NEW YORK \u2014 In a departure from their recent MLB Drafts, the Boston Red Sox selected position players with their first three picks Saturday.<\/p>\n
In fact, they didn\u2019t just zero in on any hitters; they specifically targeted left-handed batters from the University of North Carolina.<\/p>\n
In an unexpected draft-day move, the Red Sox selected shortstop Jake Schaffner with the No. 20 pick in the first round and then outfielder Owen Hull with the 67th pick in the competitive balance round B. Both are left-handed, contact-first hitters from UNC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think even more unique is that they were roommates, too,\u201d said Red Sox scouting director Jake Bruml, in his first year leading Boston\u2019s draft. \u201cBoth of them were transfers this year to UNC. We got to meet with both of those guys at the combine. They told me they\u2019re best friends, so hopefully they can bring some of the magic that they had in that (College) World Series run to Boston in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who shifted in Keith Law’s last 2026 mock draft?<\/p>\n
Keith Law<\/p>\n
With their last pick of the first day, the Red Sox took Wisconsin high school shortstop Jace Mataczynski, a right-handed hitter, in the third round at No. 96.<\/p>\n
Where the Red Sox took Schaffner shocked draft experts, as he had been rated the No. 79 draft prospect<\/a> by The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law.<\/p>\n Bruml acknowledged the unorthodox selection but highlighted Schaffner\u2019s elite bat-to-ball skills, noting he\u2019s an above-average runner and will stick in the middle of the field.<\/p>\n \u201cWe prepared for 20 scenarios. I won\u2019t say where this scenario was on that list,\u201d Bruml said. \u201cWe knew what we were getting into. We were very comfortable with it and, for the record, told (Red Sox) senior leadership, \u2018Hey, we are going this route. This is going to be viewed as very off the wall.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe were very convicted in our evaluation of Jake and what it can provide us through the rest of the draft, so we were in a spot that, yeah, it\u2019s exciting because we got a player that we love and are excited to join the organization, but have to block out the noise a little bit and make sure we do what\u2019s best for the org.\u201d<\/p>\n Schaffner spent the first two years of college at North Dakota State before transferring to UNC for his junior year, when he hit .356 with six homers among 33 extra-base hits. His speed and contact skills are Schaffner\u2019s greatest strengths.<\/p>\n In his analysis, Law wrote that Schaffner \u201cmakes hard enough contact to project to keep hitting for average with some doubles power in pro ball, although his slugging percentage for UNC was elevated by his speed on doubles and triples.\u201d<\/p>\n Schaffner, too, was surprised when the Red Sox called his name.<\/p>\n \u201cI was definitely super excited when that call came,\u201d he said. \u201cI keep using the word grateful, but I really have no other word to describe it. It\u2019s just such an unbelievable experience. That call, when I got that call, I was like, \u2018Holy cow!\u2019 I remember my hand was shaking a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Hull, he spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at George Mason before transferring to UNC for his junior year, where he hit .393. Like Schaffner, his speed and contact skills stand out, as does his plate discipline. He walked 48 times last season compared to only 49 strikeouts.<\/p>\n Hull, who is 6 f00t 4 and 215 pounds, seems to have room to gain power. He finished second in Division I baseball in hits (103) and RBIs (87), and he tied for third in doubles (27).<\/p>\n Mataczynski, a strong defender at shortstop, is another speedy player, but questions about his swing suggest he\u2019ll need to spend time developing in the minors.<\/p>\n In recent years, the Red Sox have selected underrated players with their first picks in an attempt to sign them for less, while offering more money to later-round, harder-to-sign picks with high upside.<\/p>\n In 2022, they drafted Mikey Romero in the first round and signed him for $2.3 million, below the $2.9 million suggested slot. They then used a portion of those savings to offer Roman Anthony a higher bonus, whom they took in the second round and convinced to sign rather than head to the University of Mississippi.<\/p>\n Anthony signed for $2.5 million, but his draft slot had been pegged for $820,400. The Red Sox did something similar in drafting Nick Yorke in the first round in 2020 before signing third-rounder Blaze Jordan for more money.<\/p>\n Regardless of how the Red Sox execute the remainder of the draft, one thing is clear: They\u2019ve pivoted to drafting hitters.<\/p>\n The Red Sox took a pitching-heavy focus in the last two drafts under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and former scouting director Devin Pearson. Pearson is now an assistant general manager for the Washington Nationals, with Bruml taking over this year\u2019s Red Sox draft.<\/p>\n The Red Sox revamped their pitching development infrastructure under Breslow, with 2024 second-rounder Payton Tolle emerging as the\u00a0<\/a>system\u2019s most successful example<\/a>. Tolle debuted 13 months after being drafted and is now a rotation mainstay. In those pitching-heavy drafts, the Red Sox took 29 pitchers with 41 draft picks.<\/a> Bruml said the focus on hitters Saturday wasn\u2019t necessarily intentional.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had other players on the board, and some of them were pitchers, some of them were other hitters,\u201d Bruml said. \u201cIt was just how everything lined up that led us down this path. And I know maybe that looks weird, having made additional hitter selections on Day 1, but it wasn\u2019t anything specific that said we are going to target hitters. It was still about drafting the best player available at each given spot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 In a departure from their recent MLB Drafts, the Boston Red Sox selected position players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[374,363,99],"class_list":["post-758574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}