Red Sox select Jarren Duran with their seventh round pick

The Red Sox continue to go with college players in Day Two of the draft, and with their seventh pick (220th overall) they selected second baseman Jarren Duran out of Cal State University at Long Beach. The left-handed hitter just finished up his junior year and is in his age-21 season. This past year was his third year as an everyday player for CSLB, and in 2018 he played in 56 games and got 222 at bats. In that span, he slashed .302/.380/.392 while stealing 17 bases in 19 attempts.

As the day has moved on, the Red Sox have seemingly moved away from the big-time power bats and focused more on other areas of offensive performance. Duran doesn’t have a huge hit tool — there’s some swing and miss in his game — but he is really patience and makes solid enough contact that he gets on base a lot. That is important for him, because his biggest asset is his speed. Duran was given a 70-grade run tool from Baseball America and they say he regularly turns singles to doubles and doubles to triples. This helps make up for the fact that he will not provide a ton of power at the plate.

Defensively, he spent his entire time at Cal State as a second baseman, and while he probably has the range for shortstop the arm doesn’t quite match up. Some scouts have apparently speculated that he could be a fit in center field, which would make sense given his athleticism.

Duran was ranked as Baseball America’s number 170 prospect heading into the draft. He was not ranked at all by MLB Pipeline nor by Fangraphs.