5 things to know about Red Sox 2024 first-round pick Braden Montgomery
Montgomery slugged 27 home runs and 85 RBI with Texas A&M this past season.
With their first pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, the Red Sox added a power bat to their prospect pipeline in Texas A&M outfielder Braden Montgomery.
The 12th overall pick in this year’s draft class, Montgomery, 21, put together a breakout junior season with the Aggies this year. This marks the seventh year in a row where Boston has selected a position player with their first-round pick, with Montgomery offering plenty of upside thanks to his power at the plate and plus-arm.
Here’s what you need to know about Boston’s latest first-round selection.
Montgomery mashed at the plate in 2024
Montgomery established himself as a first-round lock this spring by teeing off against pitching with the Aggies.
The Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year in 2021, Montgomery began his collegiate career at Stanford — taking home Pac-12 Conference Freshman of the Year honors and batting .336 with 17 home runs and 61 RBI as a sophomore before transferring to Texas A&M.
Montgomery thrived in his first season with the Aggies, with the 6-foot-2, 220-pound switch-hitter batting .322 with 27 homers, 85 RBIs, and a 1.187 OPS over 61 games.
Per MLB.com’s scouting report:
“Montgomery had more of a hit-over-power profile in high school but that has reversed in college. A switch-hitter with strength and a quick, aggressive stroke from both sides of the plate, he does more damage as a lefty hitter and his plus power plays to all parts of the ballpark. He has improved his plate discipline and his ability to handle breaking balls during the last two seasons, but he still swings and misses at pitches in the zone a bit too often and will chase non-fastballs.“
MLB.com tabbed Montgomery with a 50 hit tool and a 60 power tool, with Joe Doyle of FSS Plus noting that he paced all 2024 MLB Draft prospects as far as exit velocity at the plate.
Montgomery, who noted on Sunday that he plans on continuing to switch-hit moving forward, did have a 20-percent strikeout rate last season, although a solid walk rate (18 percent) offers up optimism that his power and growing patience can be properly harnessed as he irons out his swing decisions.
“I saw improvements in a little bit of everything,” Montgomery said of his growth this past year, per The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier. “I think the best thing was just being able to slow the game down a little bit more for what I want to swing at, what I want to do damage on. That was the main area.”
He was tabbed as a top-10 prospect this draft
The Red Sox managed to get good value on their latest first-round selection, as Montgomery was tabbed as the No. 8 prospect in this year’s draft class by MLB.com. A few late risers in the first round allowed Montgomery to dip a bit from his initial projections, allowing Boston to add a plus bat to an already strong farm system.
“I’m excited to be part of such an organization. It’s amazing. I look to add on to their winning tradition,” Montgomery told Speier. “I look forward to winning and doing a lot of it, and impacting those wins.”
Even though Montgomery figures to slot in as the latest in a growing list of power hitters in Boston’s system, he did admit after the 2024 Draft that he actually grew up as a fan of the Yankees and Derek Jeter.
He has elite arm strength
Even though Montgomery’s first-round status was due to his knack for mashing the ball, his highest graded tool on MLB’s scouting report is actually his arm strength (70). That ability to cut down runners on the basepaths makes him a natural fit for right field, with his cannon of an arm a direct result of his career as a pitcher.
A standout two-way player during his high-school days in Mississippi, Montgomery earned reps in Stanford’s bullpen in 2022 and 2023 — logging 32.2 innings of work and striking out 47 batters over that stretch.
However, he also walked 32 batters over those 32.2 innings, with Texas A&M limiting him to two innings of work this past season.
“With average speed and plus-plus arm strength, Montgomery fits best in right field. As a pitcher, he can reach 96 mph with his fastball and miss some bats with his low-80s slider and mid-80s changeup,” MLB’s scouting report noted of Montgomery’s pitching profile. “His lack of control and command limit his effectiveness, however, and he has a much higher ceiling and floor as an outfielder.”
He is coming off of a season-ending ankle injury
One potential reason why Montgomery might have dropped out of the top-10 was due to breaking his right ankle during Texas A&M’s Super Regionals series against Oregon.
Montgomery suffered the injury on June 8, with the outfielder needing to move around a scooter during Sunday’s draft festivities. Despite the severity of the injury, Montgomery stressed to reporters that the ailment is not expected to linger once he makes it through the final weeks of his recovery timeline.
“There was a break of the non-weight-bearing bone. … [Doctors] told me it was the best-case scenario [for a fracture],” Montgomery told Speier. “I’m a little ahead of schedule in terms of how things are coming along and how the leg is feeling. I’m getting ready to be let off the scooter for good and then from then, everything’s gonna speed up and I’m gonna be back on the field real soon.”
He spent two seasons in the Cape League
Montgomery might have been a Yankees fan growing up, but he also has plenty of familiarity playing for the Red Sox already.
Well, the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, that is.
Like many of the top collegiate players in the game, Montgomery spent a few of his summers in Massachusetts playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League — one of the nation’s premier collegiate summer leagues.
During his two seasons with the Y-D Red Sox in 2022 and 2023, Montgomery batted .292 with five home runs and 31 RBI over 32 games. He also pitched seven innings over his two summers down the Cape, walking seven batters and fanning 12.
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