It looks like Red Sox prospect Noah Song will not be playing professional baseball over the course of the next couple of years.
The fourth round draft pick earlier this year showed a ton of promise. Personally, I thought he was the best player the Red Sox drafted. However, he is a member of the United States Navy. He is a Naval Academy alum. That means he has to serve his country. He applied for a waiver, knowing it would be a longshot, but got denied.
That means he will probably end up missing two seasons, if precedent is any indication. I know it is supposed to be five years, but Chris Rowley -- who played for the Toronto Blue Jays -- ended up getting a waiver after two years which put him in the reserves. Song could be in the same position.
Song pitched a little bit for the Lowell Spinners this past summer, and the results were encouraging. The guy had a 1.06 ERA with a .167 batting average against. Oh yeah, and he struck out 19 batters in 17 innings. So yeah... not bad.
Apparently, his fastball can reach 99 mph, so that's encouraging as well.
Song deserves respect for wanting to serve his country. It's exciting to know that when he comes back, the Red Sox will have a very good pitching prospect on their hands and that he could potentially shoot through the system pretty quick.
He won't receive much instruction from the Red Sox during that time, but hopefully he finds someone he can play catch with. There's gotta be someone who is willing to do it.
Rowley told me a couple of years back the hard part is that you can't really throw off a mound at these bases, so we shall see how Song adjusts to that in the future.