Red Sox will draft 7th overall in 2015

With the 2014 regular season over, we now know for sure where it is the Red Sox will be selecting in the 2015 MLB amateur entry draft. As the Red Sox had the sixth-worst record in the majors, they will pick seventh in next summer's draft.

That math might not make sense for a second, but the Sox will pick seventh instead of sixth because the Houston Astros failed to sign the first-overall selection in this year's draft. That entitles them to a compensation pick in the number two overall spot, pushing everyone except the team selecting first a spot back in line. The Red Sox also picked seventh in the 2013 draft, which netted them high school lefty Trey Ball. Whether the Red Sox will select another long-term project with a high ceiling like Ball is unknown at this early stage, but if they want to go that route, the opportunity will likely be there that early in the draft.

The allotted draft budget for the seventh selection is also unknown, but we can figure out what neighborhood it'll be in based on recent drafts. When the Red Sox selected seventh in 2013, Boston was allotted $3,246,000. In 2014, the Phillies were allowed $3,300,900, a very slight increase. The Red Sox will likely get something in the $3.35 million range for their own selection next summer: as a point of comparison, in 2014 when the Red Sox selected 26th overall, they were allotted the considerably lower total of $1,870,500 for that slot.

The Red Sox will also pick seventh no matter what, as their pick is protected. Thanks to finishing with a bottom-10 record, Boston's first-round pick will not be given up as compensation should they sign a free agent who has been submitted a qualifying offer. If they sign Jon Lester back to Boston, they also won't have to give up a second-round pick as compensation, as Lester is not eligible for the qualifying offer from the A's thanks to being dealt midseason. Were they to sign James Shields or Max Scherzer, however, then they would have to surrender their second-round pick to do so, as it's a given the Royals and Tigers, respectively, will submit qualifying offers to those two free agents to be.

While the Red Sox will not get a compensation pick for any of their free agents -- Koji Uehara is the only one of them who might be worth a qualifying offer, and that course of action is up in the air -- they did receive a competitive balance pick in the Jon Lester trade with the A's, so they will at least start out with 11 picks in the first 10 rounds, barring the surrendering of any of their picks for free agent signings.