A Q&A with Boston's scouting director ahead of 2024 Draft

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- The Red Sox just recently witnessed the payoff of drafting well, as homegrown players Jarren Duran (seventh round, 2018) and Tanner Houck (first round, '17) were selected as All-Stars for the first time.

As you can see from that timeline, it often takes years for a club to see if it hit or missed on Draft picks.

Red Sox director of amateur scouting director Devin Pearson hopes that the coming Draft is one the club will fondly look back on in a few years.

The entire amateur scouting staff arrived in Boston on Wednesday with the expectation of spending hours on end in the “war room” until the Red Sox are officially on the clock with picks 12 (slot value of $5,484,600) and 50 ($1,846,400) on Day 1 of the Draft, which starts at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday night and will be televised on MLB Network.

“These are long days, but fun days,” said Pearson. “These are the unique jobs we all have where it’s a three-day window that determines everything, but that’s what also makes it fun.”

Earlier this week, Pearson took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss his thoughts heading into this year’s Draft.

MLB.com: This is your second year as the point person for the Red Sox in the Draft. One obvious change is that Craig Breslow is in his first year as the chief baseball officer, replacing Chaim Bloom. How has that transition been going into the Draft?

DP: It’s been great. I think, similar to Chaim in a lot of ways, he has been fairly hands-off for the most part. But [he] has asked really good questions about our process and challenges us to just make sure we’re as thorough as we can be. It’s been good to get his perspective on things and learn some new stuff from him. I think we’re going to be in a really good position, so it’s been great collaborating with him.

MLB.com: It has been well-chronicled how Craig changed the organizational pitching infrastructure from the top down, and he added director of pitching Justin Willard, who surely has been carving up hours of tape on potential draftees. How valuable has the pitching knowledge of Craig and Justin aided you in your prep?

DP: It’s been great. I think they’ve provided insights into different things about pitchers that we maybe over-valued or under-valued in the past. It’s great to have a clear development understanding of what we’re valuing from a pitching perspective. That just helps us identify the right players and try to understand how we can develop them if we select them.

MLB.com: Teams always say they are going to draft by best player, rather than a particular position, particularly when it comes to the first pick or two. But everyone knows your farm system has an imbalance of being very strong on the position-player side, particularly with respect to premium talent, and still building from a pitching standpoint. The last time the Sox took a pitcher in the first round was Houck, and that was seven years ago. Does that influence you heading into Sunday?

DP: I think we assess where we are as an organization going into every Draft and try to find ways to improve and find the most talent that fits the organization. I wouldn’t say we’re targeting pitchers in our top five picks or top three picks or anything like that. We’re well aware of the discrepancies in our system and our job is just to continue to add to that and whatever best way to do that come draft time, we will. But we’re well aware of the imbalance, per se.

MLB.com: You have the 12th pick this year. Last year, it felt like you got a steal in a similar spot (14th) with catcher Kyle Teel. Just from looking at the board, what do you think the depth of players is around the spot you will be picking?

DP: I wish we were picking five for this year’s Draft, but I think that the closer we get to the Draft, the more comfortable I am that we’re going to get a really good player. Just as you get on the phone and talk to people, other clubs and kind of hear where they’re at, I think we’re going to get a really good player that we’re excited about. There seems to be some sort of drop-off in this year’s Draft deeper on, but I think we’re going to get access to somebody we’re excited about at 12.