Over the past few years the Red Sox farm system has become heavily lopsided, with loads of talented position players coming up through the ranks but few pitchers of any significance.
This week the Red Sox had a chance to address that imbalance, and whether by design or not, they did just that.
The Red Sox loaded up on pitching talent in this week’s draft, taking pitchers with 14 of their 20 total selections. The vast majority of those pitchers were college arms, 13 in all, including the club’s two highest drafted pitchers since Tanner Houck in 2017 — TCU’s Payton Tolle and Florida’s Brandon Neely in the second and third rounds, respectively.
Devin Pearson, the Red Sox director of amateur scouting, said the club didn't set out to draft that many college pitchers and that was largely a product of how their board fell, but he added that the club has changed the way its evaluated pitchers and they are happy with the way things worked out.
"I think it's important, not just for the system and having some pitchers that we're excited about, but also from the acquisition side, having some flexibility on trades and things like that," Pearson said. "It just gives you more balance in your system, which we're excited to have done."
Besides being an older and more experienced group, the class has a lot of other things in common too. Nine of the 13 college pitchers are 6-foot-4 or taller, and the majority boast either a mid-to-high 90s fastball, at least one filthy off-speed pitch, or both. Tolle fits that description perfectly with his huge 6-foot-6 frame and 125 strikeouts over 81.1 innings, and Neely struck out 108 batters in 79 innings at Florida this past spring.
Even though Neely mostly pitched out of the bullpen in college, Pearson said the club believes he can start.
The crown jewel of this year's class is, obviously, first-round pick Braden Montgomery. The Texas A&M outfielder played in the College World Series all three years he spent in college and is regarded as a winning player with power from both sides of the plate and a cannon for an arm.
Montgomery was one of five college position players the Red Sox took, three outfielders, an infielder and a catcher, and Boston also took two high school players, two-way star Conrad Cason out of Georgia and outfielder Yan Cruz out of Puerto Rico. Pearson said they plan to develop Cason as a two-way player, potentially giving the club another high-upside arm down the road.
Red Sox 2024 MLB Draft selections
1 (12): Braden Montgomery, OF, Texas A&M
2 (50): Payton Tolle, LHP, TCU
3 (86): Brandon Neely, RHP, Florida
4 (115): Zach Ehrhard, OF, Oklahoma State
5 (148): Brandon Clarke, LHP, State College of Florida
6 (177): Blake Aita, RHP, Kennesaw State
7 (207): Will Turner, OF, University of South Alabama
8 (237): Conrad Cason, two-way player, Greater Atlanta Christian HS (GA)
9 (267): Hudson White, C, Arkansas
10 (297): Devin Futrell, LHP, Vanderbilt
11 (327): Steven Brooks, RHP, Cal Poly
12 (357): Brady Tygart, RHP, Arkansas
13 (387): Shea Sprague, LHP, UNC
14 (417): Alex Bouchard, RHP, Lehigh
15 (447): Joey Gartrell, RHP, University of Portland
16 (477): Griffin Kilander, RHP, Wayne State
17 (507): Yan Cruz, OF, Academia Presbiteriana HS (Puerto Rico)
18 (537): Cole Tolbert, RHP, Ole Miss
19 (567): D'Angelo Ortiz, 3B, Miami Dade CC
20 (597): Ben Hansen, RHP, BYU
