We can't know who will be available with any certainty (though feel free to speculate along with your answer), so just tell us who you want to get, and why.
Judging by the conversation in the draft thread and the first post in this one, the intention was to ask who do you prefer, not what do you predict.The thread title and the poll ask two different questions
Exactly this. Would love Leiter too, but Rocker has horse written all over him. Great stuff, great mix, and a professional backside.I said Rocker. Maybe I'm still overly infatuated with his 19-strikeouts-on-19-curveballs game six months ago. But it's just been a long time since the Red Sox drafted and developed a top of the rotation starter. I'd be thrilled with Leiter too, the position players could be great, but Rocker feels like the best bet to end up with a homegrown stud on the mound. And he just seems fun.
So the most recent #4 pick to make the Majors is Nick Madrigal (2018) of the White Sox. I'm admittedly "scouting" based on his BBRef page right now, but he kind of seems like a throwback MI type - not much power, but he gets on base. Obviously he's still young, but barring a breakout, he seems like a pretty useful player for a good team. If he were Boston's starting 2B, I don't think I'd complain. But it's maybe a good example of how it might be wise to temper expectations a bit - more "solid regular" than "future All-Star." And Madrigal will likely wind up as one of the better players chosen in that first round! At this point, the only one the White Sox might have rather picked instead is Kelenic - subject to change!I am excited the Sox have a top 5 pick but looking back at the top 5 picks of the 2010s drafts is sobering. The best #4 selection since Ryan Zimmerman in 2005 is Kevin Gausman with 13.9 bWAR. It is easy to get worked up about these guys when I am reading these very generous prospect profiles on all the baseball sites but the MLB draft always seems like more of a crapshoot, getting lucky with a few players you draft in the 5th round.
The two best players available to the Red Sox at #7 based on their careers thus far were probably Tim Anderson and Aaron Judge. Nobody even mentioned those as possibilities to go that high!2015 and 2013, the years we had the 7 overall pick, we got a total of 9.8 bWAR from 2015 draftees and 0 bWAR from 2013 draftees.
If you would sign under slot you might have a chanceThis is a bit off the board, but I'd really like to see them pick me.
I'm 44 years old and my baseball career peaked as a high school relief pitcher, but the bonus money would be awesome so if you ask me who I really want the Sox to draft in the first round...I want them to draft me.
My fastball has dropped from the mid-70s to the low-60s, but I'm confident I can still keep my walk rate low. And I'm an awesome clubhouse guy.
Here's a link to the Yorke vs. Mata AB:This might deserve a new thread (2022 draft thread?), but for now is somewhat relevant here.
From Fangraphs
"A Conversation with Red Sox Amateur Scouting Director Paul Toboni," by David Laurila
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-conversation-with-red-sox-amateur-scouting-director-paul-toboni/
They spend the first part of the interview going through the nuts and bolts of scouting responsibility/hierarchy. Toboni avoids directly addressing Sox scouting/drafting philosophy -- e.g., Laurila asks for an example of something under- or over-rated by scouts and Toboni deflects with, “That’s an important question, but I’m not sure that I can give you a good answer. This kind of fits into, ‘What I should say, and what I shouldn’t say.’”
From there the conversation becomes a bit more concrete, with Toboni providing some interesting insights into Nick Yorke, Blaze Jordan and Marcelo Mayer. I was most interested in him bringing up how scouts look for the neurological component of a player's game.
Tobini: “A trait that they (Yorke and Jordan) share is, neurologically, how they process information out of the pitchers hand, where they deliver the barrel, the timing of it… that’s pretty tough to teach. If you can identify that at a younger age… I think that allows for a greater capacity to grow as a player. All that said, Nick was a little bit further ahead in terms of his level of polish. Blaze had this incredible raw toolset, but was probably a little bit behind Nick on the development curve.”
Laurila: How does a scout identify the neurological component you referred to?
Toboni: “This is part of the art of the game. It’s one of the cooler parts of scouting. When you see a player take a breaking ball… we talk about the comfort of their takes. I don’t know if you’ve seen the clip with [pitching prospect] Bryan Mata from right after Nick signed. He threw an 89 mph slider to Nick that he hit hard to right field. Nick had never seen a slider of that velocity, or even movement, but he was still able to deliver the barrel on time to the right place. That clues in a scout. To do that, you have to neurologically be in a different spot.”
Those last two pitches Mata threw had some intense movement.Here's a link to the Yorke vs. Mata AB:
View: https://twitter.com/bradfo/status/1307400556697341953?s=20&t=t-JyXaKZYz6Sv47wUfBV9Q