The Boston Red Sox are swimming in starting pitching talent, but can a hard-throwing lefty with a blazing fastball carve out a spot on the major league roster?
This offseason, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow made some serious moves to bolster the team's starting pitching depth. We're talking about bringing in Ranger Suarez and acquiring Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo through trades. These additions are set to slot in as the Nos. 2 and 3 starters, right behind the ace, Garrett Crochet. With Brayan Bello, Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, Connelly Early, Kyle Harrison, and Patrick Sandoval also in the mix, the Red Sox boast a rotation that's nine deep!
But here's where it gets interesting: the Red Sox also added promising starting pitching prospects like Shane Drohan, David Sandlin, and Tyler Uberstine to their 40-man roster in November. This move was crucial to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft. In total, the team now has 14 starters on the 40-man roster, even with Tanner Houck still recovering from Tommy John surgery.
For a player like Shane Drohan, the path to becoming a big-league starter is undeniably crowded. However, the 27-year-old left-hander has a significant advantage as he heads into spring training camp, vying for a spot on the Opening Day roster: he throws hard, and he's left-handed.
And this is the part most people miss: the Red Sox roster currently has a noticeable lack of left-handed relief options. Aroldis Chapman is the only lefty on the 40-man roster with extensive major league experience (over 81 appearances).
Drohan himself seems unfazed by the specific role. "I think it’s easy to get caught up in all kind of like the titles," he shared. "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."
Drohan's performance in Triple-A Worcester in 2025 was nothing short of stellar. He posted a 2.27 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, and an impressive 35.2% strikeout percentage, while limiting opponents to a mere .185 batting average over 12 outings (11 starts). He did have a stint on the injured list from July 9 to August 26 due to left forearm inflammation, but he's equipped with 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 noted. "A lot of our starting pitchers debuted in the bullpen."
While 89 of Drohan's 94 outings in the Red Sox organization have been as a starter, he gained valuable experience in the bullpen during a stint with the White Sox in May-June 2024, making 10 relief appearances. This came after he was initially a Red Sox fifth-round pick in 2020 and then was selected by Chicago in the December 2023 Rule 5 Draft, spending six months with the White Sox organization.
Chicago eventually returned him to Boston on June 12, 2024. This happened after Drohan underwent shoulder surgery in spring training and then went on a rehab assignment as a reliever for the White Sox. This experience, surprisingly, taught him a lot about himself. Having always been a pitcher with a very structured routine, the bullpen work forced him to re-evaluate.
"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 explained. "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 realized that a two-hour pregame routine wasn't the secret sauce to pitching well. "It’s the years of work that I put into in," he emphasized.
Last season, Drohan added a new slider to his arsenal, and it quickly became his most effective 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," he said. "But specifically the in-zone whiff is really, really nice to see."
His cutter also saw significant improvement, according to Drohan. He described it as having "a lot more lift" and "held its plane a lot more" after his 2024 return from surgery. "It was just a big gap from the cutter to the curveball, so we saw a nice spot to mix a slider in there," he added. "Our pitching department showed me some grips, and just like that, I picked it up."
This offseason, Drohan has shifted his focus back to his changeup, which was once considered his best secondary pitch. The increased usage of his slider last year meant his changeup took a bit of a backseat, and its effectiveness waned. "That was a pitch for me that was really good the years before," Drohan recalled. "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 goal now is to restore the changeup to its former glory. "Messing with the grips in the bullpens this offseason, I’m seeing a lot of positive results," he confirmed. "It’s kind of shot right back to where exactly where we wanted it to be."
When the Red Sox added Drohan to their 40-man roster, it was a moment of immense satisfaction, especially after having gone through a similar process two years prior. "I’ve been working really hard at this for a while," he 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."
Regarding the Rule 5 Draft roster deadline, Drohan maintained a neutral stance. "I was gonna be OK either way," he stated. "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."
So, with such a deep pool of starting pitchers, do you think Shane Drohan's hard-throwing, left-handed profile is enough to earn him a spot on the Opening Day roster, perhaps as a reliever? Or is the competition simply too fierce for him to crack the major league rotation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
