Yet 11 picks came and went Thursday without Groome being selected, and so the Red Sox jumped at an opportunity to take the sort of arm that they’ve rarely encountered in the draft. The 17-year-old Groome, a 6-foot-6-inch, 220-pounder out of Barnegat High School in New Jersey, features a fastball that registers at up to 97 m.p.h., with a curveball that plays as a strikeout offering, and a changeup.

In the months leading up to the Major League Baseball Draft, high school lefthander Jason Groome was mentioned as a candidate to go with the No. 1 overall pick to the Phillies. Even as his stock slipped in the days and weeks approaching the annual event, the idea that he’d end up on the board when the Red Sox picked at No. 12 overall seemed almost preposterous.


Baseball America suggested Groome “is as gifted as any player in the [draft] class. He is also younger than many of his peers.” One Red Sox official admitted that the team considered the likelihood that Groome would be on the board at No. 12 exceedingly low, but the team nonetheless managed to scout most of his starts at Barnegat this year.

“We had him rated very high on our board,” said Red Sox GM Mike Hazen. “You know what it takes to compete in the American League East, the stuff that it takes to compete in the American League East. Obviously, he has a development path that he’s going to have to go through, but we saw the upside of a guy who can pitch in this rotation someday.”

Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski recently acknowledged that there is considerable risk to the high school pitching demographic. Yet that is also the sort of pitcher whom Dombrowski has often targeted — whether Josh Beckett with the Marlins or Rick Porcello with the Tigers — in deference to the opportunity to change the shape of an organization.


“We all know that the biggest risk in the draft is high school pitchers. Talent, upside, risk — it’s all intermingled,” said Dombrowski. “I am more of an upside guy than I am a safety guy. Since 1978, when I got started, that’s the way that veteran scouts taught me. I’ve always carried that, because I’ve seen that you win with stars.”

It’s not terribly difficult to project Groome in such terms given his stuff, though teams appeared to move away from him as the draft approached both due to questions about the potentially high cost of his signability and some reported questions about his makeup.

“With any player we’re considering at the top of the draft, we do extensive work on makeup and character, background, all of those things,” said Red Sox amateur scouting director Mike Rikard. “We’re very comfortable that we know who Jason Groome is.”

The potential was too much for the Red Sox to ignore, particularly for a player who grew up as a huge Red Sox fan and made no secret that he’d grown up daydreaming about a future in Boston.

“I worked my tail off to get where I am and I couldn’t be any happier where I got picked,” Groome told reporters. “Money doesn’t really matter to me. I’m just happy to start the next chapter of my life, and that’s playing professional baseball.”


Video: Groome family reaction to draft news

Video of Jason Groome being drafted pic.twitter.com/PucO7vQFtf — John DeRosier (@ACPressDeRosier) June 10, 2016

He had recently changed his scholarship commitment from Vanderbilt to a junior college in Florida.

Groome pitched just 35 innings due to some eligibility questions after he transferred back to Barnegat after spending his junior year at the IMG Academy in Florida. But he allowed just one earned run on nine hits while striking out 81.

He joins a growing list of high-ceiling high school pitchers (primarily lefthanded) whom the Red Sox have drafted in recent years. The team grabbed southpaw Henry Owens in the supplemental first round of the 2011 draft (No. 36 overall), added lefty Trey Ball in 2013’s first round (No. 7 overall), and took righthander Michael Kopech in the first round in 2014 (No. 33 overall).

With their second-round pick (No. 51 overall), the Red Sox selected college shortstop C.J. Chatham out of Florida Atlantic University. Chatham hit .357 with a .422 OBP and .554 slugging percentage in 58 games as a junior. While the 6-4 Chatham is big for the position, Rikard said that the Sox believe he can stay at shortstop while delivering some offensive impact at the position.