My hit tool meter: two clawhammers, three rubber mallets, one croquet mallet, one crowbar, two tire irons, and four machetes.Okay, so they are. But calling it a hit tool meter is....odd.
My hit tool meter: two clawhammers, three rubber mallets, one croquet mallet, one crowbar, two tire irons, and four machetes.Okay, so they are. But calling it a hit tool meter is....odd.
Hey man, .319/.464/.681 is a hell of a hit tool meter cubically transformed.He should be in play based on his name alone.
It's several hours later and I am still intermittently giggling about Gammons failing a Turing test.The second half of this tweet really reads like it was produced by a mediocre machine learning algorithm. Not clear at this point Gammo passes the Turing test.
Davis, for whatever reason, is the choice I have a hard time getting excited about. But then again, I probably am the silly.
I’d be afraid of gnats if we got Jobe.My ideal draft is Jobe in the first and Hill in the second. Both are high ceiling pitchers who I would love to follow.
Midges. They were midges in Cleveland that tormented Joba the Hutt.I’d be afraid of gnats if we got Jobe.
If The sox draft Jobe, he won't be in the Majors for a while. We'll need some patience.My ideal draft is Jobe in the first and Hill in the second. Both are high ceiling pitchers who I would love to follow.
On Thursday, Red Sox director of amateur scouting Paul Toboni outlined why the Sox wanted to keep an open mind about their selection rather than limiting their conversation to a top four.
“I think there’s actually more downside to eliminating players that might be in consideration, doing that early, as opposed to letting the conversations play out,” said Toboni. “Really up until the final day, you’re really never sure what momentum might be created by people in the room, by what agents are saying, by what kids are telling you. I think keeping as many players alive as possible so that it doesn’t affect your ability to dig deep on that number of players is a smart thing.”
Multiple evaluators guessed that the Red Sox would find it hard to pass on the established performance tracks of the two best college prospects in the draft – Vanderbilt righthander Jack Leiter and Louisville catcher Henry Davis.
Yet there’s no guarantee either will be available at No. 4. Moreover, the Sox have been comfortable in recent years making high school upside plays with their top pick, something they did with Triston Casas in 2018 and Nick Yorke in 2020.
Even if the Sox don’t target a below-slot player, they’ve demonstrated a willingness to move aggressively on high school talent. If potential five-tool shortstop Jordan Lawlar is available at No. 4, the Sox may find his range of skills hard to resist.
The high school shortstop class — Mayer, Lawlar, Watson, and House — is remarkably deep, and represents a demographic to which the Sox virtually never have access when picking later in the first round.
Then again, based on the Yorke pick, there’s industry speculation that if Mayer, Leiter, and Davis are unavailable, the Sox could go in a very different direction and cut a deal with a player projected to land further down.
Peter Gammons knows a thousand times as much about baseball as you 2 clowns who think it is cool to insult him. Turn your attention toward some real facts and ideas.Gammons is literally “old man tweeting at cloud” on the internet. Half of his tweets are completely indiscernible.
In regards to Leiter trying to price himself to Boston; very legal, very cool.
The draft prep will go to sunrise-to-afternoon Sunday calls. First rounders hear Texas may go Rocker, Detroit House…so Boston makes its calls, no one even guesses Baltimore and Leiter and Davis hang in the balance. A couple of picks down, GM says “we don’t know. Have five names”
I didn’t say Gammons didn’t know baseball, but some of his tweets are literally half gibberish.Peter Gammons knows a thousand times as much about baseball as you 2 clowns who think it is cool to insult him. Turn your attention toward some real facts and ideas.
Most / all.I didn’t say Gammons didn’t know baseball, but some of his tweets are literally half gibberish.
It’s not cool to insult him. It’s literally fucking heartbreaking that such a great writer has morphed into an unintelligible tweeter. Time for an intervention.Peter Gammons knows a thousand times as much about baseball as you 2 clowns who think it is cool to insult him. Turn your attention toward some real facts and ideas.
4. Red Sox
Callis: Henry Davis, C, Louisville
1. PIT - Mayer/MayerThe Red Sox covet Leiter and will take him if given the opportunity. Davis appears to be Plan B with the high school shortstops also in the mix.
Mayo: Henry Davis, C, Louisville The two high school shortstops and Rocker might still be in the mix along with Davis, the top college bat in the country.
4. Boston Red Sox
Pick: Henry Davis, C, Louisville
Two-thirds of our sources don’t think Leiter’s gambit to fall here will work, as he is just too damn good to drop this far. The Red Sox had a recent workout with Henry Davis and Brady House in attendance, but teams picking behind Boston think Leiter is the priority with Davis as the backup plan. The Harry Ford under-slot rumors here might just be a backup plan if somehow Leiter and Davis come off before this pick.
Edwin Arroyo, SS, Arecibo Academy (PR): Boston (dope), St. Louis, Minnesota (pattern)
Okay, thanks. Good, so it sounds like they don't spend 30 minutes or whatever on pre-draft gibberish.Probably between 7:20-7:30 (assumes 7:05-7:10 start, 4 min between picks)
Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt
We’ve had Leiter consistently mocked to the Red Sox in our last few editions, but don’t mistake that for confidence on our end that he makes it here. There’s a real shot he doesn’t. If he is on the board we would expect him to be the pick. Davis, House and Lawlar also get linked here and we think Watson would be considered as well if he was on the board, so it sounds like Leiter and then all of the top bats available—but we’re not sure of the order of preference and guess Davis would be most likely if Leiter isn’t available.
If Lieter is there, I expect it’s a slam dunk, but I expect Texas to grab him. If that’s the case I think it comes down to “in Chaim we trust” and we’re going to use the pick to tell us more about the player and the Sox FO’s thinking, rather than complaining about who they should’ve grabbed (at least for a few years).At this point, I'm bracing for them to just draft Trey Ball for a second time.
I agree with this. I suspect it is going to be Davis when all is said and done, but I'd rather take Rocker if it comes to that. The mock drafts that have Rocker dropping all the way to #10 or so seem bizarre to me. Yes, he went through a rough patch part way through this season, but I don't think he's Trey Ball 2.0. The pendulum has gone way too far to the other side on him.What I’m really hoping for in this context is a dynamic, upside pick, which is really almost anyone but Davis. HS SS or Jobe, maybe even Rocker or a supposed over-draft like Ford; the idea/ hope is we’re getting a shot of optimism & a player the Sox feel like they would rarely have a chance at. Davis feels like a safe, boring pick, but I think it maybe says as much about the board behind him.
Where's that rumor from?Rumor now that the Sox may go under slot at 4 with Matt McLain. That would be terribly underwhelming.
From Carlos Collazo of Baseball America.comWhere's that rumor from?
Does this strategy ever work? Seems counterintuitive to me - after all, I thought the entire raison d'être of tanking was that draft history shows us that it's much more likely to find a good prospect at the top of the draft than it is later on. But then if you go underslot at a premium draft position, it's basically the same as trading down in football for a better later round pick.Rumor now that the Sox may go under slot at 4 with Matt McLain. That would be terribly underwhelming.
I took a very cursory glance earlier in the thread. You have one absolute grand slam (Mookie), JBJ was a little overslot, but mostly it is names like Owens, Denney, Longhi, Speier, Weems, Kukuk, Buttrey, Coyle, Cecchini, etc. Swihart was maybe the most we’ve paid overslot and is one of the bigger successes. Logan Allen was a valuable trade chip.Does this strategy ever work? Seems counterintuitive to me - after all, I thought the entire raison d'être of tanking was that draft history shows us that it's much more likely to find a good prospect at the top of the draft than it is later on. But then if you go underslot at a premium draft position, it's basically the same as trading down in football for a better later round pick.
Would be interested if anyone has every looked at this.
So, are the Red Sox going to do this?
When we talked to Toboni last month, he called a drastically under-slot strategy “rare” but acknowledged the potential logic of such an approach. Here’s the way he explained it more recently.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — our job is to capture as much value as we can, not at each individual pick, but rather over the course of the whole draft,” Toboni said. “You can take different paths to do so. A lot of what this relates back to is how you value these pieces at the top, relative to each other, as well as what they’re demanding dollar-wise. But, I think it’s also important to understand that (by employing this strategy) you assume some amount of risk that you won’t be able to find a suitable landing spot for any accrued money as the draft goes on.
“We can’t dictate who is going to be there later in the draft; we’re essentially making a bet that the supply of really interesting players that demand a lot of money will exceed other teams’ resources. And then, we’re making a bet that their ask is still an efficient use of our money. That can be a scary proposition, but if you’re prepared, it can be a calculated risk that is better than the alternative. But once again, it all relates back to how you value the players that are in the mix for your first pick.”
It looks like it may have worked for the Red Sox *last year,* if you believe in Nick Yorke's 1.000+ OPS over the last month or so.Does this strategy ever work? Seems counterintuitive to me - after all, I thought the entire raison d'être of tanking was that draft history shows us that it's much more likely to find a good prospect at the top of the draft than it is later on. But then if you go underslot at a premium draft position, it's basically the same as trading down in football for a better later round pick.
Would be interested if anyone has every looked at this.
Weirdly, Keith Law has him as the 6th best prospect in the draft (first five: Mayer, Davis, Lawlar, Leiter, Rocker in that order). I don't get it, based on everything you've written here.Obviously I know very little about Matt McClain and I know batting average isn't what teams are looking for these days. There are comprehensive ways to quantify a players offensive contributions and BA isn't one. However, hitting .279 in NCAA for his career is a little rough at this pick. There's been a ton of year-to-year improvement there, but he's undersized and the seasons only get longer as you progress in the pros and the competition gets elite. Expecting a player who hits .279 for their college career to turn into a professional hitter who can make quality contact often enough to be promoted is a tough gamble at a pick that high. Add to it that he's undersized and doesn't have an obvious landing spot defensively - and played multiple positions in college - and that has all the makings of a rough gamble at 4th overall.
It makes more sense if you break it out by year.Weirdly, Keith Law has him as the 6th best prospect in the draft (first five: Mayer, Davis, Lawlar, Leiter, Rocker in that order). I don't get it, based on everything you've written here.
I mean, you cut out the parts of my post where I acknowledge he was drafted 25th overall two years ago and I noted there's been a ton of year-to-year improvement. I like to contribute my opinion here based on what limited information I have because I think it's fun. I enjoy following amateur players as they progress from the draft and through the minors. I've tried to bring relevant information to my posts and source them accordingly. A quick and dirty run down on McClain makes me think it's too much of a gamble at 4. Other posters noted he's a solid top 15 pick or better if he sticks at shortstop, so maybe it isn't deeply under-slot. I was under the impression it is fair play here to be making opinions based on scouting reports and a b-ref page. He's improved a ton year-to-year but the overall picture looks like a gamble to me; that's what I think. If we end up with him, I hope Famous Baseball Expert Keith Law continues to demonstrate he knows more than regular people like me speculating for enjoyment.Weirdly, Keith Law has him as the 6th best prospect in the draft (first five: Mayer, Davis, Lawlar, Leiter, Rocker in that order). I don't get it, based on everything you've written here.
Also Yorke was the first round pick, I would say the strategy works if the lower picks you pay up for work out.It looks like it may have worked for the Red Sox *last year,* if you believe in Nick Yorke's 1.000+ OPS over the last month or so.
edit: to be clear, that was way different than screwing around with a #4 pick, which I would oppose.
Hopefully he has been reassured he has a Boston budget not Tampa’s.The one thing that reassures me in all this is that it really seems like Chaim Bloom knows what he's doing.
Yeah I’m also in this boatI want:
Leiter
Rocker
Lawlar
Mayer or Davis
Kobe wouldn’t be terrible, but HS arms scare me. Like others, I do NOT want to go under slot.
I’m not fearful of Davis. His hitting profile, and potential, remind me of Carlos Santana.