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Red Sox’ ‘bulldog’ prospect once ‘wasn’t a very big recruit’; now he’s up to 97 mph with plus control
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- Red Sox’ ‘bulldog’ prospect once ‘wasn’t a very big recruit’; now he’s up to 97 mph with plus control
“Oh, I might be getting promoted. This is sick.”
That’s the first thought that crossed then-Milwaukee Low-A prospect John Holobetz’s mind when he saw an incoming call during an off day last May 5. Instead, the Brewers official on the other line informed him he had been traded to the Red Sox . He was the player to be named later in the Quinn Priester deal from April 5.
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“The trade happened a month earlier, and I heard that there was a player to be named later in the trade, but I kind of just forgot about it,” Holobetz said.
“I was like, ‘Are you serious?’” Holobetz added about being told.
It all worked out well for the Red Sox and Holobetz — and the trade also came with a promotion. Boston assigned the 23-year-old to High-A Greenville where he made an instant friend in catcher Hudson White.
White played in high school with Holobetz’s former Brewers minor league teammate Jaron DeBerry. After the trade, DeBerry made sure to put the two in contact right away.
Holobetz recorded a 3.04 ERA in 18 outings (16 starts) between Greenville and Portland. The 2024 Brewers fifth round pick out of Old Dominion posted a 2.39 ERA and 0.85 WHIP while holding opponents to a .205 batting average in six outings (five starts) at Portland to close out his first professional season.
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Earlier this offseason, MassLive named Holobetz as one of seven Red Sox prospects who has a chance to make his MLB debut in 2026 . Baseball America wrote about Holobetz as a potential breakout candidate in 2026 .
Senior director of player development Brian Abraham said Holobetz’s velocity ticked up after the trade and the righty throws a ton of strikes, limits walks and stays away from barrels.
“He’s a competitor,” Abraham said . “He’s a bulldog. He wants the ball. I saw him pitch a bunch of times live, and he’s the type of guy that really wants the ball with the game on the line, and it’s always fun to watch those guys pitch and compete.”
The Sox asked Holobetz to gain weight and add strength this offseason.
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The 6-foot-3, 205-pounder, who leaves for Fort Myers on Saturday, has gained five pounds since the 2025 season ended.
“It’s definitely a high protein diet, but it’s also getting to the gym as much as I can,” he said.
Holobetz throws a four-seam fastball that topped out at 97 mph last season while also mixing in a cut-fastball, slider and changeup.
He hopes gaining weight and adding strength without losing mobility will help his average fastball velocity increase in 2026.
“I would like it to be over 95 this upcoming spring training,” Holobetz said. “If I can get to that, that’d be nice.”
His fastball plays best at the top of the zone.
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“That’s where we’ve decided that it has missed bats,” he said. “And I think that’s the best place for my fastball.”
He really likes throwing his slider but he said his best secondary pitch depends on the handedness of the hitter. His cutter is more effective than his slider against righties while his slider has played better than his cutter against lefties.
His “very heavy” slider has sharp, downhill movement. His cut-fastball has ride, takes off out of his hand and sits around 85-86 mph.
“It’s not very fast compared to other people’s cutters,” he said. “But compared to my fastball, it looks like a fastball and just kind of takes off glove side instead of going more arm side.”
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He likes throwing his changeup to both lefties and righties but he knows he needs to get better results with it against righties.
“I tried a new grip with it this offseason, so we’ll see how it plays out,” Holobetz said. “But this past season it was more of just like a rollover pitch. If I got a swing and miss on it, great. But it’s kind of just like a miss the barrel of the bat type of pitch.”
Holobetz was pitching well for Low-A Carolina before the trade, posting a 3.00 ERA (24 innings, eight earned runs) and allowing just 16 hits and five walks while striking out 31.
The Red Sox encouraged him to mix in his secondary pitches more often.
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“It was just the philosophy of using every pitch to help take off the reliance on a fastball to get outs,” Holobetz said. “So being able to throw a fastball, cutter, changeup, slider all for a strike at any count really helped me kind of miss bats and stay ahead of batters.”
Staying ahead in the count has always been a strength for Holobetz who averaged just 1.4 walks per nine innings and finished with a 4% walk percentage (20 walks, 499 batters faced) in 2025.
“I think being able to get ahead of a batter, especially with a pitch that they’re not really expecting, it really makes the batter think,” Holobetz said. “And it makes it harder for them to adjust to anything else you throw.”
He has taken pride in his ability to limit walks dating back to Little League.
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“I feel like I learned to pitch before the velo came,” Holobetz said. “I think I got up to 87 in high school. I wasn’t a very big recruit.”
He initially began his college career at Radford, which he chose over Quinnipiac, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Gardner-Webb, Longwood and Bucknell.
A noticeable increase in velocity didn’t come until after he transferred, as a sophomore, to Old Dominion. He said he’s unsure what ultimately led to the increase.
“I have no idea,” Holobetz said. “It’s crazy to say, but I just showed up on Old Dominion’s campus and two weeks later I was sitting 92, 94. So I went from like 89-92 to 92-94. I might have gained weight. I couldn’t really tell you, but I was 180 pounds soaking wet and just something clicked.”
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While almost all his numbers at Portland were impressive, his strikeout rate dropped slightly from 23.7% at High A to 19.6% at Portland.
“When he’s at his best, he’s getting strikeouts in the zone,” Abraham said. “That was a little bit of a challenge towards the end of the season. But I think it also was the jump into Double A, which was a little bit more difficult.”
Holobetz noticed that Double-A hitters are much more patient than High-A hitters.
”In Double A you kind of had to get them to two strikes to be able to even expand the zone even a little bit,“ he said.
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