Righthander John Holobetz had long intrigued the Red Sox. <\/p>\n
He went undrafted as an eligible Old Dominion sophomore in 2023 then rebuffed Boston\u2019s offer to sign out of the Cape Cod League that summer. <\/p>\n
A year later, the Red Sox hosted him at Fenway Park for a workout and saw a player with intriguing delivery and pitch shape traits who just needed more strength and power.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the Brewers drafted Holobetz in the fifth round in 2024, Boston\u2019s interest was undiminished. And so, in the April 2025 deal that sent Quinn Priester to Milwaukee for a supplemental first-round pick\u2014which eventually became Marcus Phillips\u2014and outfielder Yophery Rodriguez, the Red Sox also acquired Holobetz as a player to be named in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The righthander proved consistently solid in his first full professional season. <\/p>\n
Holobetz\u2019s ability to pound the strike zone\u2014his 4% walk rate was the third-lowest in the minors by any pitcher who threw at least 100 innings\u2014allowed him to handle a 124.2 inning workload. Across three levels, culminating with six appearances at Double-A Portland, he forged a 3.03 ERA and respectable 24% strikeout rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Holobetz\u2019s intrigue starts with a fastball that averages around 93 mph but has topped out at 97. While the pitch is lighter on velocity, it has other attributes of note. He delivers from a low release height of 5.3 feet with above-average extension of 6.5 feet and carry of 17 inches to beat hitters at the top of the zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Red Sox are hopeful that increased physicality on his 6-foot-3 frame will also permit his secondaries\u2014a low-80s slider, mid-80s cutter and 86-87 mph changeup\u2014to improve from below-average to average or better. <\/p>\n
His slider showed a promising ability to dodge bats at Double-A.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With a little more gas, Holobetz\u2019s precision could allow him to emerge as a back-end starter, with a fallback as a multi-innings reliever. That outlook has positioned him as an important depth piece and subject of industry attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really emerged, and actually he is someone who gets asked about (in trades) a lot now,\u201d Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SOX YARNS<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Red Sox invited seven players to their Rookie Development Program in January: shortstop Franklin Arias, second baseman Mikey Romero and pitchers Jake Bennett, Shane Drohan, Tyler Uberstine, Tyler Samaniego and Ryan Watson.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Righthander John Holobetz had long intrigued the Red Sox. He went undrafted as an eligible Old Dominion sophomore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,3935,89,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-518141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-organization-reports","14":"tag-red-sox","15":"tag-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}