At the end of a mid-January bullpen session, righthander David Sandlin casually pumped a 101 mph four-seam fastball as he concluded his session.
Huge velocity is certainly a head-turning aspect of Sandlin’s repertoire. In 2024, he averaged about 96 mph—a jump of 2-3 mph from his 2023 season with the Royals—while sitting at 98 in July.
Yet Sandlin’s biggest lesson from his first year in the Red Sox organization, following a spring training trade for reliever John Schreiber, was not his ability to throw hard, but rather the fact that the trait is insufficient.
Despite elite stuff and a 33% strikeout rate, Sandlin got hit hard in 2024. In 18 starts between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland, he had a 5.34 ERA while allowing 14 home runs in 57.1 innings. Much of the damage came against his fastball.
“It was a nice awakening to get hit around every once in a while,” Sandlin said. “Better secondaries will make the fastball a more valuable weapon in the back pocket.”
Sandlin seems likely to end up using his fastball roughly 30% of the time, leaning more heavily on a full arsenal of secondary pitches with good shapes to keep batters off-balance. He’ll lean heavily on a gyro slider in the high 80s, while also featuring a curveball and splitter. He also worked to develop a cutter this offseason.
Sandlin managed to attack the zone in 2024 with a 7% walk rate. His diverse arsenal suggests midrotation upside if he can further refine his locations, using a running fastball as an anchor and then creating depth with his slider and splitter—which at times had 20 inches of separation from his fastball—and the ability to work in to lefthanded hitters with his cutter.
Sandlin showed considerable promise in 2024 and he’ll open this season in Double-A. His inclusion in the team’s January rookie development program highlighted the possibility that he could contribute in the big leagues this year.
SOX YARNS
— Shortstop Marcelo Mayer is expected to get time at both second and third base during spring training in an effort to broaden his pathways to the big leagues.
— Mike Rikard left the organization to join the Diamondbacks as a senior advisor in January. Rikard spent 20 years as a key member of the Red Sox amateur scouting department, including five years as scouting director from 2015 to 2019.