McAdam: With first-round pick, Red Sox go off the board for high school second baseman

For both Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and scouting director Paul Toboni, Wednesday night represented their first draft in their respective positions.

You can't say they approached it conventionally.

Selecting 17th overall, the Red Sox shocked the industry by choosing Nick Yorke, a second baseman from Archbishop Mitty in San Jose, Calif. Most mock drafts had Yorke has a second- or third-round selection. He's committed to the University of Arizona.

MLB.com had him rated as the 139th best prospect in the draft and called Yorke's selection at No. 17 the biggest first-round draft surprise in the last 10 years. Draft expert Keith Law of The Athletic did not have Yorke on his list of 100 top prospects. Baseball America had Yorke as the 96th best prospect.

"We love this kid's bat. We think he's has a chance to be a special bat,'' Bloom in a conference call with reporters. "We feel if the spring had gotten to play out, like it would in a normal year, that the public perception would have been a lot different.''

The likely explanation is, without a second-round pick (stripped because of the 2018 sign-stealing mess), the Red Sox took a somewhat under-valued pick in the first round with an eye toward loading up in the later rounds.

Bloom conceded that economic efficiency played something of a role -- but only to a point.

"You always have that in your mind and you're looking at the entire draft as a way to maximize the amount of talent you bring in,'' he said. "But that said, the conviction we have in Nick's bat, we had him in that group at the top of our board regardless. So while you're always mindful (of the money), I don't want that to take away how we feel about the potential here with Nick Yorke.''

Toboni said the Red Sox' perception of Yorke may have been different than across the sport, but that may have been partly attributed to the coronavirus pandemic which shut down the game in March and limited exposure for some players.

"We feel like if there had been a full spring, it probably would have close to industry consensus that this kid was a first-round pick,'' offered Toboni.

"Personally, I feel like I was a first-rounder,'' said Yorke in a conference call. "I know a lot of rankings and sites didn't have me there. I'm more of a blue-collar, put-your-head-down-and-go-to-work kind of a guy. I didn't go out and (take part in) Perfect Game things that a lot of guys get ranked on. But wherever I played ball, I played my hardest and the Red Sox saw me at one of those times.''

York is listed as 6-0, 190-200 pounds and is a righthanded bat. Scouts have praised his ability to make contact and noted that he may yet develop slightly above-average power. He's played some shortstop, but in the long-term, the Sox project him as an offense-first second baseman.

"The main point on Nick is that he's just a really advanced hitter for the high school age,'' said Toboni. "We see developing power with him and then the fact that he plays in the middle of the infield -- you group all those things together and really that's what made us like him so much.''

Asked to compare him to a major leaguer, Toboni noted "he's got a little bit of (Kevin) Youkilis to him, maybe. He's got a rugged look to him. He had an advanced hit tool. He's a really physical kid. We think he's going to get to power.''

The Red Sox have gambled on high school bats quite often in the last decade, with Michael Chavis and Triston Casas two recent examples.

"This staff's got a terrific track record with high school hitters,'' said Bloom, "and so does our player development staff in getting the most of them. So when there's the type of conviction in a bat that we had in Nick's, it was something we felt like we needed to act on.''

Toboni highlighted Yorke's makeup as another element of the selection.

"From a maturity standpoint,''[ said Toboni, "he was one of our favorite kids in the draft as well. We spent a lot of time around him, getting to know him and his family. The more time we spent around him, the more comfortable we got with him.''

It helped that Red Sox Northern California area scout Josh Labandeira had some strong ties to the Yorke family. Nick's mother Robin was an All-American softball player at Fresno State and Labandeira had played baseball at the same school.

"Part of the reason we were able to get so comfortable,'' offered Toboni, "was Josh's relationship was so great with the kid and the family that it really enabled us to know who the kid was and just as importantly, how good the player is.''

Yorke would improve an area and position that is, for now, relatively thin in the Red Sox' minor league system.