The below list is based only on the slotting era that started with the 2011 MLB Draft. As such, signing bonuses are considered as well as draft position. I have excluded 2024 from consideration due to the limited performance history. If you want to argue that spending almost full slot to select Baseball America's 212th-ranked draft prospect 86th overall is a poor allocation of the bonus pool, we can go halfsies on a buffalo chicken pizza and local craft beer but I still want to entertain the possibility that the Red Sox identified traits particular to Brandon Neely they believe align well with their developmental strengths.
Despite the title, I do not consider all of the below players to be busts. For at least a couple, it's not dark yet, even if it's gettin' there. I genuinely hope that at least one of the 2023 overslot underperformers makes a leap, dispelling past disappointment and allowing the next iteration of such a list to focus on questions like ¿Quién es menos macho, Cole Brannen o Brooks Brannon?
Lastly, each of the below includes a heaping helping of hindsight. Even in cases like Cutter Coffey and Nathan Hickey where my doubts date to draft day, I possess neither the foresight nor the insight to confidently assert that I would have done anything other than make a different but similarly disappointing decision.
10. Nathan Hickey 2021-5, 136th overall (Bloom-Toboni, Signed by Dante Ricciardi)
The Red Sox spent $1.0M-- more than twice the slot allowance-- to select MLB's 141st-ranked draft prospect 136th overall despite two collegiate seasons of Hickey modeling catching gear as an ill-fitting accessory, similar to Haley Joel Osment's ski helmet. As far as 4-D chess gambits go, Boston was beat in tic-tac-toe by a chicken. Four years later, Hickey's catching glove remains mostly a nuisance when trying to stow luggage in the overhead compartment of an Avelo Airlines flight. It would not be entirely fair to describe him as positionless, since Worcester did start Hickey at 1N recently. Sadly, 1N is the loneliest position even worse than two, yeah. Unlike the prior year’s draft, there was no Spencer Strider available in 2021's fifth round but there was Tanner Bibee ($259.4K) and Hickey's University of Florida batterymate Christian Scott ($350K). Devoting significant scouting resources to the Gators and failing to value the 6’4 right-hander recording consecutive seasons with an ERA of 3.00 or below in college baseball's most competitive conference is a monument to myopia.
9. Antonio Anderson 2023-3, 83rd overall (Bloom-Pearson, Signed by Kirk Fredriksson)
The Red Sox spent 77% over slot to sign Anderson away from a commitment to Georgia Tech. This season is Anderson's third stint with Salem. New Englanders would be hard-pressed to identify those which have benefitted from hanging around Salem so long. Perhaps it was accretive to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s toils, but Anderson is not earning an A of any shade for his performance. Perceived as a power-hitting project, present power has been noticeably absent from Anderson's profile, possibly suppressed by ground ball rates that continue to hover around 50% even during his BABIP-fueled start to 2025. While the combination of a lack of power and speed and an unsurprising but irreversible slide down the defensive spectrum is concerning, there are extenuating circumstances that should give pause before dismissing Anderson as a bust. Not 20 years old for another two months, he likely would have benefitted from more age-appropriate competition in a short-season Class A league. Boston, however, was fully aware of the abolishment of the New York-Penn League when it paid Anderson twice as much as Nolan McLean and Tre' Morgan and three times as much as Jake Bloss, all 2023 third-round selections.
8. Michael Chavis 2014-1, 26th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by Brian Moehler)
More than a decade after being drafted Chavis still is playing affiliated baseball, sharing a Pacific Coast League locker room with Joe Jacques and a jewelry collection with Karoline Leavitt. Despite a swing that has grown longer than his hair, spending so many years evading not only the consequences of a contracted minor leagues but also the Rapture should be sufficient to prohibit labeling Chavis a bust. But since his rookie year with Boston-- Chavis's sole productive major-league campaign-- the four MLB teams he has finished the season with have averaged fewer than 65 wins. Terrible teams play terribly because they make terrible decisions about rostering terrible players. The 2021 Red Sox benefitted more from Chavis's subtraction than Austin Davis's addition, as Big Fudge was served with WHIP-- lots of WHIP. Jack Flaherty, Mitch Keller, and Alex Verdugo-- 2014 draftees chosen within thirty selections after Chavis-- are not terrible players, although Boston passing on Chavis to draft Verdugo does seem to invite the possibility that Mookie Betts would have been traded for two Connor Wongs.
7. CJ Chatham 2016-2, 51st overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Willie Romay)
Chatham was not ranked among the top 60 draft prospects by major publications but did sign for $132.8K under slot, more consistent with his public rankings. The potential spike in power portended by Chatham's draft season at Florida Atlantic University never materialized during his professional career and he lacked the patience to support a full-season ISO high of 0.128. Following five seasons in the Red Sox organization and only 91 plate appearances above Double-A, Chatham was dealt to double-down Dave Dombrowski's Phillies for Dominican Winter League legend Victor Santos. The right-handed pitcher has been unable to duplicate such aptitude at higher latitudes but was one of two players traded for Tyler O'Neill, a free-swinging Rorschach test for whether fans want to know the terrifying truth about their team or want to see someone sock a few dingers. Whatever dollar sign you place on the muscle, a tertiary contributor to a single season of the Burnaby, BC-born bundle of biceps is a poor exchange for a 2016 second round that included Pete Alonso, Bryan Reynolds, and Bo Bichette.
6. Cam Cannon 2019-2, 43rd overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Vaughn Williams)
Drafting a collegiate middle infielder from the state of Arizona in the second round had worked so well just 15 years prior, how could the Red Sox not reach for Baseball America's 94th-ranked draft prospect? Unfortunately for national cross-checker Andrea del Sarto, this particular reach eluded Boston's grasp. Cannon performed well his first full year in Greenville but was never able to approach similar success during a late-season promotion to Portland or subsequent stints with the Sea Dogs and WooSox. Lasers were replaced by lazy fly balls and any superficial similarities to Pedroia were consigned to the dustbin. After the 2022 season, the Phillies selected Cannon in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft (double-down Dave rides again!), but Philadelphia's Eastern League affiliate Reading was no kinder to Cannon's 'rithmetic as 0-for-3 repeatedly equaled negative fun. Last season, Cannon's four-team tour of the independent American Association included being traded for non-playable characters such as Kade Mechals and Jacques Pucheu. While Cannon failed to thunder, the limited alternatives mitigate the disappointment. Between Gunnar Henderson-- drafted immediately before Cannon-- and Michael Harris II (98th overall), there was Spencer Steer and more beef-a-reeno than filet mignon.
5. Cutter Coffey 2022-2, 41st overall (Bloom-Toboni, Signed by Josh Labandeira)
Drafting Roman Anthony later in the same round absolves many sins, but spending nearly the full 41st-overall slot to select MLB's 105th-ranked draft prospect is more a mortal offense than a venial one. The pick used to procure Coffey was compensation for failing to sign 2021 second-round selection Jud Fabian. Like Fabian, contact concerns continue to cloud Coffey's future. Unlike Fabian, Coffey lacks the range to regularly play a premium position. Accordingly, Coffey has a greater need to frequently tap into his lesser raw power to enjoy a career of utility rather than futility. Coffey starts his third High-A stint now with the Blue Jays, who acquired him last July as part of a package for Danny Jansen. While the begoggled backstop did nothing to remedy the Red Sox' receiving deficiencies, Coffey merits minimal consideration when calculating the overpay. It would be more efficient to list those 2022 second-round selections less valuable than Coffey, but even a disappointment like Walter Ford offered a fantastic nickname (Vanilla Missile) and almost $600K in slot savings that could have been allocated elsewhere.
4. Nazzan Zanetello 2023-2, 50th overall (Bloom-Pearson, Signed by Alonzo Wright)
The Red Sox spent 77% over slot to select Baseball American's 110th-ranked prospect 50th overall and sign him away from a commitment to Arkansas. That is hardly the only parallel between Zanetello and his draft classmate Anderson, but Zanetello's tale comes with mo' money and mo' problems. The second-round selection increasingly seems somewhere between a biggie smalls and tiny huge mistake. While Anderson's performance has been below that befitting Boston's draft investment, Zanetello's performance has not been up to contemporary professional standards independent of draft position. After striking out at a 43.8% rate in his first full-season with Salem and showing negligible improvement over the course of the campaign, Zanetello was promoted to Greenville to start this season and responded by striking out at a 46.7% rate. Based on Z's current accumulation of Ks, he is on pace to rack the worst collection of tiles in Scrabble history by Mother's Day. The Anderson caveats about age and competition apply equally to Zanetello, but the opportunity cost is even higher. Zanetello's $3.0M bonus has been exceeded in recent years by only Kyle Teel ($4.0M) and Marcelo Mayer ($6.664M) and subsequent 2023 second-round selections such as Jackson Baumeister, Brandon Sproat, and Grant Taylor signed for approximately half of Zanetello's bonus.
3. Jay Groome 2016-1, 12th overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Ray Fagnant)
Groome was widely considered a top-five draft prospect based on talent and selecting him toward the middle of the first round and spending less than a half-million dollars above slot was a calculated risk by a management team that reasonably expected to be drafting lower for the near future. Most reservations that contributed to Groome's draft-day slide were driven by personal concerns but it was injury that left Red Sox fans waiting at the altar, sidelining Groome for three months in 2017, all of 2018, and all but one month of 2019. By the time COVID caused the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season, Groome had pitched just 44.1 full-season innings since being drafted, although his 58 strikeouts across those frames offered hope that the talent remained intact. Indeed, after building innings with Greenville in 2021, Groome dominated during a late-season promotion to Portland and mostly sustained that success when he returned for a second stint with the Sea Dogs in 2022. A mid-season promotion to Worcester was quickly followed by a trade to the Padres where the Red Sox received Corey Rosier, Max Ferguson, and the withered husk of Eric Hosmer. Rosier and Ferguson recently auditioned to be extras in the pilot for a "Hardcastle and McCormick" reboot while Hosmer's contract included a schedule of subsidies by San Diego that seemed to have been compiled on a cocktail napkin from Rocky's Bar, Grill, and Fine Dining. The last-second swap was such a convoluted transaction to obtain toast that Jim Nantz felt compelled to offer a standing golf clap. Catcher Will Smith has been the best of the balance of the 2016 first round, although Boston passing on Groome to draft Smith does seem to invite the possibility that Mookie Betts would have been traded for two Jeters Downs or perhaps only one Jeter but all the way Downs.
2. Deven Marrero 2012-1, 24th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by Vaughn Williams)
Marrero was the latest in a legacy of much love for all-glove amateur shortstops that transcended not only management teams but ownership groups, including 1998 first-round pick Adam Everett and 2009 international free agent signing Jose Iglesias. Marrero was also the least of that trio, with professional repetitions failing to approximate his amateur reputation-- much less Everett's-- and no hint of Iggy's pop. Marrero's resulting career mostly spent on the fringes of 40-man rosters could better be encapsulated by WTF than OMG. Out of options with Rafael Devers joining Xander Bogaerts on the left side and Brock Holt! in reserve, Marrero was traded to the Diamondbacks during spring training of 2018. The Red Sox later received reliever Josh Taylor, who joined the parent club in 2019 and alternated valuable seasons with injury-marred campaigns. After missing the entirety of 2022 due to a back injury, Taylor was traded to the Royals for Adalberto Mondesi, a deal that had a greater impact on the New England Journal of Medicine than the 2023 American League. Mondesi was last sighted entering the Northwest Passage at Baffin Bay in search of Craig Grebeck, although The Boston Globe's Pete Abraham reports that Mondesi should return in two weeks. Meanwhile, 2012 supplemental first-round pick Matt Olson is going to the Hall of Fame and I'm going to the Eliot Lounge.
1. Trey Ball 2013-1, 7th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by John Pyle)
Improved draft position was the sole benefit that the Red Sox received from a season spent subjected to the dizzying intellect of the inventor of the wrap. Boston not only threw away its best shot with Trey Ball but would receive no major-league production from any of the first 10 selections, directly or indirectly. Ball was a two-way high school player that was expected to improve with an enhanced focus on pitching. Instead, Ball held fast to his duality, displaying neither command nor control in his professional pitching career. Even in his sole season of successful run prevention, a second stint with then-High-A Salem in 2016, Ball walked 68 batters while striking out just 86 in 117.1 innings. After a 2018 transition to the Portland bullpen provided no relief, the 25-year-old Ball returned to the Rookie Gulf Coast League in 2019 as a hitter but could muster a batting line that would be the envy of only Shaq Thompson-Green. Ball was the highest among seven (of 39) 2013 first-round picks that failed to make the major leagues, with J.P. Crawford, Aaron Judge, and Sean Manaea among the standouts chosen within a couple dozen selections after Ball.
Despite the title, I do not consider all of the below players to be busts. For at least a couple, it's not dark yet, even if it's gettin' there. I genuinely hope that at least one of the 2023 overslot underperformers makes a leap, dispelling past disappointment and allowing the next iteration of such a list to focus on questions like ¿Quién es menos macho, Cole Brannen o Brooks Brannon?
Lastly, each of the below includes a heaping helping of hindsight. Even in cases like Cutter Coffey and Nathan Hickey where my doubts date to draft day, I possess neither the foresight nor the insight to confidently assert that I would have done anything other than make a different but similarly disappointing decision.
10. Nathan Hickey 2021-5, 136th overall (Bloom-Toboni, Signed by Dante Ricciardi)
The Red Sox spent $1.0M-- more than twice the slot allowance-- to select MLB's 141st-ranked draft prospect 136th overall despite two collegiate seasons of Hickey modeling catching gear as an ill-fitting accessory, similar to Haley Joel Osment's ski helmet. As far as 4-D chess gambits go, Boston was beat in tic-tac-toe by a chicken. Four years later, Hickey's catching glove remains mostly a nuisance when trying to stow luggage in the overhead compartment of an Avelo Airlines flight. It would not be entirely fair to describe him as positionless, since Worcester did start Hickey at 1N recently. Sadly, 1N is the loneliest position even worse than two, yeah. Unlike the prior year’s draft, there was no Spencer Strider available in 2021's fifth round but there was Tanner Bibee ($259.4K) and Hickey's University of Florida batterymate Christian Scott ($350K). Devoting significant scouting resources to the Gators and failing to value the 6’4 right-hander recording consecutive seasons with an ERA of 3.00 or below in college baseball's most competitive conference is a monument to myopia.
9. Antonio Anderson 2023-3, 83rd overall (Bloom-Pearson, Signed by Kirk Fredriksson)
The Red Sox spent 77% over slot to sign Anderson away from a commitment to Georgia Tech. This season is Anderson's third stint with Salem. New Englanders would be hard-pressed to identify those which have benefitted from hanging around Salem so long. Perhaps it was accretive to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s toils, but Anderson is not earning an A of any shade for his performance. Perceived as a power-hitting project, present power has been noticeably absent from Anderson's profile, possibly suppressed by ground ball rates that continue to hover around 50% even during his BABIP-fueled start to 2025. While the combination of a lack of power and speed and an unsurprising but irreversible slide down the defensive spectrum is concerning, there are extenuating circumstances that should give pause before dismissing Anderson as a bust. Not 20 years old for another two months, he likely would have benefitted from more age-appropriate competition in a short-season Class A league. Boston, however, was fully aware of the abolishment of the New York-Penn League when it paid Anderson twice as much as Nolan McLean and Tre' Morgan and three times as much as Jake Bloss, all 2023 third-round selections.
8. Michael Chavis 2014-1, 26th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by Brian Moehler)
More than a decade after being drafted Chavis still is playing affiliated baseball, sharing a Pacific Coast League locker room with Joe Jacques and a jewelry collection with Karoline Leavitt. Despite a swing that has grown longer than his hair, spending so many years evading not only the consequences of a contracted minor leagues but also the Rapture should be sufficient to prohibit labeling Chavis a bust. But since his rookie year with Boston-- Chavis's sole productive major-league campaign-- the four MLB teams he has finished the season with have averaged fewer than 65 wins. Terrible teams play terribly because they make terrible decisions about rostering terrible players. The 2021 Red Sox benefitted more from Chavis's subtraction than Austin Davis's addition, as Big Fudge was served with WHIP-- lots of WHIP. Jack Flaherty, Mitch Keller, and Alex Verdugo-- 2014 draftees chosen within thirty selections after Chavis-- are not terrible players, although Boston passing on Chavis to draft Verdugo does seem to invite the possibility that Mookie Betts would have been traded for two Connor Wongs.
7. CJ Chatham 2016-2, 51st overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Willie Romay)
Chatham was not ranked among the top 60 draft prospects by major publications but did sign for $132.8K under slot, more consistent with his public rankings. The potential spike in power portended by Chatham's draft season at Florida Atlantic University never materialized during his professional career and he lacked the patience to support a full-season ISO high of 0.128. Following five seasons in the Red Sox organization and only 91 plate appearances above Double-A, Chatham was dealt to double-down Dave Dombrowski's Phillies for Dominican Winter League legend Victor Santos. The right-handed pitcher has been unable to duplicate such aptitude at higher latitudes but was one of two players traded for Tyler O'Neill, a free-swinging Rorschach test for whether fans want to know the terrifying truth about their team or want to see someone sock a few dingers. Whatever dollar sign you place on the muscle, a tertiary contributor to a single season of the Burnaby, BC-born bundle of biceps is a poor exchange for a 2016 second round that included Pete Alonso, Bryan Reynolds, and Bo Bichette.
6. Cam Cannon 2019-2, 43rd overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Vaughn Williams)
Drafting a collegiate middle infielder from the state of Arizona in the second round had worked so well just 15 years prior, how could the Red Sox not reach for Baseball America's 94th-ranked draft prospect? Unfortunately for national cross-checker Andrea del Sarto, this particular reach eluded Boston's grasp. Cannon performed well his first full year in Greenville but was never able to approach similar success during a late-season promotion to Portland or subsequent stints with the Sea Dogs and WooSox. Lasers were replaced by lazy fly balls and any superficial similarities to Pedroia were consigned to the dustbin. After the 2022 season, the Phillies selected Cannon in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft (double-down Dave rides again!), but Philadelphia's Eastern League affiliate Reading was no kinder to Cannon's 'rithmetic as 0-for-3 repeatedly equaled negative fun. Last season, Cannon's four-team tour of the independent American Association included being traded for non-playable characters such as Kade Mechals and Jacques Pucheu. While Cannon failed to thunder, the limited alternatives mitigate the disappointment. Between Gunnar Henderson-- drafted immediately before Cannon-- and Michael Harris II (98th overall), there was Spencer Steer and more beef-a-reeno than filet mignon.
5. Cutter Coffey 2022-2, 41st overall (Bloom-Toboni, Signed by Josh Labandeira)
Drafting Roman Anthony later in the same round absolves many sins, but spending nearly the full 41st-overall slot to select MLB's 105th-ranked draft prospect is more a mortal offense than a venial one. The pick used to procure Coffey was compensation for failing to sign 2021 second-round selection Jud Fabian. Like Fabian, contact concerns continue to cloud Coffey's future. Unlike Fabian, Coffey lacks the range to regularly play a premium position. Accordingly, Coffey has a greater need to frequently tap into his lesser raw power to enjoy a career of utility rather than futility. Coffey starts his third High-A stint now with the Blue Jays, who acquired him last July as part of a package for Danny Jansen. While the begoggled backstop did nothing to remedy the Red Sox' receiving deficiencies, Coffey merits minimal consideration when calculating the overpay. It would be more efficient to list those 2022 second-round selections less valuable than Coffey, but even a disappointment like Walter Ford offered a fantastic nickname (Vanilla Missile) and almost $600K in slot savings that could have been allocated elsewhere.
4. Nazzan Zanetello 2023-2, 50th overall (Bloom-Pearson, Signed by Alonzo Wright)
The Red Sox spent 77% over slot to select Baseball American's 110th-ranked prospect 50th overall and sign him away from a commitment to Arkansas. That is hardly the only parallel between Zanetello and his draft classmate Anderson, but Zanetello's tale comes with mo' money and mo' problems. The second-round selection increasingly seems somewhere between a biggie smalls and tiny huge mistake. While Anderson's performance has been below that befitting Boston's draft investment, Zanetello's performance has not been up to contemporary professional standards independent of draft position. After striking out at a 43.8% rate in his first full-season with Salem and showing negligible improvement over the course of the campaign, Zanetello was promoted to Greenville to start this season and responded by striking out at a 46.7% rate. Based on Z's current accumulation of Ks, he is on pace to rack the worst collection of tiles in Scrabble history by Mother's Day. The Anderson caveats about age and competition apply equally to Zanetello, but the opportunity cost is even higher. Zanetello's $3.0M bonus has been exceeded in recent years by only Kyle Teel ($4.0M) and Marcelo Mayer ($6.664M) and subsequent 2023 second-round selections such as Jackson Baumeister, Brandon Sproat, and Grant Taylor signed for approximately half of Zanetello's bonus.
3. Jay Groome 2016-1, 12th overall (Dombrowski-Rikard, Signed by Ray Fagnant)
Groome was widely considered a top-five draft prospect based on talent and selecting him toward the middle of the first round and spending less than a half-million dollars above slot was a calculated risk by a management team that reasonably expected to be drafting lower for the near future. Most reservations that contributed to Groome's draft-day slide were driven by personal concerns but it was injury that left Red Sox fans waiting at the altar, sidelining Groome for three months in 2017, all of 2018, and all but one month of 2019. By the time COVID caused the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season, Groome had pitched just 44.1 full-season innings since being drafted, although his 58 strikeouts across those frames offered hope that the talent remained intact. Indeed, after building innings with Greenville in 2021, Groome dominated during a late-season promotion to Portland and mostly sustained that success when he returned for a second stint with the Sea Dogs in 2022. A mid-season promotion to Worcester was quickly followed by a trade to the Padres where the Red Sox received Corey Rosier, Max Ferguson, and the withered husk of Eric Hosmer. Rosier and Ferguson recently auditioned to be extras in the pilot for a "Hardcastle and McCormick" reboot while Hosmer's contract included a schedule of subsidies by San Diego that seemed to have been compiled on a cocktail napkin from Rocky's Bar, Grill, and Fine Dining. The last-second swap was such a convoluted transaction to obtain toast that Jim Nantz felt compelled to offer a standing golf clap. Catcher Will Smith has been the best of the balance of the 2016 first round, although Boston passing on Groome to draft Smith does seem to invite the possibility that Mookie Betts would have been traded for two Jeters Downs or perhaps only one Jeter but all the way Downs.
2. Deven Marrero 2012-1, 24th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by Vaughn Williams)
Marrero was the latest in a legacy of much love for all-glove amateur shortstops that transcended not only management teams but ownership groups, including 1998 first-round pick Adam Everett and 2009 international free agent signing Jose Iglesias. Marrero was also the least of that trio, with professional repetitions failing to approximate his amateur reputation-- much less Everett's-- and no hint of Iggy's pop. Marrero's resulting career mostly spent on the fringes of 40-man rosters could better be encapsulated by WTF than OMG. Out of options with Rafael Devers joining Xander Bogaerts on the left side and Brock Holt! in reserve, Marrero was traded to the Diamondbacks during spring training of 2018. The Red Sox later received reliever Josh Taylor, who joined the parent club in 2019 and alternated valuable seasons with injury-marred campaigns. After missing the entirety of 2022 due to a back injury, Taylor was traded to the Royals for Adalberto Mondesi, a deal that had a greater impact on the New England Journal of Medicine than the 2023 American League. Mondesi was last sighted entering the Northwest Passage at Baffin Bay in search of Craig Grebeck, although The Boston Globe's Pete Abraham reports that Mondesi should return in two weeks. Meanwhile, 2012 supplemental first-round pick Matt Olson is going to the Hall of Fame and I'm going to the Eliot Lounge.
1. Trey Ball 2013-1, 7th overall (Cherington-Sawdaye, Signed by John Pyle)
Improved draft position was the sole benefit that the Red Sox received from a season spent subjected to the dizzying intellect of the inventor of the wrap. Boston not only threw away its best shot with Trey Ball but would receive no major-league production from any of the first 10 selections, directly or indirectly. Ball was a two-way high school player that was expected to improve with an enhanced focus on pitching. Instead, Ball held fast to his duality, displaying neither command nor control in his professional pitching career. Even in his sole season of successful run prevention, a second stint with then-High-A Salem in 2016, Ball walked 68 batters while striking out just 86 in 117.1 innings. After a 2018 transition to the Portland bullpen provided no relief, the 25-year-old Ball returned to the Rookie Gulf Coast League in 2019 as a hitter but could muster a batting line that would be the envy of only Shaq Thompson-Green. Ball was the highest among seven (of 39) 2013 first-round picks that failed to make the major leagues, with J.P. Crawford, Aaron Judge, and Sean Manaea among the standouts chosen within a couple dozen selections after Ball.
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