FORT MYERS, Fla. — Righty Alex Hoppe is aware that Baseball America ranked his slider the best slider in the Red Sox’ farm system because his father told him.
“I’m not much on social media but my dad will send me stuff like, ‘Did you see this?’” Hoppe said Thursday at JetBlue Park.
Hoppe, who turned 25 on Dec. 17, is in Red Sox spring training camp as a non-roster invitee after just one season of pro ball. The 2022 sixth round draft pick out of UNC Greensboro posted a 4.10 ERA in 43 relief outings (48 ⅓ innings) for High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland in ‘23. He had the eighth highest strikeout percentage (30.3%) among Red Sox minor leaguers. He punched out 64 of the 211 batters he faced.
He reached triple digits with his four-seam fastball for the first time last season. His heater and slider complement each other nicely.
“I have a slider grip but my mentality with the pitch is to throw it like my fastball,” Hoppe said. “So I think for the majority of the way to the plate, it’s going to look like a fastball. And then at the last second, it has the late sharp break that we kind of look for with sliders. Also, I throw it harder.”
His slider consistently reached 87-88 mph and touched 89 mph last year.
“(The slider velo increase) just came with comfortability and with strength,” Hoppe said. “In college, it was more 84 to 86. So a very good pitch for me but as I got bigger, got stronger, got more comfortable with the pitch, the velo came with it.”
He and the Red Sox development staff have tinkered with some fastball and changeup grips. But he still has the same slider grip from college. He credits then-UNC Greensboro pitching coach Jerry Edwards with helping him get the slider to where it is today.
“Our mentality was to grip it like a slider and throw it like a fastball,” Hoppe said. “So he’s the one who introduced it to me once I got to college.”
His fastball plays best up in the strike zone.
“So that’s one thing we were trying to work on (this offseason) is to try to get more vertical break on it, more consistent,” Hoppe said. “Because sometimes I’d throw it and it would run a little bit. So this offseason, the goal was tracking ball flight and trying to see the spin of it. So that way I can throw it up in the zone with my higher velocity more effectively.”
He topped out at 101 mph in an outing at Bowling Green last year.
“I try to throw the fastball as hard as I can every single time,” Hoppe said.
“So every single pitch I’m throwing max intensity, max velocity,” he added. “I don’t even care what the velo board says. My intensity is always going to be at 100%.”
What does it feel like to reach triple-digits for the first time?
“In the moment, I try not to worry about it because I’m not the guy who velo peeks,” he said. “I’d rather get a swing and miss than get numbers on a board. But afterwards, it felt really cool because the work I had put in during the offseason and throughout the season development-wise was kind of all coming to fruition.”
Hoppe didn’t receive a big draft signing bonus. He signed for only $32,250.
“I’ve been down here since Jan. 7,” Hoppe said. “With the new changes that the union has worked out, if we come on site, we kind of get paid a little bit more. That greatly helped me. So I came down super early and did that. So I kind of took October, November, December off, spent it with family. I was able to do that financially. Then I came down here and really, really started to pick it back up.”
He was surprised when director of player development Brian Abraham told him he was invited to big league spring training camp.
“I actually had no expectations for it,” Hoppe said. “I wasn’t thinking about it. I thought it would have been cool. I thought I had good enough stuff and numbers to do so. But it wasn’t an expectation going into spring training. My expectation was to go in, get better, compete and get ready for the season. But hearing that was a surprise honestly. It was really, really cool to hear from him and see how they value me as a player.”
In addition to increasing the vertical break on his fastball, he also focused this offseason on his changeup.
“Because last year I was primarily fastball/slider,” Hoppe said. “If we can get that third pitch — which right now is a changeup — and then tweak a little bit of the usage percentages of all three pitches, that was the main goal going into this offseason. Because I know I can dominate at the minors with just a fastball/slider. But as we get to the higher levels, especially in the majors, they are the best hitters in the world. So I’m going to need a third pitch to fall back on.”
He was a Cardinals fan growing up in Iowa.
“My entire family is Cubs fans,” he said. “But growing up, when they had their down years, I got sick and tired of watching them lose. So at a young age, I started rooting for the Cardinals. They were always beating up on the Cubs. So I grew up a Cardinals fan.”
Jack Flaherty was his favorite Cards pitcher to watch.
“Because primarily he’s a fastball/slider guy,” Hoppe said. “And even though he’s a starter and I’m a reliever, the fastball/slider has always been my go-to even in college. So to see how he works in his fastball in certain counts and throws his slider in certain counts that hitters are not expecting it, it’s kind of how I like to model my repertoire after as well.”
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Hoppe likely will begin the 2024 season back at Portland.
“I think every year, the goal is to try to get to the highest level you can,” he said. “Hopefully that’s the majors. But I like to keep it a little bit more toned down. I want to get a little bit better each and every single day. Wherever I end up, that’s fantastic. The goal is to get to the highest level possible.”
