We are about 28 hours away from the MLB draft. I know there has been a lot of chatter about the Sox still deciding who they are taking, including from Shirley himself. Candidly, that’s a bunch of BS. The Sox clearly having a guy they want to select by this point based on talent alone. However, financials do come into play and it sounds like those discussions don’t really amp up until the last 24 to 72 hours, even for the top pick of the entire draft. Based on what has leaked publicly, I remain confident that Roch is the guy they want to take. The Emerson talk feels very intentional to me. I believe the Sox want it out there that their scouts prefer the HS kid to help create leverage with Cholowsky. Honestly, as talented as Emerson is, he’s not on the caliber of Witt & Holiday and I struggle seeing the Sox give him say a $9.5M signing bonus that would blow the HS record out of the water ($8.2M last year from Willits). Maybe this all changes if he’s willing to take a massive discount, but if the money is remotely close I don’t see how you don’t just take the college kid. With just one day left to go, my guess is the 1.01 should likely be locked down and the Sox are working on the rest of their day 1 strategy. Even if the Sox go with a $10M signing bonus at the 1.01, they’d have close to $2.3M to spend on overslot deals. That being said, I think their goal is to get that first pick closer to $9.5M, which would still be an all time record. Throw in another $0.4M by going with seniors in the 9th & 10th rounds and suddenly you have $3.2M to work with. That would effectively allow you to sign three guys for $2.5M (40th overall slot value) in rounds 2 to 4. It’s critical we come out of tomorrow with a haul of high upside talent. While the 1st pick is obviously most important, I’m more intrigued to see what Shirley does with the rest of his picks and excess funds. Does he ultimately land three or four overslot preps to serve as a future wave? Does he try to snag a talented college arm in the 2nd who can quickly help the big league club? How pitching heavy will he go after our excess pool has been used up. It’s going to be an exciting couple of days for sure.