Red Sox Draft: Top-five 1st round picks in franchise history

Ranking the top-five selections that the Boston Red Sox have made in the first round of the MLB Amateur Draft in franchise history.

The Boston Red Sox selected first baseman Triston Casas with the No. 26 overall pick in the 2018 MLB amateur draft. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound slugger is considered one of the best high school power hitters in this draft. Will he go on to develop into the next great prospect to emerge from the Red Sox farm system?

It may take years to answer that question. The MLB draft has few surefire hits and the Red Sox have had their fair share of misses in the first round. The last decade alone has seen the club whiff in the first round on Casey Kelly, Anthony Ranaudo, and Bryce Brentz. None of those once-promising prospects has gone on to establish themselves at the major league level.

Some of the prospects selected in the last few drafts deserve more time to prove themselves but time is running out for Blake Swihart and Brian Johnson to live up to their draft day expectations.

While the MLB draft is littered with far more failures than success stories, there are several first-round picks that stand out in Red Sox history. Of course, there are many more diamonds in the rough that the Red Sox plucked in later rounds. Mookie Betts was a fifth-round pick and Wade Boggs was a seventh-round pick.

For now, we’re focused on first-round picks. The selections where the scouting department and front office were counted on to find a blue chip prospect and they came through.

The Red Sox selected Jacoby Ellsbury with the No. 23 overall pick in 2005. He made his big league debut two years later and emerged as a key contributor to the 2007 World Series champions. Ellsbury was 7-for-16 (.438) in the four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies.

The following season, Ellsbury finished third in the Rookie of the Year race in a season highlighted by a league-leading 50 steals. He led the league in stolen bases three times with the Red Sox, including a franchise record 70 steals in 2009.

Ellsbury had one monster season in 2011 when he finished as the runner-up for the AL MVP award. He hit .321/.376/.552 with 32 home runs, 105 RBI, and 39 steals. He won the only Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards of his career that season and made his lone All-Star appearance.

While he would never again approach those type of power numbers, Ellsbury had a couple more solid seasons with the Red Sox. He helped the team win another World Series in 2013 before signing a lucrative long-term deal with the New York Yankees when he hit free agency.

Fans turned on their former center fielder for spurning them for their biggest rival. However, that resentment has mostly faded given that his contract with the Yankees has turned out to be a bust while the Red Sox field one of the best outfields in baseball.

Ellsbury did plenty during his seven years in Boston to be considered a successful first-round pick.

Nomar Garciaparra burst out to the gate a few short years after being drafted with the No. 12 overall pick in 1994.

At only 23 years old, Garciaparra was a star in his first full season in the majors. He won the Rookie of the Year award in ’97, hitting .306 with a .875 OPS, 30 home runs, and a league-leading 11 triples. That also earned him a Silver Slugger and his first of five All-Star appearances in a Red Sox uniform.

The following year, Nomar finished second on the AL MVP ballot when he set career-highs with 35 home runs and 122 RBI. He went on to win batting titles in each of the next two seasons, including when he hit .372 in 2000. That’s the closest a Red Sox hitter has come to hitting .400 since Ted Williams did it in 1941.

Garciaparra hit .323/.370/.553 over parts of nine seasons in Boston. The 2004 trade that sent him to the Chicago Cubs and brought sparkplug Orlando Cabrera to the Red Sox is credited as one of the turning points that led to the club’s historic curse-breaking World Series run. That took some of the shine off Nomar’s tenure but we can’t forget that he was a Boston icon for many years prior.

Injuries conspired to derail the rest of his career, preventing Garciaparra from recapturing the production of his glory years with the Red Sox. However, we’re not concerned with what he did for other franchises. Nomar was one of the best hitters of his generation and one of the faces of the franchise for nearly a decade.

Only one player on this list is currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame. That would be Jim Rice, the No. 15 overall pick in the 1971 draft.

Jim Ed finished second in the Rookie of the Year race behind teammate Fred Lynn in 1975. Lynn would also capture the MVP that year, with Rice finishing third on the ballot.

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Rice would win the MVP three years later when he led the league with a .600 SLG, .970 OPS, 213 hits, 15 triples, 46 home runs and 139 RBI.

He led the league in homers a total of three times, blasting 39 twice during his career. Rice finished with 382 home runs over 16 seasons, all of which were spent with the Red Sox. He ranks fourth on the franchise’s all-time home run and RBI lists.

Rice made eight All-Star appearances in his career. He won a pair of Silver Sluggers and finished top-five on the MVP ballot six times.

His 50.8 fWAR ranks 7th in franchise history, higher than any Red Sox position player drafted in the first round. Only Dwight Evans and Wade Boggs have a higher career fWAR among players selected in any round by the Red Sox since the amateur draft began in 1965.

The Red Sox don’t have a great history of drafting pitchers but they do get credit for selecting one of the greatest arms the game has ever seen. Roger Clemens was the No. 19 overall pick in 1983 and went on to have a career that should be worthy of Cooperstown.

The Rocket spent the first 13 seasons of his career with the Red Sox. He won three Cy Young awards, four ERA titles and made five All-Star appearances over that span. Clemens also won the AL MVP award in 1986 when he won 24 games with a 2.48 ERA.

Clemens is one of only three pitchers to record 20 strikeouts in a game and the only one to do so twice. Those occasions came a decade apart – April 29, 1986, against the Seattle Mariners and September 18, 1996, against the Detroit Tigers.

During his 24 years in the majors, Clemens piled up 354 wins and 4,672 strikeouts, ranking ninth and third on MLB’s all-time list respectively. 192 of those wins and 2,590 strikeouts came in a Red Sox uniform. He’s the franchise’s all-time leader in strikeouts and tied with Cy Young for the most wins despite spending just over half his career in Boston.

The tail end of Clemens’ career is tainted by the stain of alleged performance-enhancing drug use. He still denies it to this day, yet most around baseball believe Clemens was a steroid user. That’s the only reason he’s not already in Cooperstown, as going strictly by the numbers he should have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

There was never any speculation that Clemens was using PEDs during his tenure in Boston. This assumption would seem to be backed up by his fading numbers as he entered his early 30’s. That’s why the Red Sox let him walk away when they felt he was in the “Twilight of his career.”

If you only look at his first 13 clean seasons with the Red Sox, Clemens put together a Hall of Fame resume. The Red Sox inducted him into their own Hall of Fame, recognizing him as one of the best pitchers in franchise history.

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Clemens should also be recognized as the best first-round pick the Red Sox have ever made, if not the best draft pick they’ve made in any round.