It’s pitching preview time, ladies and gentlemen. Over the next several days, I’ll be writing 10,000 words or so about everyone you might see pitching for the Red Sox to start the season. I’ve put the team’s starting options into tiers because that’s how my brain works. Don’t think of them as rankings, but rather buckets based on some similarities I see.
After starting with a look at Garrett Crochet, one of the best pitchers in baseball, and then moving onto the two big offseason acquisitions, today we shift to four pitchers who hope to fill out the back of the rotation, but who each have some questions to answer.
Tier Three: Veterans With Questions
Tier three is made up of Brayan Bello and Johan Oviedo, two pitchers who have established themselves as major leaguers but who have yet to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The potential is off the charts, but the floor is low.
Brayan Bello
2025 in a sentence:Bello had a solid year, but his strikeouts were down, the ball was in play, and he struggled late in the season.
Sonny Gray’s season line would lead many to believe he’s a bottom-of-the-rotation pitcher, when the underlying numbers tell a better story. Brayan Bello’s season line, on the other hand, paints him in a more positive light than a look under the hood.
In 29 appearances (28 starts and 1 weird five-inning appearance to resume a rain-delayed game), Bello posted a career-best 3.35 ERA. That mark was the ninth-best in the American League among qualifiers. At the same time, his K-BB%, one of the best predictors of future performance, was 48th of 52 qualifiers. Most public projection systems have Bello’s 2026 ERA somewhere between 4.00 and 4.50.
We’ll start with the good. Bello throws a 95 mph sinker that reached up to 99 mph at times. He uses it 50% of the time against righties, and there’s not a ton they can do with it. It has 18 inches of horizontal break; he gets it in on righties’ hands well, and induces tons of weak contact as a result. The sinker is a great table setter for Bello against righties, but he needs to refine the rest of his approach.
He introduced a cutter that became his second-most thrown pitch to right-handers by the end of the season. It worked well, earning strikes at a high rate and limiting hard contact. He struggled in September when he had a hard time throwing the pitch in the zone, and the strike rate fell about eight percent, but end-of-season fatigue could be to blame. Overall, the pitch was a solid addition to his repertoire.
More pressing than getting strikes, for Bello, was ending at-bats. His putaway rate was just 16.6%, 90th of 127 starters with at least 100 innings pitched. Against righties, he used a sweeper most often and had some success, but overall, it was an average offering. He paired it with backdoor sinkers that also had limited success. His four-seam fastball was ineffective with two strikes despite solid command at the top of the zone, and he left too many cutters over the plate rather than landing them on the glove side.
Bello had similar problems against lefties. His sinker and cutter went for strikes frequently, but lefties made better contact than righties. With two strikes, he doesn’t have a single above-average offering. He went to his changeup frequently, but the slow ball was never in the zone and wasn’t enticing enough to punch hitters out. He tried his four-seam and sweeper as well, but neither provided positive results. Overall, it resulted in a 16.3% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate to lefties. Bello was able to navigate through jams and keep runs off the board, but that style is likely unsustainable over a larger sample.
When Bello takes the mound for the first time in 2026, he might look different. He’s reportedly working on a new curveball in Spring Training. It remains to be seen what the shape will look like, but in theory, it could be flipped in for early strikes against lefties and serve as a putaway pitch in the dirt later in counts. Edward Cabrera throws from a similar arm slot and could provide a blueprint for the shape, though Cabrera is a few inches taller. Bello’s also reportedly tinkering with his changeup. An improved changeup is arguably the most important pitch for the righty, who needs something to put away lefties with regularly. If he can’t figure out complementary pitches, his sinker still gives him a solid floor as a back-of-the-rotation arm, but Bello’s sights should be set much higher.
More Bello: 2025 Red Sox in Review: Brayan Bello wasn’t quite a number two
Johan Oviedo
2025 in a sentence: Oviedo flashed serious potential when he returned from Tommy John surgery and a lat injury.
Of the Red Sox’s starting pitching acquisitions, Oviedo is the least flashy, but you could make the case that he has the highest ceiling. He made his season debut in August and made nine appearances for the Pirates, posting a 3.57 ERA and 24.7% strikeout rate.
The story for Oviedo, basically since he entered the league, is about throwing strikes. His career walk rate is 11%, much higher than your typical top-of-the-line starter. “Fixing” his walk problem is fairly straightforward, and it comes down to his fastballs. Oviedo has a five-pitch mix: four-seam, sinker, slider, curveball, and changeup. The slider and curveball each function as strike-getters. The slider is used early in counts, is in the zone a ton, and manages to avoid hard contact, while the curveball is in the zone less, but still gets strikes at a high clip. Lefties see more early curveballs, while righties see a heavy dose of sliders.
With two breaking balls getting strikes at a high clip, you’d think walks wouldn’t be an issue. However, in 2025, and for most of his career, his fastballs weren’t holding up their end of the bargain. Against righties, his four-seam and sinker accounted for about 50% of his pitches, and the strike rates were just 54% and 52%, respectively. Lefties saw 39% four-seams, and just 55% of them were strikes. Here’s the kicker: his fastball, by stuff, is probably his best pitch. It averaged 95.5 mph and was thrown with 7.4 feet of extension. The approach angle is among the flattest in the league. It’s not dissimilar from Payton Tolle’s lauded fastball.
If Oviedo can rein in his fastball and get the strike rate closer to 65%, he could be an All-Star. I’d actually be willing to bet that if he throws 65% strikes with his fastball, he will be an All-Star. If he can’t, there’s a case to be made for leaning even further into “pitching backwards”. Throw more breaking balls early in counts, and use the fastball above the zone to put hitters away. He has an option year remaining, which could make him the odd man out at the start of the season. Regardless of his role, he’s a 6’6”, 275-pound sculpture that just needs the finishing touches.
More Oviedo: Red Sox acquire Johan Oviedo from the Pirates for Jhostynxon Garcia in five-player trade
Tier Four: Returning from Injury
Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval make up the next tier. It’s difficult to project either of them as they haven’t pitched since 2024, but they’ve each shown bat-missing stuff in the past.
Kutter Crawford
2025 in a sentence: Knee and wrist injuries kept Crawford off the field for all of 2025.
Kutter Crawford was a pitcher who many picked to break out in 2024, and while he put together a solid season (4.36 ERA over 183.2 innings), he didn’t quite make the jump that many expected. He struck out 23.1% of hitters while walking 6.7% over 33 starts, but home runs were an issue as he led the league with 34 allowed.
Crawford had reverse splits, limiting lefties to a .683 OPS while righties posted a .732 mark. Lefties did account for 20 of the 34 home runs with a roughly equal number of at-bats, however. The key to his success against lefties is, you guessed it, his cutter. The pitch has more horizontal movement than the average cutter, while holding its vertical plane well. He’s able to throw the pitch high and glove side against lefties early in counts, racking up strikes and jamming hitters. His four-seam has elite vertical movement, but it didn’t miss as many bats as you’d expect in 2024. Against lefties in 2023, the 16.6% swinging strike rate was remarkable, but that number fell to just 10.5% in 2024. The velocity fell about a tick, potentially due to the knee injury he was fighting, which could explain the regression, but it was a worse pitch regardless of the reasoning. The ICR% also jumped from a stellar 29.4% to a terrible 48.3%. Hopefully, additional velocity comes with health and can help the pitch become a plus offering once again because it’s such an important pitch for Crawford. The fastball and cutter do most of the heavy lifting, but he also featured a splitter that performed well in 2024. He used it in about 16% of his two-strike counts, and the results were great. Despite a high zone rate, he generated swings and misses on 21% of his pitches, reliably punching lefties out. The contact against it wasn’t hard either, as he kept it on the outer half consistently. I should note that his mistake rate with the splitter was high, though it wasn’t punished. Regardless, Crawford needs a two-strike offering against lefties, and the splitter fits the bill.
Against righties, it’s a similar story. In 2024, he used a nearly equal split of four-seams, cutters, and sweepers. The four-seam and cutter each generated strikes at a high rate, but the former was hit incredibly hard. Unlike against lefties, its performance was in line with 2023, besides a slight dip in whiffs. His cutter was excellent against righties, located down and away rather than up and in. His sweeper was a solid third pitch, though a true putaway breaking ball might help him find more strikeouts.
The last version of Crawford we saw has the makings of a solid pitcher, though unspectacular. Home runs were his undoing, with almost 50% of his earned runs allowed coming via the long ball. While his plan of attack will always present the opportunity for home runs, his 23.1% home run/fly ball rate is sure to come down to a more reasonable number.
To me, velocity feels like the key for Kutter going into 2026. If he’s sitting 93-94, he likely will be one of the best five pitchers on the roster. If he’s closer to 91 mph, his upside will be limited. He’s already a little bit behind schedule due to the flu, so he could start the season in the bullpen. Part of me has always wondered how he would look throwing 91 mph cutters 50% of the time. He’s got the arsenal to start, but he could be an elite relief option if things shake out that way.
Patrick Sandoval
2025 in a sentence: Sandoval hasn’t pitched since June 2024 due to elbow trouble.
It’s been almost two years since Sandoval saw game action, and his last season wasn’t a good one. He registered a 5.08 ERA over 79.2 innings before being shut down with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery. He’s a reclamation project, which hasn’t worked for the Red Sox recently, but his ceiling is high if they can figure it out.
At his best, Sandoval gave lefties a ton of trouble. In 2022, he struck out almost 25% of lefties while walking just 6%. He did it with a slider-heavy approach, using it 49% of the time to great effect. It’s a gyro slider that he was able to use in the zone effectively for both called strikes and whiffs. In 2023, he leaned more into a cutter shape and had a hard time finding the zone with it, limiting his strike rate. In 2024, he threw the pitch harder than ever and in the zone more than ever while cutting the usage, which kept the strike rate high, but led to hard contact against it. After the slider, his sinker has always been his most used secondary pitch to lefties. In 2024, Sandoval had control problems, and hitters were patient. Aside from that season, when he wasn’t fully healthy, the pitch has returned high strike rates and poor contact quality. With usage around 30%, the ground ball rate against it has never been lower than 56%. He used a four-seam as a surprise two-strike offering as well, but it’s never been a particularly effective pitch. Going forward, I’d expect to see more sinkers on the inner half to lefties, while continuing to use his slider in and out of the zone. There’s a case to be made for creating two distinct pitch shapes as well, throwing a harder cutter and a softer sweeper or slider.
Right-handed hitters have been more of a problem. Throughout his career, Sandoval has never had a great answer for them. He uses a changeup about 30% of the time that performs well, but it doesn’t return strikes at a high enough rate to limit walks. He uses his sinker, four-seam, and slider as well, with none generating great results. “Just add a cutter” is cliched advice, but for Sandoval, it could provide a pitch to get ahead of righties and allow him to use both sides of the plate.
There’s also the question of whether he will be on the team. Sandoval’s name has been floated in trade rumors all offseason due to his salary. A pitching-needy team with an injury or two could take a flyer on the lefty to fill out their rotation. The Red Sox are also short on lefties. If he’s not in the rotation, he’ll likely remain stretched out for a long-relief role, but he could be used to match up with some lefties in leverage spots as well.
