Ranaudo, Workman, Barnes go way back
By joshjacksonmilb
By Josh Jackson / MiLB.com
This offseason, Josh Jackson is looking at some of the top prospects who prepared for professional ball by spending time in a collegiate wood bat league, considering how those summers got them ready for the Draft and future success in the Minors.
Maybe more than any other fans in baseball, Red Sox rooters have a lot of reasons to be excited about the 2014 season. With many key components of its ’13 World Championship team returning, Boston also has a farm system that’s widely considered among the top five in the game (MLB.com says it’s №2). There’s some overlap, of course, with Xander Bogaerts, the team’s №1 prospect, having earned his ring with a big league postseason.
Brandon Workman, who was ranked 13th among Red Sox prospects entering last season, serves as another link between the organization’s bright present and bright future (as likely will Jackie Bradley Jr., previously discussed in this space). Before he’d appeared in the big leagues, Workman’s name was often mentioned in conjunction with that of Anthony Ranaudo.
Both Workman and Ranaudo were drafted in 2010, and they’ve since, at one point or another, been parts of the same pitching staffs at Class A Greenville, Double-A Portland and for just a few days at Triple-A Pawtucket.
What many Sox fans may not realize, though, is Workman goes back even further with another Red Sox pitching prospect, one who’s among Boston’s nine prospects on MLB.com’s Top 100 list. As it happens, Workman and Matt Barnes (№86) were rotation mates on the 2009 Wareham Gatemen squad in the Cape Cod League.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Gatemen finished fifth in the 10-team heap, with a 3.31 team ERA (the Cape League tilts toward pitchers) and put up a 19–19 record. Even more surprisingly, Barnes and Workman were both below average on that staff.
Barnes had just finished his freshman season at the University of Connecticut. (He was joined on the Wareham squad by Huskies teammate and current Astros prospect George Springer, whose Cape stint was discussed here). The right-hander went 1–3 with a 4.78 ERA, making four starts and five relief appearances over 26 1/3 innings. He did whiff an impressive 33 batters in that span.
Workman, who went to the University of Texas, started the Cape Cod League All-Star Game at Fenway Park that summer — he struck out two of the three batters he faced in a perfect inning — but his numbers for the campaign aren’t great. He was 1–1 with a 5.06 ERA over five appearances, three of which were starts.
The story doesn’t end there, though. Barnes returned to the Cape briefly the next summer, and he was much sharper until he left the Gatemen to join the USA Baseball collegiate team. He made three starts, including a complete game, and struck out 20 while posting a 2.17 ERA.
On June 26, he went head-to-head with none other than Ranaudo, who at the time was a Louisiana State junior twirling for the Brewster Whitecaps.
Barnes struck out a whopping 14 Whitecaps over seven innings of work, giving up one run on a walk and four hits, but improbably, he was outdueled.
Ranaudo permitted just one hit and one walk over 6 2/3 shutout frames. He struck out eight and came away with the win.
He had something to prove during his time on the Cape, as he was recovering from an elbow injury sustained during the college season. Although before the injury he’d seemed destined to be a top 20 Draft pick that year, Boston grabbed him 39th overall. He showed he was healthy by going 3–0 over five starts for Brewster, maintaining a perfect ERA and striking out 31 and walking eight over 29 2/3 innings. Just before the deadline, he agreed with the Red Sox to a signing bonus reportedly worth $2.55 million.
