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The Red Sox have focused mostly on pitchers through the first six rounds of the draft, with second-round pick C.J. Chatham and fourth-rounder Bobby Dalbec the only position players so far — and even Dalbec was a reliever in college to go along with his time at third. In the seventh round, Boston narrowed that gap a bit by selecting 22-year-old outfielder, Ryan Scott, out of University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
Scott is bat-only and a college senior, and is also the first Sox draft pick to not show up on Baseball America’s top-500. He also doesn't have a video at MLB.com, which means this here is the under-slot candidate you’ve all been waiting for to help pay for the 12th-overall pick, Jason Groome.
The 208th pick in the draft has a slot value of $210,700. If the Sox pay Scott $10,000, which in the past has been their middle ground for very obvious under-slot picks, then that gets them another $200,700 toward Groome. So, if you assume Boston needed to get to about $4.4 million to sign Groome — the fifth pick in the draft has a slot value of $4,382,200, and Groome reportedly wants "top 5" money, then between the hypothetical Scott situation and the five percent in budget overage the Sox can spend without incurring the loss of a draft pick, they’re now at $3,743,370, or, short $638,830 of their goal.
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They can get much of the rest of that from second-round pick C.J. Chatham, who is ranked like a third-round pick but went in the second, and the rest of what they need by going a little under-slot on a few other of their top-10 selections. Plus, we’re only in round seven — they could sign another senior who will get an obviously low bonus to free up even more space. Remember, the $1,000 contract senior is always an option if needed. The Sox did it before with Kyle Kraus back in 2012, and Kraus even made it to Triple-A despite only needing a bonus that size.
Enough about all that, though. You also want to know about Ryan Scott! There isn’t a whole lot to say. He hit — and hit a lot — for Arkansas, batting .435/.516/.713 as a senior in 54 games. College seniors who hit aren't too hard to find, however, so we’ll have to see how he does in the pros before getting too excited about anything. At the least, he’ll help pay Groome’s bills, and that’s something. Maybe there's a player here, too.