Right-hander Matt Barnes, the Red Sox' top pick in the 2011 draft, is now with the Lowell Spinners. (John Corneau / Lowell Spinners)

Monday was a special day in the life of the Red Sox’ first-overall selection and No. 19 overall pick of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft, Matt Barnes. Although he had to wait until the last minute, the right-handed pitcher’s dream of becoming a professional baseball player finally came true.

“11:59 was when my agent told me,” Barnes said Friday from the Lowell Spinners’ clubhouse, the short-season Single-A affiliate of the Red Sox to which he has been assigned. “It was exciting. He was there with [my family], so we had talked throughout the entire day. It was exciting to finally become a part of the organization. I am living my dream.”

Barnes signed for a $1.5 million signing bonus, which was a little more than the Major League Baseball slot recommendation for the No. 19 overall pick of $1.386 million.

He spent the day with his parents, brother and best friend from home by hanging out in his house between his garage and backyard.

Barnes said he wasn’t stressed Monday even though midnight was the deadline for draft picks to sign with the teams that had drafted them back in June. He was more eager than anything to get back to playing the game he loves.

“I was more anxious than anything,” he said. “I have been sitting around all summer and haven’t played baseball in such a long time. I am really excited to get out here and get a chance to be around the team and the coaches and get a feel for things.”

The pitcher knew all along that he wanted to sign and become a professional baseball player.

“I could have gone back to school, I could have played independent ball,” Barnes said. “But I wanted to sign and start my professional career.”

This past summer was unlike any other for Barnes. It was the first summer where he didn’t have any baseball commitments, so it gave him a chance to relax and spend time with his family and friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Noe Ramirez (Photo from John Corneau/Lowell Spinners)

Monday night at midnight was the deadline for all draft picks to sign with their respective clubs that drafted them back in June. Many players waited until the last day to sign, including the Red Sox’ fourth-round pick, right-handed pitcher Noe Ramirez from Cal State Fullerton.

“It was antsy, I was real antsy,” Ramirez said, just hours after arriving in Boston and reporting to the Lowell Spinners, the short-season Single A affiliate of the Red Sox, on Wednesday. “I just stayed positive. I talked to Gary Brown, a prospect with the Giants who I played with in college. He was in a similar situation and I just talked to him and he said everything would be fine. This is just how this business is. Monday was antsy for me, but I just want to get out here. I am glad it is all over with, I just want to play baseball.”

The deal got done early Monday evening, with Ramirez getting a signing bonus of $625,000. The Major League Baseball recommended bonus for a player drafted No. 142 overall is $180,000, but Ramirez received more than triple that, which is a reflection that the Sox believe that his talent was in line with that of a second-round pick.

Ramirez acknowledged that he was a little surprised with where he went in the draft.

“Yeah, a little bit,” Ramirez said. “I am not thinking about that anymore. I got drafted my the Red Sox. This was one of my top choices honestly, it has a lot of history and tradition. I feel like this is a blessing. It is surreal.”

Scott Boras is Ramirez’ advisor and the 21-year-old is happy and feels secure having a guy like Boras representing him.

“It is pretty cool,” Ramirez said. “They take care of their guys. They have a lot of experience and know what they are doing. It is good to have. I have a lot of trust in him.” Read the rest of this entry »

Center fielder Jackie Bradley was selected by the Red Sox with the No. 40 pick of the 2011 draft. (John Corneau / Lowell Spinners)

Thirteen minutes.

That was the how close center fielder Jackie Bradley, the Red Sox’ fourth overall pick and the No. 40 overall pick in the 2011 major league draft, came to returning to the University of South Carolina for his senior season rather than signing to turn pro with the Sox.

“I was very close, 13 minutes I would say,” Bradley said, just hours after landing in Boston and reporting to the Lowell Spinners, the Red Sox’ Short-Season Single-A affiliate. “I think 11:47 was when I officially became a Boston Red Sox.”

The deadline for draft picks to sign was Monday night at midnight. Bradley signed for a $1.1 million bonus, which is an amount roughly in line with the slot recommendation for the No. 30 overall pick.

For Bradley, the decision was based on the money and having both sides come together on an agreement.

“Just being able to meet inside the box to what I wanted the money to be,” he said. “That was all there was to it. Just meeting each other where we wanted to be, that’s all there was to it.”

Bradley’s family, especially his parents, played a vital role in the whole signing process.

“Definitely my family, but it was ultimately my decision,” Bradley said. “Me and my family talked and discussed things just like any other kid that talks to their Mom and Dad. It is no different. I wanted to talk to my parents and see what they had to say and what advice they could give me. They have a lot of maturity. It is something I will always do is go to my parents.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox missed out on one multisport high school talent with the potential to have a career as a middle-of-the-field player with a high ceiling when Senquez Golson elected to return to Ole Miss. And so, armed with the considerable money that they were prepared to pay Golson, the team adapted in an effort to use its unspent funds.

Some draftees who signed on Monday received late bumps in the bonuses that they were offered by the Sox, thus allowing the deals to get done. Most prominent among those whose signing was impacted by Golson’s departure was Mookie Betts, an athletic high school shortstop who appeared in recent days to be unlikely to sign with the Sox after having rejected a bonus offer in line with a slot recommendation in line with a second-rounder earlier in August. As of late Sunday night, negotiations between the player and team were characterized by one source familiar with the situation as dormant, with no real dialogue taking place.

But with Golson having turned down his seven-figure bonus offer, the Sox made a late run at sweetening the pot for Betts, bumping up to $700,000. That, in turn, allowed the team to sign him away from the University of Tennessee just before midnight.

Betts is considered extremely athletic, and was a third-team All-State basketball player in Tennessee, as well as the state’s top bowler as a junior. His speed, plate approach and athleticism are all intriguing tools.

UConn right-hander Matt Barnes signed his deal with the Sox hours before the deadline. (UConn Athletics)

In a 2011 draft that was loaded with college pitching, the Red Sox were thrilled when they were able to land one of the top college arms with their first overall selection this year. But the fact that Matt Barnes was in the mix as among the top advanced arms available this year also led to a complicating factor, as the right-hander’s proximity to such peers as Taylor Jungmann, Jed Bradley and Alex Meyer — among others — in the draft meant that all of the college pitchers wanted to see what kind of bonuses their peers would get before agreeing to their own deals, rather than accepting a bonus in line with the Major League Baseball slot recommendation (for Barnes at the No. 19 overall selection, that was $1.386 million).

That, in turn, meant that Barnes — whom the Sox took with the No. 19 overall pick out of UConn — was left to wait until the final day of the signing period for 2011 draftees before reaching an agreement with Boston. Nonetheless, Barnes and the Sox did get an agreement done prior to the midnight deadline on Monday. The pitcher, according to Keith Law of ESPN, received a $1.5 million signing bonus.

Barnes established himself as one of the top arms in the country starting after his sophomore year at UConn. He had a dominant summer in the Cape League (including a matchup with 2010 Sox draftee Anthony Ranaudo in which Barnes, according to several evaluators who were at the game, featured better stuff than his heralded colleague) and carried that forward to a stint with Team USA. Then, Barnes turned in what was far and away his best college season as a junior, going 11-5 with a 1.93 ERA, 117 strikeouts and 33 walks in 121 innings.

Barnes has a strong three-pitch repertoire that makes it easy to project him as a middle-of-the-rotation starter on a team with championship aspirations such as the Red Sox. He effortlessly touches the mid-90s with his fastball, and has touched as high as 98 mph on a gun. Given that velocity, some evaluators were surprised that Barnes did not generate more swings and misses on the pitch, but the Sox feel that greater deception to get misses can be achieved with some small mechanical fixes. Read the rest of this entry »

In the days leading up to the draft, the Red Sox wrestled with the decision. They were well aware that Blake Swihart, a switch-hitting high school catcher out of New Mexico, would be one of the most difficult signings they could take. They recognized that the 19-year-old had spent much of his life anticipating a college career at the University of Texas, and that he had the closet filled with Longhorns gear to prove it.

And so, in the days leading up to the draft, front office members mulled the pivotal question. If he was still available with the No. 26 pick, would they rather draft Swihart and risk being unable to sign him, or would they rather go for a safer signability bet only to find out that Swihart had indeed been signable when another team locked him up?

Ultimately, those in the draft room felt that they could sleep at night if they selected a player whom they coveted and proved unable to sign him. On the other hand, they would have been dogged by regret had they passed on Swihart for another player whom they did not like as much only to see him begin a professional career for another team.

The Sox’ decision to draft him was informed by a workout that the catcher had in front of team officials. One Saturday this season in New Mexico, he played in a doubleheader, catching in the first game and then playing shortstop in the second. Everything about his game was impressive — his arm and footwork behind the plate, his swings from both sides of the plate, even his defensive comfort in the infield that suggested tremendous athleticism that would make him a prospect at positions other than catcher.

But the most important component of that scouting day may have come after the games. The two Sox evaluators on hand were hoping to work out Swihart. His high school field was unavailable, and so Swihart was happy to hop in a car, drive about 45 minutes to another high school and conduct the workout. Again, the performance was impressive — he showed a tremendous approach and bat control, especially while batting right-handed (his natural side).

The Sox saw a switch-hitting catcher with the chance to emerge as a .300 hitter with 15 or more homers a season and above-average defense. Such a package suggested a potential All-Star, the sort of player who could give the Sox the kind of production that few teams receive from a position that is typified by pitiful offense.

But in some ways, that was not the most significant aspect of the day. The fact that Swihart had been willing to make the haul across New Mexico — after playing for roughly six hours in two games — told the Sox that he hadn’t closed the door to turning pro.

The team knew that Swihart would have to “be convinced” — likely by briefcases filled with owner John Henry‘s cash — but the team felt that other teams’ conclusion that Swihart was virtually unsignable was not entirely accurate. He was not, the Sox felt, in the same class as outfielder Josh Bell, a player who had signaled to teams that there was essentially no amount of money that could convince him to sign.

Ultimately, the Sox were right. Swihart signed for $2.5 million, a bonus figure first reported by Mike Andrews of SoxProspects.com and Keith Law of ESPN.com. It is the largest bonus given out by the Sox to a high school position player under GM Theo Epstein. Of course, if Swihart fulfills the Sox’ projections of him, that sum could end up seeming like a relative pittance. For now, it was enough to get Swihart to pass on his college career at Texas and to turn pro.

The Red Sox reeled in their third pick of the 2011 draft, signing high school left-hander Henry Owens away from his scholarship commitment to pitch at the University of Miami for a bonus of $1.55 million, an amount in excess of the Major League Baseball slot recommendation of $889,200. In what talent evaluators viewed as a down year for the talent coming from the baseball hotbed of Southern California, Owens — who pitched at Edison High Schol (Huntington Beach, Calif.) — was viewed as the clear-cut top talent from the region.

At the time of the draft, the Sox suggested that they projected Owens — a 6-foot-6 left-hander with advanced command and feel of his pitches whose fastball, while typically a high-80s to low-90s offering, registered as high as 94 mph — as a potential middle-of-the-rotation starter in Boston. While he throws 88-92 mph, Owens’ stringy frame leaves plenty of room for him to fill out and also leaves grounds for plenty of projection. But it is his knowledge of how to use a breaking ball, how to add to it and take velocity off, as well as his ability to generate swings and misses on his changeup, that revealed his feel for his craft.

Owens’ high school coach Steve Lambright suggested that the pitcher had uncommon command of his arsenal.

“He has a fastball, a curveball, a changeup and towards the end of the season he was working on a slider,” Lambright said. “He throws a lot of strikes and pounds the strike zone. His strike out to walk ratio was huge, 140 strikeouts to 25 walks. He also has a great pick off move. All the things he did for me added up to where Boston took him.

“The other thing besides his physical stature is his presence on the field in terms of [saying], ‘Get on my back. Guys, I am going to carry you.’ The mental makeup is there for him to do well.”

Owens was named the CAL-HI Sports Mr. Baseball California Player of the Year this past June. In his senior season he posted a 12-1 record, with three saves and a 1.15 ERA, a dominant season despite the pressure of having numerous scouts in attendance every time he took to the mound.

“There were 50 scouts one game, I kid you not,” Lambright recalled. “There were 15-30 per game, and we were in constant contact with the scouts. It was pretty hectic for him because he was who they were there for. He got better as the season went on, his velocity went up. The Boston scout we talked with the most. When Tampa passed on him I was like this will be it right here and Boston grabbed him. I was excited. It was pretty cool.”

Lambright lauded Owens for his ability to maintain a loose attitude off the field, where the 19-year-old exhibited a different personality from his all-business demeanor on the mound.

“He was the most positive player on the team,” he said. “He is very easygoing and always telling jokes. Off the field when he isn’t pitching he is always loosey-goosy and has an easy going mentality. I am amazed as a coach that he can do that. He has a good balance of life and he gets it.”

Alex Speier contributed to this report.