Red Sox pitching prospect Noah Dean has been named the Carolina League Pitcher of the Week for the week of June 3-9, Minor League Baseball announced on Monday.
Dean, 23, shined in his start for Low-A Salem against the Down East Wood Ducks on Sunday afternoon. Appearing in a game for the first time in nearly two weeks, the left-hander struck out eight and walked only one over five scoreless, no-hit innings of work.
After retiring the first nine batters he faced at Carilion Clinic Field, Dean saw his bid for a perfect game end when Erick Alvarez reached on a throwing error to lead off the fourth inning. He then issued a one-out walk to Beycker Barroso but escaped the jam by recording back-to-back strikeouts before ending his outing with a 1-2-3 top of the fifth.
Finishing with 70 pitches (45 strikes), Dean induced a game-high 13 swings-and-misses. He was relieved by right-hander Trennor O’Donnell, who took the combined no-hitter into the seventh and allowed two runs over four innings as the Red Sox defeated the Wood Ducks by a final score of 5-2.
Following Sunday’s sterling performance, Dean now owns a 4.28 ERA and 4.79 FIP with 45 strikeouts to 19 walks in nine appearances (seven starts) spanning 33 2/3 innings for Salem this season. He has yielded just four earned runs over his last five outings (19 innings) dating back to May 10 while holding opposing hitters to a minuscule .095 batting average.
Among the 81 pitchers who have accrued at least 30 innings in the Carolina League to this point in the year, Dean ranks 12th in strikeouts per nine innings (12.03), 11th in strikeout rate (33.1 percent), first in batting average against (.145), 19th in WHIP (1.04), and 23rd in swinging-strike rate (14.4 percent), per FanGraphs. On the flip side, he is also averaging more than five walks per nine innings while sporting a .194 batting average on balls put in play, which suggests that luck has been on his side.
Dean, who turned 23 in March, was originally selected by the Red Sox in the fifth round of the 2022 amateur draft out of Old Dominion. The New Jersey native signed with the club for $322,500 that July but did not make his professional debut until last April. He has since pitched to a 5.59 ERA (5.26 FIP) in 30 appearances (24 starts) and 96 2/3 innings for Salem.
Standing at 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, Dean throws from a three-quarters arm slot and operates with three different pitches: a mid-90s fastball, a mid-80s changeup, and a slider. As recently noted by SoxProspects.com’s director of scouting Ian Cundall, though, the lefty has increased the usage of his slider and relied less on his fastball this season, which has generated softer contact.
Command and control are still a work in progress for Dean, who joins righty Blake Wehunt (April 29-May 5) as the second Salem hurler to earn Carolina League Pitcher of the Week honors this year. In similar fashion to Wehunt, who made the jump to High-A Greenville earlier this month, Dean could be nearing a promotion as well.
(Picture of Noah Dean: Kelly O’Connor/sittingstill.smugmug.com)
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