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| DANIEL BARD / FANSONLY.COM |
The 28th overall pick of the 2006 Major League Baseball draft is now officially a member of the Boston Red Sox. Daniel Bard, a 6’4″ righthander out of the University of North Carolina, signed a minor league contract with a signing bonus of $1.55 million.
$1.55 million would be enough for someone to go grab the newest Mercedes, with a couple of Rolexes gracing each wrist, but for Bard, it’s more important to save and invest the money, but he acknowledges that he went to the mall and “spent a few dollars!”
Bard, who called the drafting by the Red Sox a “total surprise,” expressed a bit of dissapointment after having fallen to the 28th pick after being told by four teams who were part of the top 10 picks the day before the draft they were considering drafting him. However, “if I was going to fall to anyone, I’m glad it was the Sox,” he said, noting that the Red Sox and Atlanta Braves rank as his favorite teams. That may be one of the reasons why he decided not to sign with the New York Yankees when they drafted him in the 20th round in 2003! Bard, in an interview with RedSox.com, said that he chose not to sign because he needed to mature as a player and pitcher.
The Atlanta Braves make sense as a favored team by Bard, as they are one of the closest Major League teams to Charlotte, N.C. from where he hails, but why the Red Sox? A lot of his family reside in Massachusetts, as both his parents were born and raised an hour out of Boston. It may be surprising to Bard that the Red Sox drafted him, but the Red Sox are trying to draft the best players available while doing their best to make sure these players have ties to New England.
Bard, who describes pitching in the College World Series as “unreal,” attributes dropping out of the first ten picks to a couple of bad outings in the middle of the season, and the rumors of the money he wanted. Many people have said the reason he fell so far was because he wanted a lot of money, but these rumors were simply not true, he said.
However, he did prefer a major league deal. As Sox fans may recall, the Red Sox signed reliever Craig Hansen to a major-league contract after being drafted in 2005. Hansen signed a four year, $4 million contract taking him through 2008. “I think everyone drafted early would like a major league deal,” Bard commented. The $1.55 million signing bonus is typical mid-first round money, which was good enough for Bard to ink on the dotted line. “I really just wanted to get started and try to make it to Boston as soon as possible,” he said, expressing eagerness to get his career going.
And get it going, he has. Bard joined the Instructional League program in Fort Myers on Sunday, having driven down over the weekend. Bard will remain there a month, hoping to work on honing his cut fastball and curve, which originated from a slurve. “I threw kind of a slurve most of my time in college, but I’ve been working on splitting that into two different breaking pitches,” Bard said. “[The two pitches are] a harder cut-fastball that I’m trying to throw in the 87-88 [mile per hour] range, as well as a curveball that would probably be in the high 70’s.”
He ranks these two pitches as being his third and fourth best pitches. He also throws a four-seam fastball that he usually throws to the left-side of the plate, but he also likes to go up in the strikezone with it because it’s a couple of miles per hour faster than the two-seamer, which hitters are prone to swinging at (ask Jason Varitek!).
He also utilizes a two-seam fastball that he throws to the right side of the plate because it moves more. The two-seam fastball has more action than the four-seam fastball (thrown in the high 90s) that will break away from a left-handed batter, causing them to hit the ball with the tip of the bat, while busting in on right-handed batters, jamming them.
That’s not the only pitch he throws, as his reportoire is at five pitches. He uses a circle-changeup, one that “has some downward movement when I’m throwing it well.”
Bard, who pitched three years for the Tar Heels, amassed a 24-13 record with a 3.92 ERA. His big fastball propelled him to 239 strikeouts in 50 games.
Bard acknowledges his biggest concern is consistency. He feels as if he’s close to helping out in the major leagues, and pegs a year as a good barometer of how long he will need to spend in the minor leagues. The “biggest thing that I need to work on is consistency. Hopefully a year or so in the minors can help me with that and let me prove myself against some good competition.”
Bard’s father, who supported Bard in his goal of becoming a major-league player, told him that the only way he could make it was to be either a pitcher or a switch-hitting catcher, and Bard couldn’t switch-hit. He was a good hitter for his high school team as an outfielder, but the only way to make it as a hitter to the majors would be as a switch-hitting catcher, so pitching it was.
When Bard was recruited by UNC, he was told that he could pitch and hit, but when they decided that Bard was going to start for them on the weekends, they chose to have Bard not hit. “I was a little disappointed at the time, but I was really just happy to know that I’d be getting playing time as a freshman,” he said.
Bard, who draws comparisons to A.J. Burnett on the SoxProspects.com site (which ranks him the sixth best prospect the Red Sox have behind CF Jacoby Ellsbury, SP Clay Buchholz, SP Michael Bowden, 2B/SS Dustin Pedroia, and RP Bryce Cox) has also been considered a future reliever in some circles, where his big fastball can be more effective.
“I’ve been a starter my whole life, so that’s obviously the role I feel most comfortable with,” he said. “I feel like my stuff is better suited as a starter right now – I think I can hold my velocity deep into games and I have 3-4 pitches that I work with, so unless becoming a reliever looks like my best big league role, I’d like to remain a starter, but I’m willing to do whatever they want me to.”
Bard plans to report to spring training and “see what happens there.”
It certainly looks as if this spring training could be one of many for him as a Red Sox pitcher. We certainly look forward to him rearing back for a fastball in October nights at Fenway Park!