Red Sox select Shane Drohan with fifth round pick

The Red Sox had four selections in this very strange and short 2020 draft, and as it turns out they split it in half between two types of players. They started things off with a pair of high school bats in Nick Yorke and Blaze Jordan, and then with their third pick they switched directions and went with a college pitcher in Jeremy Wu-Yelland. They went back to the college well this time with Shane Drohan, a left-handed pitcher out of Florida State University.

The southpaw was ranked 189th on Baseball America’s list, 202 on FanGraphs and 147 on MLB Pipeline. He was a junior at Florida State this past year, with really just one college season under his belt after hardly pitching as a freshman and then obviously with this shortened season. Over 73 ²⁄₃ total college innings he pitched to a 4.76 ERA with 99 strikeouts and 69 walks.

Obviously from those numbers, you get a pretty good idea of who he is as a pitcher. That is, a guy with good stuff and poor control. The plus stuff doesn’t really come with a big fastball, but rather one that sits in the low-to-mid 90s as well as a good changeup and a breaking ball that has shown potential. The control, however, has some thinking he’ll have to go to the bullpen eventually. Looking at things at a basic level, it’s a profile that seems similar to Wu-Yelland, albeit with more upside.