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Meet Red Sox 6-foot-5, 240-pound prospect focused on ‘putting on size, muscle’
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- Meet Red Sox 6-foot-5, 240-pound prospect focused on ‘putting on size, muscle’
Red Sox 2025 draft pick Barrett Morgan’s 33 appearances in two seasons at Cowley Community College in Arkansas City, Kan., all came out of the bullpen, and he dominated. He posted a 0.42 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, four saves and 40 strikeouts in 21 ⅓ innings this past spring.
The Red Sox have not yet decided whether they will keep the 20-year-old righty in a relief role to begin his professional career (and potentially fast track him) or stretch him out to start.
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“I think that’s probably just going to be more determined by spring training and the start of the season,” Morgan said by phone Tuesday. “Right now we’ve just been focused on getting bigger, stronger, faster and ready for the season.”
Bigger?
Morgan already is 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. How much bigger can he get?
“Around the time of the draft and this last year at Cowley, I was about 230. I just peaked out at 240 the other day so just putting on size, putting on muscle,” said Morgan, who has worked with Red Sox nutritionists.
Earlier this offseason, MassLive named Morgan one of five Red Sox prospect breakout candidates for 2026 . He’s so intriguing because of his size, fastball and projectability. He also already has expanded his pitch mix since entering the organization.
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He’s not your typical 328th overall draft pick. Boston gave him a $500,000 bonus, the third highest signing bonus among the 11th round picks.
He’s one of only 15 draft picks from Rounds 6-11 who received a bonus of $500,000 or higher. It was enough to convince him to turn pro instead of keeping his commitment to Texas A&M.
“Going into the draft, I had a number in mind,” Morgan said. “Me and my family came up with it as like, ‘I feel comfortable with this number. I feel like I could live on that for three, four years in the minor leagues.’ And so then day two of the draft, I think it was probably around 8:30, 9 o’clock maybe, I was sitting in class at A&M and got a call from my agent with the offer and it was an absolute no-brainer decision.”
Morgan has come a long way in just a few years. He underwent Tommy John surgery at the beginning of his junior year of high school. His only college offer out of high school came from Cowley. And he received that one offer only after then-Cowley pitcher Isaac Stebens — a fellow Stillwater, Okla., native who now is a Red Sox minor leaguer — helped.
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“I played baseball with his younger brother for many years,” Morgan said. “So he actually put in a good word for me with the coaches up there. So that’s how I landed at Cowley and then had two great years there.”
Morgan reported to Fort Myers after signing. He spent the rest of the regular season there. He went home for a brief time and then returned to the JetBlue Park complex for another six weeks this fall. He just completed his most recent work there and returned home to Stillwater about a week and a half ago.
He throws a four-seam fastball, sweeper and cutter, and he’s currently working on a fourth pitch.
“Working on a splitter/changeup right now. That’s been the big one, trying to get that nailed down,” he said.
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“Just to have something going away from left-handed hitters,” Barrett added. “Right now, all my stuff is going into them. So I need something to be able to go away from them. So that’s why we’re playing around with different changeup grips and different splitter grips to try to get something to where a left hander is having to look away.”
During his 2025 collegiate season, Morgan sat around 93-94 mph with his fastball while getting up to 95-96 mph. He topped out at 97 mph at times.
MLB.com’s Jim Callis noted that Morgan has “good fastball metrics.”
“Just having good vertical break on it so it holds its plane well,” Morgan said. “I didn’t really know that super well until I kind of got the Fort Myers. It’s like when people say, it’s got good life on the fastball, it means it’s got good, good vertical carry to it.”
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He threw a slider in college but it’s become bigger and developed into a sweeper with more glove-side movement.
“Just being down there for a couple months ... I’ve already learned so much,” Morgan said. “So just getting ready to go back in spring training and then get sent out to an affiliate. This has probably been the most excited I’ve ever been for a season in, like, I can’t remember. Probably maybe when I was coming back from injury in high school. I could not be more excited to get going this year.”
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