With new starters in tow, Red Sox changing up speeds

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- In his determined quest to add velocity to the only pitching staff in baseball that didn’t throw a 100 mph pitch in 2023 and ‘24, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow went out and got two of the best fireballers in the game in Garrett Crochet and Aroldis Chapman. No. 2 prospect Payton Tolle came up in late August and unleashed the first 100 mph offering of his career.

But just because Boston was a little late getting caught up to the velocity revolution that has gripped baseball in recent years doesn’t mean that Breslow has become so obsessed with it that he can’t change speeds himself when it comes to pitching acquisitions.

With the biggest free-agent contract (five years, $130 million) Breslow has signed any player to in his two-plus years running baseball operations for the Red Sox, he landed a true craftsman in lefty Ranger Suárez. And that move came two months after a trade for Sonny Gray, who relies much more on pitchability than velo at this stage of his career.

Suárez, 30, takes a measure of pride in using guile to flummox the opposition.

“If you have really good command of your pitches and are able to mix them well, you don't really need 100, and that's kind of what I do. And in my case, that's what's given me the most success,” Suárez said.

Despite being in just the seventh percentile in fastball velocity last season, Suárez was in the 98th percentile of limiting hard-hit balls.

“Ranger is one of the rare examples where his strength is the ability to exploit a hitter's weakness,” Breslow said. “So we'll make sure to lean into that.”

While the Red Sox are sometimes hesitant to make significant investments in pitchers already in their 30s, Suárez has the type of mix that should age well over the next five years.

“If you look at pitch usage, even last year, the sinker and change are the predominant pitches. But after that, I think the next three pitches in the repertoire all had equal use of, like, 16 percent per pitch, which means that if you are trying to predict the incoming pitch, you're probably going to get it wrong,” Breslow said. “And so when you think about velocity, sure, it gives pitchers more room for error, right? There's some tradeoff between velocity and command, and the less command you have, probably the more velocity and vice versa.

“Ranger is just a guy who's been successful on the other side of that equation, where the ability to locate five or six pitches and keep hitters off-balance has been the recipe for success for him, and it's one that we believe will have real staying power.”

Combine Suárez’s pitching intelligence and feel with a pitching program that has become one of the most sophisticated in the game since the hiring of Breslow and pitching coach Andrew Bailey, and you have the makings of what should be a strong partnership.

“He does a pretty good job of optimizing both usage, locations and shapes,” said Breslow. “But that's not to say that we can't continue to help provide the most information that we possibly can, because he's clearly a guy who's got the ability to execute and kind of pitch to a scouting report and a game plan. And so we want to make sure that we're giving him the best information.

“Then I think as pitchers evolve physically and over the course of the contract, there may be opportunities to tweak usage or shapes. So he's been very successful with what he's done. We're not here to reinvent his success, but we'll make sure that we can supplement that.”

They will take a similar approach with Gray.

Given that Gray is 36 years old, it shouldn’t be surprising that he no longer throws in the mid-90s like in his earlier days.

But what is impressive is how his performance hasn’t dipped with the radar readings. In ‘25, the righty had a strong season in St. Louis while averaging 91.7 mph on the 589 four seamers he threw. With an eight-pitch repertoire last season, Gray was in the 81st percentile in chase rate.

In a sense, is Gray a right-handed version of Suárez?

“They are probably similar in terms of managing contact,” said Breslow. “Sonny has a little bit more strikeout potential. And Sonny’s secondaries rely more on spin, whereas Ranger’s changeup has been a really good pitch for him. I think raw spin, total spin edge goes to Sonny. Ability to execute, both guys have been really successful, but maybe a small edge to Ranger there.”

Meanwhile, the Red Sox hope their edge is having a dynamic pitching staff that can attack opponents with various speeds.