Well, apparently MLB is trying to emulate the NFL draft in one area: the first round will probably take about 4 hours to complete. Note: this isn’t because teams are suddenly taking much longer to decide who to pick. It is because the opening rounds of the draft are now featured on national television, and they need to draw out the picks in the interest of drama. This is a new paradigm.

You see, back in my day, the entire first round would have taken about 15 minutes to complete. And it was all done in one smoke-filled room, packed elbow-to-elbow with scotch drinking, cigar smoking GMs. They would release the picks to the public by carrier pigeon, see? The pigeon would fly to the local telegraph shoppe, where the clerk would use Morse Code to relay the info to me. BEEP BEEP BEEPBEEP BEEP BEEP!!! I used to strap electrodes on my testicles just to receive the news that Boston drafted Rick Asadoorian in the first round! I would walk funny for a month after the draft! And I liked it!!!

Anyway, enough of me waxing nostalgic. With their 1st Round Pick (#30 overall), the Red Sox take Casey Kelly, a high school SS/P out of Sarasota, Florida.

Apparently he is the #20 high school quarterback in the nation, and is being courted by the University of Tennessee to be their next QB. However, the Sox have been known to throw suitcases full of money at HS draftees to encourage them to rethink their academic commitments, so I doubt this will be a problem.

This is what MLB.com has to say about the double-threat prospect:

Big and athletic, he has all the tools to play shortstop. The main question is whether he can swing the bat well enough…As a pitcher, he’s a bit raw, but has the makings of three outstanding pitches, and could be more intriguing to scouts on the mound.

Kevin Goldstein, the prospect guru at Baseball Prospectus, has high praises for the pick:

Boston finds their signability guy. He’ll get more than No. 30 money and this is a great pick at 30

Quite honestly, I have no idea how the Red Sox intend to develop Kelly (as a hitter or pitcher), so I can’t speculate on that. I’m sure we’ll learn more eventually.

With #45, the Sox take a college pitcher: Junior RHP Bryan Price from Rice University.

#77 is Delaware high school SS Derrik Gibson. At #85, they grab Stephen Fife, a right-handed pitcher from the University of Utah. At #108, it’s Notre Dame RHP Kyle Weiland. At #142, it’s Peter Hissey, a HS center fielder from Pennsylvania. At #172, they selected CF/P Ryan Westmoreland from Portsmouth, RI. At #202, they grabbed catcher Ryan Lavarnway from some safety school called “Yale” or something.

Comments are closed