Who’s Kyson Witherspoon, the 20-year-old righty who the Red Sox drafted 15th overall Sunday?
The 6-foot-2, 207-pounder posted a 10-4 record with a 2.65 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 124 strikeouts and 23 walks in 16 starts (95 innings) at Oklahoma this college baseball season.
“With Kyson, it’s big velocity,” director of amateur scouting Devin Pearson said. “And he’s held it over a lot of innings with some really good breaking pitches,” Pearson said. “Whether it’s his cutter, slider, a lot of upside there to continue to maximize his mix. But a strike thrower with high velo and interesting secondary shapes.”
Below are five facts about him:
1) Witherspoon has a twin brother, also an Oklahoma pitcher
Kyson has a twin brother, Malachi Witherspoon, who also is a right-handed pitcher at Oklahoma.
“I’ve had my built-in catch-play partner,” Witherspoon said during a Zoom call Sunday. “He’s pushed me. He’s like my second coach. He’s always in my back pocket. And if he sees something not working, he’ll tell me. Same thing with him. He’s my harshest critic. I’m his.”
Kyson went undrafted out of high school in 2022 while the Diamondbacks drafted Malachi in the 12th round.
Being passed over while his brother was selected motivated Kyson.
“I wouldn’t say like a jealousy thing. I think it was just like a twin thing,” Kyson said.
Malachi, who didn’t sign with the Diamondbacks out of high school, also is expected to be drafted today or tomorrow.
“Hopefully he gets his name called here pretty soon,” Kyson said. “I’m waiting for that. But just him, that really drove me a bunch. I don’t like being second. He doesn’t like being second in anything we do. So just that fire underneath us just helps, it fuels us really.”
2) Witherspoon was a shortstop in high school, “uses compact angle”
MLB Pipeline noted Witherspoon “uses a compact arm action to generate quality stuff with little effort.”
The righty attributes his arm action partially to his experience as a shortstop in high school. His Oklahoma profile mentions that he ranked as a top-60 shortstop in Florida in 2022.
“I think just the arm path thing, it was never something I really intentionally tried to do,” Witherspoon said. “Coming from a shortstop background throughout high school, I think just the shorter arm path was pretty comfortable for me already.”
He also began doing a set plyo ball routine entering this past year at Oklahoma.
“I think just doing that routine over and over kind of made it what it is today,” he said. “It wasn’t something I really thought of. … It was just something that I got comfortable with and I started going from there. My delivery got a lot more repeatable.”
3) He’s up to 99 mph with his fastball and has a five-pitch mix
His MLB Pipeline scout report notes, “Witherspoon has swing-and-miss stuff, starting with a mid-90s fastball that peaks at 99 mph and stands out more for its power than its modest life. His mid-80s slider can touch 91 mph while featuring both horizontal action and depth, and he’ll turn it into an upper-80s cutter that he uses just as often. He’s showing more consistency with his low-80s downer curveball, giving him another plus offering, while his upper-80s changeup is a work in progress that gets too firm but will show interesting fade at times.”
Witherspoon said he still feels like he has “a ways to go” as a pitcher due to his relative inexperience.
“Got five pitches now which is pretty cool,” he said. “Hopefully I can keep adding some or just make what I have better.”
4) The Red Sox already discussed a plan with him
The Red Sox met with Witherspoon at the MLB Draft Combine and he said his conversation with the club went well.
“The people that were in the room, the plan they kind of had set out for me, I think it’s a program that’ll fit me really well,” he said.
The Red Sox talked with him about a similar pitcher already in their organization.
“They’ve shown me … the plan that they had for a guy similar to me. I forgot his name but a guy with a similar pitch mix, similar velocity,” Witherspoon said. “And the goals that they had set for him and then the goals that he had set for himself and how they try to align those together. So that was something that was very promising for me, something that I really like about the Red Sox organization. So that’s really what makes me feel like I’m in the right spot.”
5) The twins played several different sports growing up
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote a feature on the Witherspoon brothers that ran Sunday morning.
Nightengale wrote, “They were in gymnastics. They played ice hockey. Soccer. Tennis. Swimming. Football. And, oh, did they ever play baseball, falling in love with the sport when they turned 12.”
The brothers played together in high school at Duncan U. Fletcher High in Neptune Beach, Fla. The Oklahoma teammates also played together with Chatham of the Cape Cod Baseball League.
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