With the 40th pick in the 2021 Major League Baseball Draft, the Boston Red Sox selected Florida outfielder Jud Fabian.
The 20-year-old entered the year with top five-buzz, but showed a lot of swing-and-miss at the start of his junior season, causing his stock to drop. Nevertheless, Fabian is another big-name addition for Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who landed Marcelo Mayer with the fourth overall pick Sunday night.
Here are scouting reports on Fabian from Baseball America and MLB Pipeline:
Baseball America
Pre-draft ranking: 27
Fabian’s age, defensive profile and power output should have him as one of the top players in the class, but teams have plenty of concerns about his pure feel for hitting and his high strikeout rates. He entered the year with question marks about his swing and miss against spin but has whiffed more than 30% against each pitch type. Fabian has attempted to make some tweaks mechanically to cut down on his strikeouts, removing a leg kick in two-strike counts which did help him lower his strikeout rate, but it’s still higher than the 25% mark teams generally prefer with first-round bats. Fabian does have solid bat speed and plus raw power that has translated mostly to the pull side, but he’s hit a few impressive homers over the right-field fence as well. A righthanded hitter and lefthanded thrower, Fabian should have no issues handling center field and playing it at a high level defensively at the next level. He’s an above-average runner but what makes him a special defender are his defensive instincts, first step, reads off the bat, athleticism and arm strength. He’s at least a plus defender in the outfield and some scouts have gone as far as putting double-plus grades on his glove, making him one of the best defensive center fielders in the 2021 draft class. While some teams might be scared off given the swing and miss, Fabian has upside with his age, power and defensive profile and has more leverage than most college hitters at the top of the draft considering he would still be age-appropriate in the 2022 class.
MLB Pipeline
Pre-draft ranking: 23
He performed well in the Florida Collegiate League last summer with the hopes it would carry over to 2021, but the outfielder came out of the gate struggling at the plate. He heated back up as the Gators got into SEC play, allowing his Draft stock to rebound.
The left-handed-throwing, right-handed-hitting Fabian has solid tools across the board. There’s been some swing-and-miss in his game in the past, but he started having better at-bats more consistently last year and over the summer with bat speed that reminded some of Mookie Betts, his strikeout rate spiked early in 2021. The power was still showing up, but he struggled with adjusting to breaking stuff.
While Fabian isn’t a burner, he does have above-average speed. That, combined with his ability to get good reads off the bat and run good routes, should allow him to stay in center field long-term. Fabian still has the chance to be an up-the-middle impact bat, but a team taking him in the top couple of rounds will have to believe he’ll make enough contact at the next level to get to that power.
Hey, there are worse things than being mentioned in the same sentence with Mookie Betts.
Fabian finished the 2021 season with a .249 batting average to go along with 20 homers and 79 strikeouts in 269 plate appearances. He hit .249 with 35 homers over his three-year career with the Gators.
