High-A in the Boston system. The Red Sox took the El Cajon, California, lefty in the 14th round of the 2023 draft — the final draft overseen by former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom — out of Cal State Fullerton, signing him for a $150,000 bonus after he’d spent his college career largely working as a closer.
He posted a 3.27 ERA with a 33 percent strikeout rate for Greenville this season, a number Speier flagged directly in his reporting on the trade’s completion. The underlying track record shows more swing-and-miss than that ERA suggests, with 59 strikeouts in 44 innings, a 1.18 WHIP, and a fastball that touches 95 mph out of a deceptive, cross-body delivery, according to a scouting profile by SoxProspects.com.
The lefty’s calling card was never dominance so much as durability and feel. He ran a 1.85 ERA over 58.1 innings at Low-A Salem in 2024, striking out 93 batters and earning a Carolina League postseason all-star nod. Elbow inflammation cost him time that summer and slowed his climb, and a rocky Arizona Fall League stint in 2025 did little to boost his stock.
Even so, evaluators project him as a potential middle-relief piece who could carve out a big-league role on the strength of his sweeper and changeup.
For Detroit, he’s a low-cost lottery ticket buried in a farm system that just watched its ace, Tarik Skubal, become the sport’s biggest trade chip. For the Red Sox, Jones already looks like the better end of the swap, even if the sample size remains tiny and the Fenway honeymoon is barely three weeks old. Boston, riding a scorching 21-4 July, a franchise-best month that included a 15-game winning streak, doesn’t need Jones to be a game-changer, just a solid depth piece.
Red Sox Trade 24-Year-Old Lefty Reliever to Tigers Before Dodgers Game