Another week, another mock. Let’s see what we see…
1.1 Washington – RHSP Stephen Strasburg (San Diego State)
1.2 Seattle – 1B/OF Dustin Ackley (North Carolina)
1.3 San Diego – RHSP Aaron Crow (Missouri/Fort Worth Cats)
1.4 Pittsburgh – RHSP Alex White (North Carolina)
1.5 Baltimore – SS Grant Green (Southern Cal)
I still have no idea which way Seattle is leaning with the second pick. Any one of Ackley, White, Tate, Matzek, or Scheppers could be the guy. Green’s stock is falling faster than [insert fast falling stock symbol here], but I still think it’s a tad reactionary to have him falling more than a few picks from the top considering the total absence of quality bats at premium positions in this year’s draft. Heck, I was one of Green’s biggest detractors heading into this season so if anybody could support a slip in his stock it’s me. About a month ago I said this:
It’s not quite a fully developed idea, but I’ll just throw it out there here so I can have it on the record…Grant Green (Southern Cal, SS) and Jason Donald (Arizona, Phillies, SS/3B/2B). Am I crazy in thinking they have similar enough profiles to compare the two?
I like Grant Green and I like Jason Donald, but I’m not sold on either player being “worth” the fifth overall pick. However, and this is worth pointing out time and time again, the top of the draft has so few interesting bats that there is some justification for reaching for a potential plus bat at a key defensive position.
1.6 San Francisco – OF Donavan Tate (Cartersville HS – Georgia)
1.7 Atlanta – RHSP Zack Wheeler (East Paulding HS – Georgia)
1.8 Cincinnati - RHSP Kyle Gibson (Missouri)
1.9 Detroit Tigers – LHSP Tyler Matzek (Capistrano Valley HS – California)
1.10 Washington – RHSP Tanner Scheppers (Fresno State/St. Paul Saints)
How do you spell Tate’s first name? I’ve literally seen a 50/50 split (or darn close anyway) in the major publications when it comes to his spelling. Off the top of my head, I think Baseball America and Pefect Game both call him Donavan, but MLB.com claims he goes by Donovan. Even the great Google comes up empty – 824,000 hits for “Donovan Tate” and 870,000 “Donavan Tate” in a race too close to call.
I debated far too long about Atlanta’s pick, but there is too much noise about Atlanta loving Wheeler to go against the grain. Brian Sabean was at a recent Cartersville start to watch Wheeler throw, so it’s entirely possible he’ll be off the board at pick six. In a way that would be convenient because we can then just flip the Giants and Braves picks with little shaking up of the draft board.
Strasburg & Scheppers…that’ll do nicely. I like the Nationals popping Scheppers here because there is absolutely no chance he won’t sign a fair deal, he has no other options besides professional baseball. The question for me is whether or not he’ll be sitting there for them to debate the pick…
1.11 Colorado – RHSP Mike Leake (Arizona State)
1.12 Kansas City – RHSP Shelby Miller (Brownwood HS – Texas)
1.13 Oakland - 3B Bobby Borchering (Bishop Verot HS – Florida)
1.14 Texas - LHSP Matt Purke (Klein HS – Texas)
1.15 Cleveland – LHSP Mike Minor (Vanderbilt)
A prep superstar sandwich with delicious high floor (and high fiber!) college pitcher bread. The Royals and Rangers would both be ecstatic (I’m guessing) if the draft actually went like this, though I now wonder if the two Texan high schoolers might be flip flopped.
1.16 Arizona – LHP/OF Brooks Raley (Texas A&M)
1.17 Arizona - C Max Stassi (Yuba City HS – California)
1.18 Florida – LHP/1B Colton Cain (Waxahachie HS – Texas)
1.19 St. Louis – LHSP Andy Oliver (Oklahoma State)
1.20 Toronto – LHSP James Paxton (Kentucky)
1.21 Houston – LHSP Rex Brothers (Lipscomb)
How’s that for a run on lefthanded pitching? That’s 7 out of 8 lefties if you’re scoring at home, with the run only being broken up by the presence of new top 2009 catcher Stassi. Cain is the real wild card in all of this, but he is only this high up because Florida is such a difficult team for me to project. Cain would be a big stretch at 18, but a high upside, athletic high school arm makes sense in the spot.
1.22 Minnesota – OF Jared Mitchell (Louisiana State)
1.23 Chicago White Sox – RHSP Kyle Heckathorn (Kennesaw State)
1.24 Los Angeles Angels - LHSP Tyler Skaggs (Santa Monica HS – California)
1.25 Los Angeles Angels – 3B Matt Davidson (Yucaipa HS – California)
Mitchell to Minnesota would be a re-draft (they took him out of high school in 2006), so we know he fits their typical draft demographic beautifully. It’s possible that Mitchell fits the Twins model too well, seeing as they already have about a half dozen players with similar skillsets already in the system – it would almost be overkill at this point to draft another.
1.26 Milwaukee – OF Mike Trout (Millville HS – New Jersey)
1.27 Seattle - RHSP Jacob Turner (Westminster Academy – Missouri)
1.28 Boston – RHSP Sam Dyson (South Carolina)
1.29 New York Yankees – RHSP Alex Wilson (Texas A&M)
1.30 Tampa Bay - 1B Rich Poythress (Georgia)
1.31 Chicago Cubs – SS Jiovanni Mier (Bonita HS – California)
1.32 Colorado – OF Kentrail Davis (Tennessee)
Turner to the Mariners makes sense, if they are as willing to pony up the bucks as they have intimated. Projecting the top AL East teams is a killer, but it’s not much more than a coincidence that all three wound up with college players – Dyson and Wilson are high upside arms that would represent good value late in the first, but carry significant injury risk going forward. Poythress is a really hard player to squeeze in, but he’d be a really nice fit for a team in need of another big bat to balance out an already strong lineup, slotting in as either Pena’s successor at first or a DH option down the road. Davis is another player that probably shouldn’t be as high as he is in a vacuum, but in a draft like this he’ll get a substantial bonus because he has shown he can at least hit a little (we’re setting the bar low for bats this year, unfortunately).
With the draft a little more than a month away it’s time to get a move on. Let’s jump back in to this year’s college catching prospects. Here’s what we’ve done so far:
Why Do College Catching Prospects Fail?
An attempt to answer the above question
Introduction - The 2009 Field
Part I, Part II, Part III
Bonus Coverage - Three Quick Notes
Why I’ve spent so much time thinking/writing about such a weak position in this year’s draft is anybody’s guess, but I started this darn catching tournament thing and by gosh I’m going to finish it. It may take me weeks to do what a real writer would do in minutes, but…wait, I have no idea how to finish that thought. But…at least I’ve avoided the Swine Flu thus far? But…at least I’m the best looking baseball draft writer around (you should really see my smile, it makes man, woman, child, and Clooney all weak in the knees, all at once). But…at least I’ve put my time to good use when not writing – I mean, I must have watched this about 6,000 this past week alone. See, there really is no good way to finish that thought? It may have taken me weeks to ge through this simple task, but the end is finally in sight. The beginning of the end starts now. One more regional to go.
The final (maybe) installment of our college catching prospect tournament — yes, it has dragged on long enough that it no longer deserves highly coveted formal title capitalization status — is thankfully here. Let’s see what we’ll see…after the jump, of course.
First Round Puzzle Pieces
I’m a simple man who tends to think in simple terms. Filling out a mock draft brings back grade school memories of manipulating jigsaw pieces every which way until a pretty picture of a duck or a lake or an eighteenth century Parisian castle emerged from the cutouts. It always helped to get the corner pieces first to frame the picture, a lesson I try to apply to my mock draft construction today – get the corners first and build from there. Find picks that make so much sense that they just have to happen and work backwards once they are filled in. Find teams that will under no circumstances take a particular player or position. Eliminate picks that don’t make sense.
So let’s start piecing this puzzle together. Which teams can we rule out for certain positions early on? Can anybody out there realistically see any of the following teams — Baltimore, San Francisco, Texas, Cleveland, Florida, or Houston — taking a first round catcher? Maybe Texas (lots of young catching, but still sorting itself out), maybe Cleveland (Carlos Santana is coming, but they strike me as an organization that would take a catcher high if he was the best player on their board), but certainly not the other four teams. What about first baseman? I definitely can’t envision a scenario where Rich Poythress goes to Kansas City (Hosmer), Texas (Smoak), or St. Louis (Pujols/Wallace). What have I concluded from my brief puzzle session? Teams don’t draft the same position (excepting pitching) in the first round in consecutive years, so don’t expect it to happen when putting together a mock. Is that a fair conclusion?
More Luke Bailey Fallout
I’ve been thinking more and more about how Bailey’s recent injury will impact the upcoming draft. The Nationals are faced with the very weird predicament of having to pick and pay the most celebrated amateur talent ever AND then sign another top ten player on top of it. Various logical college names have been bandied about for the ten spot (Poythress, LeMahieu, Mitchell…Leake, Paxton, Brothers) that would serve the Nationals well in that they are all talented enough to justify the tenth spot (some more than others), but also not quite sexy enough to warrant a scary overslot bonus. Does Bailey at number ten make sense? He’s got more upside than any of the college names mentioned (though Poythress and Leake are personal favorites, and Mitchell has plenty of untapped potential in his own right), plus his injury could lead to an under the table pre-draft agreement on monetary terms that would have otherwise been untenable. Luke, sign with us and you’ll get the cache of being a top ten pick, the slot (or maybe slightly less) bonus that comes with the position, and a top notch professional staff to walk you through your rehab. Crazy idea, but there it is.
Bailey going tenth would be pretty out there, but there are other spots late in the first that might not be quite as crazy. Check out the teams picking 28th, 29th, and 30th. Boston, New York, and Tampa all have consecutive late first round picks this year. All three teams have shown a willingness to draft aggressively, and all three teams have an organizational need at catcher. No chance they would have had a shot at a healthy Luke Bailey, but now…well, now they’ll be in a position to decide on whether or not he’s worth the risk.
Enough looking ahead, let’s look back. I found one of my unpublished mock drafts from a few weeks ago and, much to my surprise, noticed I had Bailey slotted as high as pick number 9 to Detroit. I know I have toyed with the idea of giving him to Kansas City (12), Oakland (13), Cleveland (15), and Arizona (16/17) at various points prior. How far will he slide?
Player Range Finder
A random feature where I pick a random player and randomly decide where I think he’ll randomly go in the draft. Sounds like a party, right? Our first player is…
Rich Poythress –> crazy optimistic scenario could see him being popped as high as pick number six to San Francisco; worst case scenario sees him falling no further (farther?) than pick 27 to Seattle.
Poythress to the Giants? The odds are Manute Bol slim, but not quite minute enough to rule out entirely. Fact 1 – the Giants organization is rich in prospects, but the pitching still outpaces the hitting by a comfortable margin. Fact 2 – the Giants . Fact 3 – This may or may not be an actual “fact” — I scoff at the notion that words need to fit “definitions” decided on unilaterally by the “Man”– but every draft needs a surprise, right? At this point the talent at the top of the draft looks about as predictable as can be – Strasburg, White, Crow, Ackley, Green, Tate, Matzek, Gibson, Wheeler in some order. It can’t be that simple, can it?
Of course, I think the Giants go best player available (hoping for one of the three position players, I’m guessing) which will rule out Poythress going off the board at six, but it’s not totally inconceivable and that’s all I’m really trying to get at.
Poythress to the Mariners? Now this I could see happening. Poythress plays a mean first base (something the M’s value highly), the Seattle system needs fast moving bats, and he’d represent really good value this late in the round. Of course, the idea that he’d go no later than 27th to Seattle means there are a bunch of teams that represent logical fits well before Jack Z will even get a crack at him.Teams like Washington, Arizona, Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles all are likely to show heavy interest in the sweet swinging first baseman.
No, this won’t be another rant about the responsibility (or lack thereof) that college coaches have towards balancing saving their own hides by pleasing the alumni base by winning as many ballgames as possible in the short-term with respecting the overall health and potential loss of future professional earnings of student-athletes supposedly under their care. (Man, how’s that for a run-on sentence? My high school English teacher must be rolling in her grave…). Nor will it be a treatise on how often evidence showing high pitch counts (especially pitch counts over 120) as dangerous to a pitcher’s long-term health and short-term performance is ignored by a certain segment of the population, a group that still believes in the infallibility of many of the arm shredding techniques of yesteryear. (Not only a run-on sentence, but also awkwardly worded…I’m on a roll!). No, none of that – not today, anyway.
All I’m trying to say is that high pitch counts absolutely have to be considered when teams stack their draft boards each year. Nothing more, nothing less. To that end, let’s take a quick look after the jump at a few of the big names stretched beyond a “safe” number of pitches this past weekend…
Two high school stars were in the “news” recently, but for two very different reasons. What happened and why should we care? Let’s find out in our first ever foray in actually covering real life stuff as it happens…
Shelby Miller
The Blue Jays have had scouts at recent starts made by star prep righthanded pitcher Shelby Miller
Why is this important?
Toronto avoids high school arms like few teams in baseball, so it’s noteworthy whenever they take notice in a prep pitching prospect. At this point it would be an upset to see Miller slip to Toronto in the first (they pick 20th overall), but that’s not quite what makes this note so important. Sure, if Miller is sitting there at 20 and Toronto gets a crack at him then it’ll be intriguing to see how real this interest is. What I find interesting here is the fact that the Blue Jays seem to be opening themselves up to the possibility of drafting high school arms this year. Then again, there is no doubt Toronto (and every other team in the league for that matter) scout so thoroughly that it’s no real shock to hear a rumor going about supposed interest like this even when the team has no real intention of drafting a particular player. So, to recap – maybe it’s something, maybe it’s nothing, but in any case it’s information worth storing away come draft day. If you’ve got a mock draft going and Miller has somehow slipped to the Jays at 20, it may help you to look smart by putting his name down as the pick.
Luke Bailey
Top overall catching prospect Luke Bailey’s draft future is in question due to recent injury…no, not a strained medial ligament and bone bruise to the knee, but rather a strained UCL that has him scheduled for Tommy John surgery
Why is this important?
Big league teams who just last week had Bailey, an Auburn commit, high on their first round draft boards are now faced with the challenge of placing a proper value on the heretofore projected top 15 pick. Teams won’t only have to reshuffle their boards based on where they think Bailey’s value will be league-wide after the injury; no, that would be too easy. Teams will also have to figure out how willing Bailey is to sign a professional contract and for how much cash money it’ll take to get him ready to play pro ball. Every big league front office will have to place a round/dollar value on Bailey and determine whether a) he’ll be signable, and b) whether or not his recovery from injury will make him worth chasing after. That last point is a big one because the 2009 Draft has a chance of being remembered for the premium crop of high school catchers – when faced with the choice of a sliding Bailey or one of the other top round catching candidates (anybody outside of Max Stassi and Austin Maddox, I’d venture), who do you take? A week ago Bailey was a pretty clear number one at the position, but now he faces the very real possibility that he’ll be bypassed not only by high end guys like Stassi and Maddox, but also members of the second group like Jonathan Walsh, Wil Myers, Michael Zunino, or which ever prep prospect you happen to fancy near the top of the prep catching lists. Is a healthy Walsh a better pick than an damaged goods Bailey? I just don’t know.
If you are Bailey, how far do you have to slip to decide “hey, maybe three years playing ball in the SEC and transforming myself into the next Matt Wieters” might be worth while? On the other hand, Bailey might decide that recovery from major arm surgery might be something he’d rather let a big league medical staff oversee and a front office finance.
We’re promoting a new feature straight from AA to the big leagues today because, well, it’s Friday and that seems like as good a day as any to trot out something totally random and nonsensical. Alternate Reality Drafts – the name evokes a certain feeling that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I like. Something about alternate realities and parallel universes really get the blood flowing. Our question today is a relatively simple one. What if…all of the top high school talent from the 2006 Draft decided to spurn the big leagues and head off to college for three years instead? Let’s find out, shall we? Alternate Reality here we come…
1.1 Washington – RHSP Stephen Strasburg (San Diego State) – Strasburg would still be the man at number one, but there would be a ton of consideration for the next player on the list…
1.2 Seattle – LHSP Clayton Kershaw (Texas A&M) – The Aggies rotation could go five deep with Kershaw joining Raley, Wilson, Loux, and Hales in a rotation that would rival the best in all of minor league baseball. Fans in Seattle wouldn’t be nearly as upset as they are now about losing out on the top spot with a consolation prize like Kershaw.
1.3 San Diego – OF Travis Snider (Arizona State) – Imagine Wallace/Snider/Davis as the heart of the Sun Devils order in 2008. The Padres give consideration to many of the high profile arms in this spot, but eventually decide that a premium hitter ready to step in right away and mash at Petco is more valuable than any particular pitcher on the board.
1.4 Pittsburgh – RHSP Kyle Drabek (Texas? Rice? A&M?) – I just spent twenty minutes I shouldn’t have trying to find Drabek’s college commitment, if he ever even had one at all. If anybody knows it, please let me know. Anyway, wow – we’ve got our first real shocker of the draft. The Pirates never fail to do something out of the ordinary on draft day, so why not add a little nepotism to the usual mix of overdrafting questionable arms and being scared off by high bonus demands that rarely ever actually come into play anyway? The pick will surely be questioned, what with a slew of ridiculously talented pitchers with cleaner health records and more consistent track records of success, but Drabek’s upside is undeniable. The pundits are ready to pan the Pirates for another blown pick, but I applaud them for taking a chance on a truly talented player like Drabek. Would I myself have passed on, say, the player who later went to the Giants in this draft instead of him? Doubtful.(See how I didn’t ruin the surprise there – clever, right?) Though I may not have taken Drabek quite so high, it’s certainly a defensible pick – this isn’t a Moskos over Wieters situation, you know? Incidentally, good for young Kyle for being picked so high – all of the off the field concerns surrounding him coming out of high school are but a distant memory after three years of working hard during his offseasons, rehabbing from injuries diligently, and generally being a good all around teammate.
1.5 Baltimore – SS Adrian Cardenas (Florida) – As tempting as it was to give them Billy Rowell, power hitting shortstop (yeah, right…) from Alabama, I decided that the good fans of Baltimore deserved better. Instead, Baltimore goes with the second surprise pick in a row by taking the Gators star shortstop with pick number five. There are many scouts and talent evaluators that question Cardenas long-term future at short (myself among them), but the O’s will give Cardenas every chance in the world to hold on to the spot. The thought of putting the nearly ML-ready bat in a lineup with Roberts, Markakis, Wieters, and Jones is something special. In a world where batting average is still incredibly overrated by the casual observer, it almost pains me to admit that I think there is still an undeniable cool factor in envisioning a core group of six youngish (Roberts) to very young (pretty much everybody else) veterans all capable of hitting .300 or above.
1.6 San Francisco – LHSP Brett Anderson (Oklahoma State) – Anderson, Oliver, Lyons…if you’ve got a team loaded up with lefties in your lineup, there’s really no point in showing up at the ballpark for a weekend series against the Cowboys. The Giants may want to grab a hitter like Dustin Ackley, Grant Green, or Lars Anderson here, but eventually decide that Anderson’s mix of polish and projection is too much to pass up. Lincecum, Cain, Anderson, Bumgarner, Alderson…the mind reels at the possibilities.
1.7 Atlanta – RHSP Jordan Walden (Texas) – The Braves stick with what they know best at the seventh spot, going with the big Texan with number one starter upside. Walden’s gigantic junior season with the Longhorns propelled him past a strong group of college righties and there was buzz the Padres considered popping him with the third overall pick. Baseball fans won’t soon forget his Friday night duel against Missouri ace Kyle Gibson that helped determine the Big XII regular season conference champ.
1.8 Cincinnati – RHSP Trevor Cahill (Dartmouth) – Dartmouth’s (yes, Dartmouth’s) most accomplished pitcher since Mike Remlinger is a perfect stylistic fit for the Reds. Cahill’s groundball tendencies and strikeout stuff should play perfectly in Cincinnati. There is some concern about Cahill’s level of competition, but a closer look reveals a pitcher capable of shutting down any team that takes the field against him. The manner in which he has risen to the occasion time and time again, most notably in his nearly perfect early season starts against Duke, San Jose State, and Santa Clara, as well as a late season mid-week beatdown of Boston College (after the Big Green locked up their spot in the Ivy championship series, of course), show that he is a big game pitcher who is both willing and able to take the ball in important spots.
1.9 Detroit – SS Grant Green (Southern Cal) – In a decision too close to call, the Tigers eventually opt for the college position player over the prep arm (Tyler Matzek). The system is in such sore need of an infusion of talent in any way, shape, or form that it is more than likely that whomever is selected with this pick will be the number one player in the system by the end of the year.
1.10 Washington – 1B Lars Anderson (Cal) – Anderson occupies Rich Poythress’s usual spot as the slugging college first baseman who also happens to be relatively safe to sign with Washington’s second top ten selection. Anderson’s power potential gives him the slight edge over Carolina’s Dustin Ackley. You’d better believe that Washington would be thrilled to land such a potent 1-2 punch of pitching and offense with their top two picks.
