Red Sox Make Coaching Staff Change As Critical Offseason Begins

Soteropulos joins a Red Sox hitting brain trust that includes hitting coach Pete Fatse and assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, the former hitting coach for the New York Yankees.

For the last three years, Soteropulos has worked closely with the club's minor-leaguers, including the "big three" former top prospects, Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kristian Campbell. As McCaffrey and others have chronicled, there was a major emphasis on bat speed training and exit velocity in the developmental phase for Red Sox prospects over the last few years.

Much of that emphasis likely comes from Soteropulos, who previously worked for Driveline, a well-known baseball player development program with an emphasis on data-driven performance.

Fittingly, the trio of Anthony, Mayer, and Campbell could have an outsized impact on the club's big-league success this season. All three showed flashes of brilliance (Anthony's overall results were head and shoulders above the other two), but none ended the season on the big-league roster, with two injuries and Campbell's 3 1/2-month demotion to Triple-A.

As an offense, the Red Sox will be tasked with improving their overall power and cutting down on strikeouts -- not easy goals to accomplish in tandem. Part of the fix has to be on the front office to find the right personnel, but Soteropulos' group still has a role to play when it comes to aiding the many young players on this roster in improving their approaches.