Red Sox are in good position with 14th pick
The Red Sox won’t have to wait long to make their first selection in the 2023 draft Sunday night. Thanks to their last-place, 78-84 finish in 2022, the team holds the No. 14 pick — just the fifth time in the past 25 drafts that the team will be making such a high selection.
Given what evaluators view as a deep draft that features depth in virtually every demographic — college bats and arms, up-the-middle high school players and pitchers with electric stuff — it’s a promising position, and one where the Red Sox believe they can find a meaningful player.
“More than anything this draft seems to be really versatile,” said Red Sox amateur scouting director Devin Pearson. “The player we could get at 14 can come in a bunch of different shapes and sizes.”
Still, thanks to the inaugural MLB draft lottery, that position was nearly much, much higher.
Late last year, the Red Sox seemed destined to finish with the 13th worst record in baseball. With just three games to go, they were 75-84, while the Twins were 77-82. But the Red Sox swept their final three games against the Rays, while the Twins went 1-2, leaving both clubs with 78-84 records.
The Twins, by virtue of a tiebreaker, were entrusted with the No. 13 position in the lottery, while the Red Sox were No. 14. When MLB conducted the lottery in December, it was the No. 13 team that proved the beneficiary of a four ping-pong ball combination, resulting in a move up to the No. 5 position.
Had the Sox not swept the Rays, that would have been their pick.
Perhaps even more tantalizing: For a brief moment, even with their No. 14 position, the Sox had the best odds to land the No. 1 overall pick. The draft order was determined by pulling four ping-pong balls from an airblown lottery machine that featured 14 orbs, numbered 1 through 14.
After three of the ping-pong balls had been drawn, the Red Sox had the best odds to win the No. 1 pick. The Sox still had two paths to the No. 1 pick (at that point, a 2-in-11 chance), while no other lottery team had better than a 1-in-11 chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick.
However, the fourth and final ball came up in favor of the Pirates.
“When we realized we almost had the first pick, we were excited and disappointed at the same time,” said Pearson. “At the same time, we expected it to be 14, so it wasn’t a huge shock.”
So what might the No. 14 overall selection hold for the Sox?
PAST NO. 14 PICKS: Perhaps most notably for the Red Sox, in 1994, the Mariners took Georgia Tech catcher Jason Varitek. Red Sox catcher Reese McGuire was also a No. 14 pick, in 2013. The Sox have picked No. 14 twice, selecting catcher John Marzano in 1984 and pitcher Greg McMurtry (who didn’t sign) in 1986.
Some of the other standouts at the No. 14 pick have been pitcher José Fernández, who appeared on a path to stardom before his tragic death, as well as Jason Heyward, Tino Martinez, and Derrek Lee.
Notable draftees slightly after the No. 14 pick in Red Sox history include Jim Rice (No. 15 in 1971) and Roger Clemens (No. 19 in 1983).
WHO MIGHT THE RED SOX TAKE? Recent mock drafts have connected the Sox to position players, including University of Maryland (and former Worcester Academy) standout Matt
Shaw, high school third baseman Aidan Miller, high school catcher Blake Mitchell, and many others.
The Sox have taken high school position players with their last four first-round picks, selecting Triston Casas in 2018, Nick Yorke in 2020, Marcelo Mayer in 2021, and Mikey Romero in 2022. (The team didn’t have a first-round pick in 2019.) Yorke, Mayer, and Romero are all middle infielders from California.
WHAT ABOUT PITCHERS?
The Red Sox haven’t taken a pitcher in the first two rounds since they grabbed Tanner Houck with their first-round pick in 2017.
“I know we get beat up for not drafting pitchers, but it’s not because we don’t like pitchers,” said Pearson. “It’s just honestly more a reflection of where we’ve had players stacked up and ways we’ve seen that we can add the most value as a whole. I’m pretty confident we’ll be in a good position this year to add pitching value, whether that’s in the top two rounds or later.”
STRATEGY IS AN X-FACTOR:
One reason it’s extremely difficult to forecast who the Sox might take: They have defied industry consensus in two of their last three drafts, taking high school players whom they a) liked a lot and b) weren’t expected to be taken as high as the Sox selected them, resulting in under-slot deals that allowed the team to have more bonus money available for highly regarded players lower in the draft.
In 2020, the Sox shocked the industry by taking Yorke in the first round, then added Blaze Jordan on an over-slot deal in the third round. In 2022, they took Romero in the first round, signed him to an under-slot deal, and took Roman Anthony in the second round — giving Anthony a larger bonus than Romero received.
“We do it in a way that not all teams do it,” said Pearson. “If we have two similar players on our board, how can we add as much value as possible? In some cases, it might be saving money. In other cases, it might be just taking the best player. In [Romero’s] case, he was the player we really, really wanted at that pick, and it gave us an opportunity to get Roman Anthony later and [ninth-round catcher] Brooks Brannon. That was the best-case scenario.”
Based on the position of their 12 picks in the first 10 rounds of the draft, the Sox have a bonus pool of roughly $10.3 million — 15th among the 30 teams.