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How Red Sox prospect (2.27 ERA at Worcester) could ‘crack’ major league roster
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- How Red Sox prospect (2.27 ERA at Worcester) could ‘crack’ major league roster
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow significantly increased his starting pitching depth this offseason by signing Ranger Suarez and trading for Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo .
Suarez and Gray will slot in as the Red Sox ' Nos. 2 and 3 starters behind ace Garrett Crochet . Then there’s Brayan Bello , Oviedo, Kutter Crawford , Connelly Early , Kyle Harrison and Patrick Sandoval who make Boston nine deep.
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The Sox also added starting pitching prospects Shane Drohan , David Sandlin and Tyler Uberstine to the 40-man roster in November, protecting them from the Rule 5 Draft. In all, there are 14 starters on the 40-man, including Tanner Houck who’s rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.
For someone like Drohan, the path to starting in the big leagues is quite crowded. But the 27-year-old has something else going for him as he enters spring training camp competing for an Opening Day roster spot — he’s a hard-throwing left-hander.
One area in which the Red Sox roster is lacking is left-handed relief options. Aroldis Chapman is the only left-handed reliever on the 40-man roster with more than 81 big league appearances.
“I think it’s easy to get caught up in all kind of like the titles,” Drohan said. “At the end of the day, I want to pitch in the big leagues, so whether that’s starting or relieving, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
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Drohan recorded a 2.27 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 35.2% strikeout percentage while holding opponents to a .185 batting average in 12 outings (11 starts) for Triple-A Worcester in 2025. He missed from July 9 to August 26 with left forearm inflammation. He throws a fastball, cutter, changeup, slider and curveball .
“I think especially nowadays with the modern game, there’s a lot of damn good starting pitchers who had to crack into the league through the bullpen,” Drohan said. “A lot of our starting pitchers debuted in the bullpen.”
Eighty-nine of Drohan’s 94 outings in the Red Sox organization have been starts. But he worked primarily out of the bullpen while making 10 relief appearances in the White Sox system in May-June 2024.
Initially a Red Sox’ 2020 fifth-round draft pick, Drohan spent six months in 2024 in the White Sox organization after Chicago picked him in the December 2023 Rule 5 Draft .
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Chicago returned him to Boston on June 12, 2024, after Drohan underwent shoulder surgery almost four months earlier during spring training. Before returning him, the White Sox had Drohan go out on a rehab assignment as a reliever.
He learned a lot about himself while doing it after always being a regimented pitcher grounded in his routine.
“Them putting me into that bullpen routine made me realize that there was a lot of things that I was doing that weren’t really necessary in my prep,” Drohan said. “And it really allowed me to almost shrink down my routine to the things that I felt like really, really mattered, which then kind of just took a lot of anxiety away from me. .... I was just a lot more relaxed.”
He said he learned a two-hour pregame routine wasn’t the reason he was going to pitch well.
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“It’s the years of work that I put into in,” Drohan said.
Drohan added a new slider heading last season and it quickly became his best secondary pitch.
“I don’t know the exact numbers on it, but I definitely believe that it was like my highest whiff rate of all my pitches — in zone, out of zone,” Drohan said. “But specifically the in-zone whiff is really, really nice to see.”
Drohan said his cutter “had a lot more lift” to it and “held its plane a lot more” when he returned from surgery in 2024.
“It was just a big gap from the cutter to the curveball, so we saw a nice spot to mix a slider in there,” Drohan said. “Our pitching department showed me some grips, and just like that, I picked it up.”
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He has emphasized working on his changeup this offseason after increasing his slider usage last year. His changeup, previously considered his top secondary pitch, took a backseat because of how much success he had with his slider.
“That was a pitch for me that was really good the years before,” Drohan said. “So we were working on the slider so much, throwing less changeups towards the end of the year, the shape got a little wonky with it.”
The focus has been returning the changeup back to its previous shape.
“Messing with the grips in the bullpens this offseason, I’m seeing a lot of positive results,” Drohan said. “It’s kind of shot right back to where exactly where we wanted it to be.”
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Drohan said it felt awesome when the Red Sox added him to the 40-man roster, especially after going through the process two years before.
“I’ve been working really hard at this for a while,” Drohan said. “It was just really rewarding. Really proud. Because I really like the Red Sox, like everybody here from the top to the bottom. So it was just a proud moment for me.”
He said he entered the Rule 5 Draft roster deadline day feeling neutral about it.
“I was gonna be OK either way,” he said. “I knew at this point that regardless of if they added me or not, it didn’t change me as a person or a pitcher. I still believed in myself. I’m a good pitcher. And wherever it took me, it took me.”
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