The second day of the 2015 MLB draft is nearly complete, as the Red Sox made their ninth-round selection, leaving them one more to go for Tuesday. That ninth rounder, the 261st player picked overall, is Tucker Tubbs, a first baseman out of Memphis State University.
If you want to know something about Tubbs, then you might need to go digging: MLB's analysts spent the entire time allotted to them to discuss the pick talking about other players Boston has drafted, because they don't know anything about him. We can save you some time: he's a college senior with a slot value of $163,500, and he'll sign for far less money than that.
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That makes two college seniors for the Red Sox through the first nine rounds of the draft, which will likely mean they have a few extra hundred thousand dollars here and there to bump up bonuses for someone like eighth-round selection and high schooler Logan Allen, or for a player they will select between rounds 11 and 40, since every dollar over $100,000 in those rounds count against the draft budget.
Tubbs did mash for Memphis State, batting .305/.393/.601 with 17 homers, so maybe he'll surprise and turn into something useful. He was unimpressive in the Cape Cod League two years ago, though, and didn't bust out until this spring. Maybe that's why no one knows anything about him, though: just a late bloomer.
Hey, it's draft day. It's a time for optimism, even when it comes to obvious low-leverage picks.