The Red Sox have made John Soteropulos an assistant hitting coach, reports Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. Soteropulos had been a minor-league hitting coordinator since 2023. Before joining Boston’s organization, Soteropulos was a trainer at Driveline Baseball.
McCaffrey adds that Soteropulos worked with minor leaguers on boosting bat speed and exit velocity during his time as a hitting coordinator. That group included top prospects Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony, and Marcelo Mayer. The trio debuted in 2025, with varying results.
Campbell made the team out of camp. He hit .301 through April, then fell off a cliff in May, batting .134. He continued to scuffle into June and found himself back in the minors. Mayer got the call at the end of May. He showed big power, though it came with strikeout issues. A wrist injury ended his season in July. Anthony had by far the most success of the bunch. He joined the big-league club a few weeks after Mayer. Anthony shook off a slow June to put up a massive July and August. He posted a .920 OPS and a 156 wRC+ from the beginning of July through the first week of September, when he injured his oblique. The strain would end his season.
Boston’s hitting coach is Pete Fatse. He joined the team as an assistant hitting coach in 2020, before being promoted to the head job in 2022. Dillon Lawson is also joining the staff as an assistant hitting coach. He served as hitting coach for the Yankees from 2022 until midway through 2023.
Add Soteropulos to the growing list of employees to make the jump from Driveline to big-league organizations. Driveline founder Kyle Boddy spent time with multiple teams, including as a consultant with the Red Sox. Eric Jagers, the company’s former Manager of Technical Development, is currently the Vice President of Pitching for the Mets. Sam Briend, who led Driveline’s pitching development program in Seattle, has been the Yankees’ Senior Director of Pitching since 2019.
Just curious… Is Pete Fatse responsible for helping the Red Sox cut down on their strikeouts and teaching them the importance of situational hitting?
Fen – I’m also curious about how Dillon Lawson is joining a team he’s already been on for the last two seasons.
Kinda need to know or research people before writing about them 🤔
Seems like Mr. Wright was Mr. Wrong in his assertion that D. Lawson is new to the Red Sox.
Name really rolls of the tounge…
Like a good souvlaki
2019 Marketing Director at Martin Bros via LinkedIn profile
Need to hire the pitching coaches of the Brewers
Sure… but what about hitting? I watched the Red Sox all season long and with less than 2 outs and runners in scoring position… The guys from Dumb and Dumber scored more often.
If he can teach them how to put balls in play and stop striking out so damn much, I’m all for it.
Dirty – Not gonna happen, he’s a Driveline guy. They preach always swinging for the fences. Bat speed and exit velocity is all that matters to them.
FPG
What are the chances Giolito is back with the Sox?
WCSoxFan,is still trying to sell me on Sonny Gray as a # 2 for the Sox… He posted a bunch of stats supporting his view, proclaiming him to be a top ten pitcher. It all goes along with his $35 million salary for next season. I responded stats can be made to look allot of ways. Though I did point out his war for the past 2 seasons of 1.4 & 1.8 were more in line with #4 or #5 starters. Now if the Sox could acquire him to be a #4/or #5 and the birds took on a bunch of his salary that I could get behind on. Thoughts..
Cdc – 54% chance Giolito stays.
Sox have enough #4 or #5 starting pitchers, I really don’t see the need for Gray.
Fever- Assuming they are spenders or ready to make some trades any predictions on who they might go after. We desperately need a #2 starter and a power bat. Devers was the closest we had to a real power hitter and when he was traded that bat was missing. I don’t see us getting back to the World Series without a true home run hitter who can instantly get us back into games.
Uncle – I’m still hoping for Skubal but Peralta would be a great consolation prize.
If Bregman leaves then Suarez is exactly what they need … right-handed power hitter.
If we could get Skubal away from the Tigers and lock him up with a long term contract that would certainly be a huge boost to the pitching staff. I assume the asking price is going to be very high and don’t know how willing he is not to test free agency.
Updk
What would it cost the Sox to acquire Skubal?? Duran, Early,and,and ??? Then you must sign him. I would do it in a heartbeat.
cdchi- You just need to have a deal in place to sign him before you give up too much. It would not be worth giving up major pieces of their future like Early for a one year rental. It has been quite a while since the Sox had two aces at the top of the rotation, that would be huge.
Updk
Agreed… A deal must be in place before giving up a ton of talent. A rotation featuring Crochet & Skubal would make them favorites to at least reach the WS I would think. I don’t think Detroit will part with him though.
Pedro and Schilling, 2 aces brought the Sox a WS title.
Uncle – The appeal to him would be landing the massive contract a year early, which takes away the risk of injury or a down year.
cdchi-I think it all depends on whether Detroit thinks they can win the World Series with him. If not I think the right package might be convincing and if they ended up with players like Duran and Early, their fan base won’t be nearly as upset. We really don’t know the upside of Early, but considering how he did with his first taste of the bigs the Tigers can plug him right into the rotation.
Updk
I think it’s more likely he gets traded at the deadline. If the Tigers are not contenders at that point. Who knows what the package could be at that time.. it will take a massive deal to sign him, possibly $350-400 million. I don’t see the Sox shelling out that type of $$$$. I hope I’m wrong. Crochet+ Skubal = contender!!!
What does the rest of MLB feel about Early?? I don’t believe he is a can’t miss type of prospect.. if he was he would be ranked higher on Sox prospects.com and MLB prospects.
That is the opposite of what I was hoping to hear, damn. I’m fine with exit velo but watching this team it’s clear as day they need to re-emphasize contact over bat speed. Duran especially is one guy who stands out in my mind as a far more impactful hitter when he is not trying to treat his bat like a fly swatter and just missing everything in sight.
Duran will definitely be part of the package that gets the Red Sox a #2 SP.
Dirty- At least some of the guys are refusing to follow the Driveline approach, such as Roman and Marcelo.
I really wish Yoshida was not such a defensive liability because his offense was pretty solid once he settled in after coming back from the injury. You trade Duran, move Yoshida to the outfield, and get a true power bat to DH. Unfortunately that is not an option. It is going to be an interesting offseason.
Now we’re going to see more injuries to hitters just like we have seen with pitchers. Forcing the body to do something faster and harder leads to injury. Always. It’s not rocket science.
These kids have been honing their skills for 15 to 20 years before reaching the bigs. They show up on day one and have a bunch of “experts” telling them “You’re doing it all wrong”.
Dude, You’ve never played a game at this level EVER. Let it be. I have demonstrated that I can be successful. Just let me play my game.
whyhayzee
Forcing the body to do something faster and harder leads to injury.
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I don’t know that to be true. I get faster when I do sprint exercises, and I’ve seen plenty of lifters gain strength without injuries.
Joe, injuries in baseball are at an all time high and have been rapidly increasing ever since Driveline philosophies have entered the sport, primarily in soft tissue damage (think smaller muscle groups like obliques for example). You can’t hide from the statistics of injuries in today’s game.
While Driveline’s theories have proven to be true and will increase performance overall, it will also significantly increase injury risk.
I would much rather see situational hitting and artistry pitching over swing and miss at all cost and 100mph gas without control, with the end result being missed playing time repeatedly.
Aren’t the injuries primarily by pitchers?
The Blue Jays did that all season long… look where it got them.
The Sox had 3 highly rated hitting prospects and only one of them produced at the major league level last year. A 33% success rate isn’t great, but it would get you into the MLB hall of fame as a hitter.
The Red Sox offense has been super streaky the last few years. Part of it is due to the talent, but they just strike out a ton and don’t have much pop. To me, that would indicate that the philosophy needs to change but hey these Driveline guys know what they’re doing I guess.
To be fair to Mayer I think he was/would’ve/will be just fine, he just had the wrist injury knock him out. His strikeouts were high yes but I felt most of his at bats were still pretty good quality overall. Even though he didn’t take many walks he was still pretty good at working counts, seeing a decent number of pitches, and not being a first pitch groundout or three pitch strikeout. And was racking up XBH at a decent rate too.
He definitely still has some work to do but that’s very normal for a 22 year old. We were just so spoiled by Anthony immediately becoming a beast that we forget it’s normal to struggle through your first taste of big league action.
I like Mayer, but he can’t stay healthy. I believe the recent injury, wrist, was an issue he had before. Hopefully the surgery resolved the issue.
It’s just weird to use those guys as examples and only one had success. Wasn’t meant to be an overly negative statement about Mayer, I’m not concerned about him yet.
Gotcha, and yeah the durability is a fair concern. Hopefully he has better luck in ’26. Can’t work on improving his contact skills if he can’t swing a bat.
Dirty – 3 seasons of back issues have the odds against him.
Jm
It is early in there respective careers ,but how many prospects actually work out ?. Also , not sure how much an assistant hitting coach really does.. I would like to see him working with players on there bunting technique.. something the Sox surely lacked when the time to bunt presented itself. That might be on overall philosophy of the team.
Anyone here think Campbell will be on the 2026 Sox roster?
Hope so.
No, he has nowhere to play. I’d prefer to let him develop, or trade him.
Steve – Depends on how he does in ST and if there’s a need for him.
If Campbell can hit LH pitching, I think he may take Refsnyder’s place.
Redsox have turned into hackers. Trying to hit a 3 run homer with noone on. Unwatchable at times
We were 8th in OBP, which isn’t bad. But when we were elite, we were often 1st or 2nd. I’d like to get back to those days.
Welcome to American League baseball
Everyone tries to hit homers in every at bat. Thus, the bloated whiff totals of batters and pitchers. Hit-and-run, moving the runner along and the sacrifice bunt have gone the way of complete games by starting pitchers.