Why Red Sox first-round pick Kyson Witherspoon’s struggles seem familiar

When the Red Sox took righthander Kyson Witherspoon in last year’s draft, making him the first pitcher selected by the club in the first round since 2017, speculation about a potential blitz to the big leagues followed.

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Witherspoon, many evaluators felt, could be capable of the same race traveled by Payton Tolle in 2025.

But the starts of pitchers’ careers often defy expectations. Tolle’s startling ascent surpassed expectations, just as Anthony Eyanson’s meteoric rise this year has blasted past all forecasts. Witherspoon, by contrast, has endured struggles unlike anything he faced in two years at Oklahoma.

In 35⅔ innings for High-A Greenville, Witherspoon has a 5.55 ERA with nearly as many walks (21) as he had in 95 innings last year in college (23). Evaluators have noted that his delivery looks different than it did as a college junior, when an incredibly compact arm path seemed to confound hitters.

At times this year, his arm swing had been longer, contributing to a fastball that had been hit hard. One evaluator who saw him last month saw a pitcher whose execution looked like that of a middle reliever, rather than the projected mid-rotation starter viewed as the best college righthander in last year’s draft.

But Witherspoon is not the only first-round pick to encounter some turbulence at the beginning of his first full pro season. Indeed, the last pitcher tabbed by the Sox in the first round can relate.

Tanner Houck, a first-rounder in 2017, arrived in High-A with big expectations in 2018. As he tweaked his low three-quarters, cross-body delivery in an effort to be more linear with a higher arm slot, Houck was a mess. His first 10 starts yielded a 6.04 ERA with more walks (33) than strikeouts (32).

“There’s an adjustment period. There’s a learning process,” said Houck. “That was my first year in the org, and I wanted to do everything that they were telling me to do and tried my darnedest. It just wasn’t perfect at that time.”

In the middle of the year, however, the Sox encouraged him to return to a delivery with which he was more comfortable. Rapid improvement followed, as he had a 3.13 ERA in his last 13 starts. He looks back at that year as critical, the basis for understanding how to make adjustments in the face of struggles.

“Sometimes you’re going to have bumps and bruises, and it’s not fun,” said Houck. “At the same time, it’s good learning. You learn more from failure than you do success a lot of the time. I felt like that helped me learn a lot, having first-year struggles, than if I’d had success.”

Part of the reason a player gets drafted in the first round is not only his talent but also his ability to use a variety of experiences to grow. The Sox see Witherspoon as such a person.

“From a development standpoint, I love any time we can get a guy to be challenged right out of the gate,” said Red Sox director of pitching Ben Buck. “He’s been really great about going, ‘All right, here’s where I started, and here’s where I want to go.’

“The development path isn’t linear. He knows that. He’s been through development paths before. It’s not like this was the first time he’s tried to change or be different or be better. He’s in search of the big league version of him, and he knows that that comes with ups and downs.”

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In his last two starts, Witherspoon — whose fastball has been sitting at 95-96 miles per hour and topping out at 98, along with a cutter, splitter, slider, and curve — has taken steps forward. He’s allowed one run in 9⅓ innings with 10 strikeouts.

He’s also significantly improved the carry on his fastball, from an average of roughly 16 inches of ride through seven starts to 18-19 in those two most recent outings. Instead of a fastball that crossed the plate in hitters’ nitro zones, the improved hop has helped Witherspoon miss bats at and above the top of the zone, with a whiff rate on his heater soaring to 45.5 percent in his last two starts (It had been at 10.8 in four starts prior). He’s also shown improved cutter shape.

In those improvements, the Sox believe Witherspoon is demonstrating the aptitude that he’ll need to find long-term success.

“I comp his figure-things-out ability to [Connelly] Early. Early has the same skill set — which is, when presented with challenges, they have this button they can push and then they figure things out,” said Buck. “You go from one level of baseball to the next and sometimes things change — and not because of the level, but just because you were trying to figure things out. So that could happen, and then you’re just like, ‘Are these changes impacting our performance in a positive or negative way?’ And then you make decisions from there.”

The ability to move forward rather than get discouraged can play a huge role in laying a career foundation. While Witherspoon has not enjoyed the same burst out of the gates as Tolle or Eyanson, he is gaining experiences that can be used as critical reference points.

“Feeling like you’re kind of lost sucks. There’s no other way of putting it,” said Houck. “Mentally it takes a toll on you, but you know the old saying of no matter how hard you get hit, you’ve got to get back up. I think going through those struggles was the best thing that I could have ever had, because it showed me, ‘You can get hit, and you can go one inning every five days, and you still get to go back out there and figure it out again.’ In the long run, it worked out.”

⋅ Righthander Blake Wehunt has 26 strikeouts and just three walks while allowing one earned run over his last three starts (14⅓ innings) for Double-A Portland.

⋅ Portland shortstop Franklin Arias has 12 home runs and a 12 percent strikeout rate — the lowest by any minor leaguer with at least 10 homers this year, a power-and-contact combination that has him flying up prospect rankings.

⋅ For the second straight year, catcher Franklin Primera has been a strong performer in a complex-level league. The 18-year-old is hitting .383/.538/.553 with twice as many walks (14) as strikeouts (7) for the FCL Red Sox.

⋅ Though Kristian Campbell is hitting the ball hard (a 47 percent hard-hit rate on balls in play), his 34 percent whiff rate in May was his highest of any month he’s spent in Triple-A dating to 2024, and most of his hard contact has been on ground balls. Campbell is hitting .239/.373/.325 with a 30 percent strikeout rate this year.

⋅ After a spectacular start to the year in Portland, first baseman Brooks Brannon has slumped over the last two weeks, posting a .194/.293/.250 line with a 41 percent strikeout rate in his last nine games.

⋅ Righthander Marcus Phillips, the No. 33 overall pick in last year’s draft, posted a 12.83 ERA in May with 14 strikeouts and 11 walks in 13⅓ innings.

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