After their shock first round pick of Jake Scheffner, an infielder no one projected to go anywhere near as low as #20, the Red Sox went conventional with their second pick. Owen Hull, an outfielder out of North Carolina (Just like Scheffner! Craig Breslow’s pursuing the super friends strategy!) was ranked 67th by MLB Pipeline, 60th by Baseball America, and 62nd by Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. In other words, this is not the over-slot pick many people speculated about when the Sox nabbed Scheffner in the first round; this was just the guy Craig Breslow wanted here.
Hull is a left-handed hitting outfielder (save your complaints about the roster logjam — you don’t draft for big league need in baseball, ever) known for his ability to control strike zone and hit the ball hard. His 103 hits were second-best in all of Division 1 baseball, but his home run numbers were slightly disappointing given his size (6-4, 215 lbs) and exit velocity, as he put the ball over the fence just 9 times. That might be the result of a reportedly funky swing that raises the eyebrows of some scouts, which led to fairly robust groundball rate. Check it out for yourself:
