There is an alternate reality out there where Jack Leiter is pitching for the Red Sox tonight. Leiter, you recall, was a college phenom back in 2021. He and his Vanderbilt teammate, Kumar Rocker, were probably the biggest names college baseball had seen since Stephen Strasburg’s days at San Diego State.
The Red Sox held the fourth pick in that summer’s MLB Draft but Leiter didn’t quite make it to them, as the Rangers grabbed him at number two. One pick later Jackson Jobe went to the Tigers. And with the Pirates having made Henry Davis the surprising number one pick overall, that meant that Marcelo Mayer — the near-consenus best prospect in the draft — fell to the Sox.