4 things to know about Red Sox pitcher Robert Stock
The right-handed pitcher can dish out a 100-mph fastball.
Robert Stock, the Red Sox’ newly-acquired pitcher who was claimed off of waivers on Sunday from the Phillies, has quite an arm. So much so that before being designated for assignment by the team in July, 28 of his 229 pitches in the big leagues were 99 miles per hour or faster.
Today, Stock can pitch up to 100 miles per hour, just a few shy of Cardinals reliever Jordan Hicks, who pitched 104.3 mph in 2019.
But Stock’s journey to the majors has not been an easy one despite being marked a pitching prodigy at a young age. Stock, who grew up in California, even passed up the 2007 MLB draft to enroll early at the University of Southern California’s Resident Honors Program at the age of 16. He played college baseball and was then drafted in the second round by the Cardinals in the 2009 MLB Draft at the age of 19.
Since then, Stock has had stints with multiple organizations including the Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, and San Diego Padres, where he made his major league debut in 2018 and posted a 2.50 ERA in 32 appearances.
Here are a few things to know about him:
Stock showed promise when he was young — and could throw 95-mph fastballs at age 15.
According to a profile written by The Athletic, when Stock’s mother, Randi, was pregnant with his sister, she would sit on their couch in the Pacific Northwest and toss baseballs to a toddler Stock and his younger brother, Richard. Even back then, Stock was breaking a window (“or three”) and showing off a powerful arm.
Stock’s father, Gregg, had musical ambitions and relocated the family to Southern California after attempting to join a band. That’s when he noticed his 10-year old son had his own big-dream aspirations on the pitching mound. By age 11, he was just nearly touching 95 mph, while also showing promise as a catcher.
Stock was named the best player in the country for his age group by Baseball America at age 13, and earned the title again, as well as a selection on the U.S. Junior national team at ages 14 and 15.
Padres executive and former Dodgers scouting director Logan White noticed his talent back then: “On a catching scale, back then you’d call it an ‘80’ arm,’” White told The Athletic. “The question you had was if the bat was going to be enough. But there were a ton of people at the time that thought he would’ve been in the top five, 10 picks if he had entered the draft with his high school class.”
After deciding to attend college early, Stock wasn’t worried about getting drafted high.
Stock, who skipped his senior year of high school and enrolled early into USC’s honors program, admitted in a profile written by the Los Angeles Times that while his goal was always to play Major League Baseball — it was never to get drafted high.
“It’s something I wanted to do,” Stock said about his choice to attend college. “My goal is to play major league baseball, not get drafted high, and I feel through college I can achieve it.”
“We’ve talked to a lot of people and hashed it around with everything we could think of,” said his father, Gregg. “There were pluses and minuses. It ensures he gets three years of college and enters professional baseball at 19. He has the best of all worlds.”
Stock, who graduated from high school with a 3.8 GPA, was ranked in the top 15 percent of his class. He majored in business at USC.
Stock can now max out at 98 to 100 mph.
Stock threw his first 97 mph ball in 2014 during an independent-ball tryout in Ohio before getting signed to the Normal CornBelters in the Frontier League. After his agent informed him that it was difficult to get scouts to go and see him, it was Stock’s now-wife, Sara Krutewicz (whom he married in February), who proposed an idea: post videos of him to YouTube and social media.
In a video he posted to Instagram in 2016, he documented his journey to try to max out at 100 mph. His captions reads, “When you’re 27 and still trying to get to the MLB it might help to throw 100 mph. New offseason PR. #signmeplz#anyone.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BN7zgzegSl-/
A year later, this video of him throwing at 98 mph caught the attention of scouts, including some from the Cincinnati Reds. Stock was then invited to throw for them, as well as other teams.
“I posted a YouTube video of me throwing in a park, at 98 mph, to a net,” Stock recalled to MLB.com. “Teams said, ‘That was good, but let’s see how you throw to a catcher and throw breaking balls.’ I hadn’t thrown to a catcher all off-season. Then I made a video of that. Then the Reds and some other teams invited me out to throw for them.”
Stock said his training approach is simple: “I have a radar gun and I have a net. I just threw, threw, threw and threw. I’m just trying to take any path that is available to me.”
Stock also played alongside his brother, Richard, for the New Jersey Jackals.
After suffering a stress fracture in his lower back from a batting practice during an elite high school tournament at Dodger Stadium, Stock struggled with the injury throughout his professional baseball career.
During a phone call with former Jackals manager Joe Calfapietra, Richard revealed that Robert was a free agent — and Calfapietra asked if he wanted to play, too. For the first time since high school, the Stocks were teammates, and traveled all around New Jersey, New York, and Quebec to compete.
“We had an absolute blast,” Stock said. “That’s the most fun I’ve had playing baseball since I was 12, excluding maybe this year.”
He appeared in 52 of the team’s 100 games, posting 40 walks in 60 innings, 73 strikeouts, and notching a 2.85 ERA. Calfapietra, who constantly was trying to get Stock to take a day off, saw the fire in his newest addition to the team:
“The kid never ever, ever turned down the baseball,” Calfapietra said. “I had to police him. Because it was superhuman-like. It really was.”
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