Red Sox select Chris Murphy with their sixth round pick

The college players keep on coming for the Red Sox, as with their sixth pick they took another college pitcher, their fourth straight college player of the day and fifth of six overall. Presumably, this is at least in part to help save money to sign Matthew Lugo, the team’s second selection. This sixth pick was Chris Murhpy, a left-handed senior out of the University of San Diego. The southpaw was ranked number 155 on Baseball America’s top 500, and was the number 22 college pitcher of future value 35 or less on Fangraphs’ list.

Murphy is on the smaller side, listed at 6’1”, 175 pounds, but he’s coming off a strong year with a 3.50 ERA over 64 innings of work with 87 strikeouts under his belt. The southpaw opened some eyes last summer in the Cape Cod League with big stuff, but his control has been an issue his entire career. There’s a big split on whether or not he’ll be able to stick as a starter, but if he does think of him as a potential Eduardo Rodriguez type. Baseball America points out that he has three potential average-or-better offerings, but finds himself in deep counts a lot of the time because of his control issues. Sound familiar? Still, as frustrating as Eduardo Rodriguez is that’s a hell of a potential outcome for the sixth rounder, however unlikely it may be.