Red Sox: MLB Draft Puts Focus on the Future

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Thursday, June 05, 2014

Jack Andrade, GoLocal Sports Reporter

The Red Sox drafted Jon Lester in 2002

The 2014 Major League Baseball Draft begins Thursday, June 5th, and the Boston Red Sox will be in position to make a splash with 4 picks in the Top 103 overall selections.

The Draft is a Priority

The Red Sox have spent the past decade and change bridging the gap between the big market teams with free agent spending sprees and the small market teams that live and die with their scouting department.

Under Theo Epstein and Ben Cherington, Boston thrived in the draft by using some of their excessive payroll money on signing draft picks other teams couldn’t afford. Despite not picking high in the first round very often, the Red Sox were able to take chances on “hard to sign” blue chippers that would take sizeable signing bonuses to pluck from the college or high school ranks.

Unfortunately for Boston, new MLB rules (beginning I 2012) established “bonus pools” for each team based off of their draft position and spending on the previous season’s draft picks. These rules are an effort to prevent the “haves” like the Red Sox from being able to financially bully the “have-nots” for amateur players.

Regardless, the Red Sox and director of amateur scouting Amiel Sawdaye are still among the most respected scouting regimes in baseball today. Despite being a big market team, the Red Sox recent success has been driven significantly by a strong roster foundation cultivated through the draft.

Past Success

14 of the players currently on the Red Sox 40-man roster were drafted by the team. Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, Brandon Workman, Jackie Bradley Jr., Clay Buchholz, Will Middlebrooks, Garin Cecchini, Christian Vasquez, Anthony Ranaudo, Bryce Brentz, Drake Britton, Alex Hassan, Ryan Lavarnway, and Alex Wilson were all Red Sox draft picks.

The Red Sox hold the 26^th, 33^rd, 67^th, and 103^rd picks in the draft. The first 2 rounds will be televised tonight on MLB Network, with coverage beginning at 7 p.m.