Red Sox Front Office Focus: Amiel Sawdaye

Red Sox fans should be familiar with Amateur Scouting Director Amiel Sawdaye’s name as they see it every year when the player draft takes place. Sawdaye is another case of a hard worker who moves up the ranks with the Red Sox front office.

In 1999, Sawdaye graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in decisions information systems. When the dot-com bubble burst in the next couple years, Sawdaye sent his resume to the Red Sox in 2002 at the beginning of John Henry’s tenure as team owner. He was hired as an intern in the baseball operations department. His hard work did not go unnoticed as he moved up to scouting assistant in 2004. In 2009, he was promoted to assistant scouting director. The departure of then-amateur scouting director Jason McLeod (to work with ex-Red Sox front office whiz kid Jed Hoyer in San Diego) cleared the path for Sawdaye’s ascension to amateur scouting director at the age of 32 in January 2010.

Since taking the position of scouting director, along with GM Ben Cherington, Sawdaye has kept the Red Sox among the strongest organizations in baseball in terms of minor league talent. John Sickels, former Bill James intern and founder of minorleagueball.com ranked the Red Sox among the elite minor league systems in all of baseball. Along with Cherington, Sawdaye spends a lot of time on the road seeing prospects (as many of the top 100 as possible) and preparing for each year’s draft. Former GM Theo Epstein has credited Sawdaye with creating many of their systems the Red Sox use to track prospect. Sawdaye tries to see each prospect multiple times to get the best idea of the abilities of each player.

Similar to Mike Hazen, Sawdaye’s work has not gone unnoticed. When Dan Duquette, Orioles GM was mentioned last month as a candidate for a CEO position with the Toronto Blue Jays, Sawdaye was mentioned as a potential replacement if Duquette left Baltimore. Sawdaye not only attended Maryland, but also hails from Baltimore.

After five years in the scouting director position, Sawdaye would be on the list of any potential GM openings in the majors as he has been with the organization for all three of their recent World Series.

Stay tuned to BoSoxInjection for more discussion of the Red Sox front office as well as our 25 in 25 series (starting next week) in which we discuss likely players from the Red Sox 2015 roster.