Updated Draft Board
Dave · May 12, 2005 at 1:44 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The 2005 Draft Board has been updated. The changes aren’t dramatic, but there is some movement in the top five, and I have updated the statistics for each of those players. For those who really don’t like clicking on links, the top five are Gordon, Upton, Maybin, Hochevar, and Drew, in that order.
This is a great thread to bombard with draft questions. I’ll be around for the next hour or so, and I’ll get to the rest tomorrow.
Comments
64 Responses to “Updated Draft Board”
Re who’s at the draft table. If the GM has not actually seen the guys, what’s the point of him being there and making the specific selections? All he can do is read the same scouting reports and other information that the scouting director and everyone else has.
In other words, he does not bring to the table any new information. In my world, those are pretty much the types of meetings that are good to avoid – you don’t add anything that’s not already there, and you have the potential to keep others from doing their jobs.
What the GM is responsible for, and what he should have done outside of the meeting, is to work with the scouting director in developing a draft philophy – the areas in the organization that should be emphasized, how much to weigh college vs high school, types of players to avoid or favor, etc. Then the GM lets the scouting director do his job within the parameters laid out.
There may be the occasional GM who is closely involved in the draft room, but in general I would expect most organizations to leave the process to the scouting department. And that is one reason why the GM’s relationship with his scouting director is a critical relationship. Note that Bavasi moved fairly quickly to replace Mattox with his own guy (Fontaine).
I saw Justin’s older brother play last night here in Durham, and if Justin has an arm anything like B .J. he could manage shortstop or center-field just fine. B.J. took a high hopper deep in the hole and threw a seed to first base, just a bullet. On another play he barehanded a late feed from the second baseman and–in one motion–threw it to first base to complete the double play. Seriously great play. And then he strikes out four times…which is just the opposite of his all-hit/no-field scouting report.
I also saw Jody Gerut go 5-5 with 3 extra-base hits including a home run. I think he’s healthy enough to take back right field from Casey Blake.
have heard any talk of Lewis-Clark State College’s Joey Dyche?
His name hasn’t come up in any conversations. I know almost nothing about him. Sorry.
Is there anyway the Mariners don’t take a hitter with their first pick?
Hochevar or Pelfrey could sneak up the ladder, especially if they have problems talking money with Gordon, Upton, and Maybin. But I’d guess they’ll take a hitter.
Do the M’s have to go the college route, considering the lack of high level talent in the system. Would high school talent take too long with the current needs?
That’s not a big concern for the M’s. They’re going to take the highest rated player on their board.
is it fair to say that Maybin’s best case scenario upside is Carlos Beltran or even Griffey in his prime?
Ken Griffey Jr is as talented a player as I’ve ever seen, so no, I don’t think its fair to compare Maybin to him. He might have a similar skillset, but the Griffey/Beltran comparisons are premature.
What kind of stuff we talking? What’s his speed on the fastball? Movement? Speed change difference between a breaking pitch / changeup and his fastball?
Hochevar throws 90-94 with solid movement. His breaking ball is average and his change is slightly below average right now, but both project as solid secondary pitches. Think Gil Meche, stuff wise.
In your opinion, how does it work in a healthy organization? Who sits at the draft table, and who wields the biggest stick?
If I’ve given the impression that the GM doesn’t have anything to do with the picks, that was poor communication. The draft room usually consists of the GM, any asst GM’s, the scouting director, the director of player development, the national and regional crosscheckers, and several area scouts. Because the draft goes so quickly, almost all of the discussion takes place before the draft begins, and the discussions hash out the spots on the board that the players will take up. The scouting director gets the final call in most cases (sometimes an owner or GM will intervene, but its rare), but he’s usually taking the top name on the board on the first day.
The second day, its basically the scouting director looking for draft-and-follows and throwing his area scouts a bone here or there by drafting guys they have a gut feel on.
So, the big man in the draft room is the scouting director, but he’s getting input from a lot of other people, and it is a team effort.
I woke up yesterday (and this might have been a dream–I’m not sure) and I was convinced that Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Long Beat State had shot to the top of the M’s draft board. Did I read that here……?
No. Tulowitski is moving up the charts, but i don’t think he’s a top 3 pick.
Why does Upton go to CF, not 2B?
He’s ridiculously fast, probably faster than his brother, and a true 80 speed on the 20-80 scale. Athletically, the tools are there for him to be an awesome defensive outfielder because he’s going to cover a lot of ground. Upton’s defensive issues are with routine plays and throws. He’s got the range to stay at short, but he’s developed a problem throwing the ball across the diamond, and he doesn’t look comfortable fielding grounders. It’s more a case of him having to work his tail off to become passable at shortstop or just playing naturally and being a top notch outfielder. The move to center will maximize his physical strengths and allow him to forget the throwing issues he’s encountered.
Dave, considering the strengths and weaknesses of the farm system, are there any particular areas or positions that you would generally target in the draft (after the first pick, of course)? In other words (and realizing this is not the NFL draft where teams draft based on “need”), are there certain types of players that, all things being relatively equal, you would favor in, say, rounds four through ten?
For example, the farm system seems well-stocked in soft-tossing LHP (which seems to be a reaction to Safeco’s park effects, Moyer’s success there, and, to a lesser degree, the late Piniella era’s elusive quest for effective lefty relievers), so you would expect the M’s to pass on another one in the early rounds unless he is clearly the best player available.
Looking at updated stats, Maybin is hitting great and stealing a ton of bases. I do not know how much high school stats matter, but he is hitting better then anybody, including Upton. This may sound petty, but Uptons favorite team is the Yankees, and I do not like the Yankees. Plus I am worried that he would have a problem if the M’s asked him to move from ss to cf. I do not know the guy, but I can imagine an ego developing after being told you are the best since you are 12 years old.
With Upton, Gordon, Maybin falling to our pick we do not need to draft a Boras pitcher.
Re: (# 44) DRAFT and MONEYBALL – IIRC, in MONEYBALL, the famous Bonderman (2001) draft choice was made by the scouting director (Grady Fuson). This led to the GM (Billy Beane) taking the Draft over. (And to Fuson’s firing, and to Bonderman’s trade to Detroit, where he seems to be justifying Fuson’s selection.)
FWIW, BASEBALL AMERICA (in its annual ALMANAC) no longer lists the scouting director at the beginning of each team’s draft list. (The last time that BA did this was with the 2002 draft.)
I never heard that about Billy Beane. Obviously he was an idiot for thinking the Bonderman draft was a bad choice. Jeremy Bonderman is from my home town area and I was an umpire behind the plate once when he threw. His fastball was sick not just because it had zip but it moved. He fooled me just as many times as he fooled the batters. I actually had to go out there and talk to him because he was getting a bit frustrated with my strike zone.
I simply told him that it wasn’t his fault, it was mine. I’d done quite a few games, but I’d never seen such amazing stuff. I told him to keep throwing like he has been and he’ll be a star.
At the beginning of this year, I had him pegged as a Cy Young candidate. Now he’s 5-2 with a 3.47 ERA and 41 SOs in 49.1 innings. And here’s a kid who made his MLB debut at the age of 20. It starts to get me wondering about Felix and whether or not starting him at 19 is such a bad idea. Bonderman has worked out his kinks in only two years of MLB experience.
Anyway, my point is Billy Beane was obviously a moron in this case. Could you imagine the A’s rotation if they had kept Bonderman?
Or, Beane was sticking by his principal of never wasting high draft picks on HS pitchers who don’t work out more often than not. Having principals like that will cost you on occasion, but they are the key to having productive drafts year-in year-out, much unlike the M’s. Of course, I’d take Grady Fuson as my scouting director (or even GM) anyday.
#47 – The MLB Draft page is “predicting” that Tulowitski gets picked by the M’s. Maybe that’s where you saw it…
Had the A’s kept Bonderman, it’s also unlikely they’d have pushed him so hard which might have helped his development.
But that’s neither here nor there.
BA has started ramping up their coverage for the 2005 draft, including a chat today with John Manuel. Interesting notes include the Royals going budget despite all their claims to the contrary with the #2 pick, and the Ms preferring Troy Toluwitzki or Ryan Zimmerman at #3 even if Gordon slips (no idea if the same holds for Upton).
I figured Beane was at his best when he was gathering young talent from other teams in trades, not the draft. I could be wrong. I’m sure the A’s have drafted good. But if Beane started taking over recently, then some of their current talent wasn’t drafted by him either. I’m not saying Beane is a 100% moron, because that’s just completely false. He’s very good at recognizing talent, especially MLB ready talent. I’m just not sure he’s a draft genius is all.
Well the Tigers didn’t have much of a choice really, considering how miserable their last decade has been. And, true to the way it should be, Bonderman got his proverbial ass handed to him in his rookie year. I think maybe we should consider that possibilty for Felix too; that his first year despite his talent might be a bit rough. On the other hand, if he keeps throwing near or complete games down in AAA Tacoma, I see no reason to waste his arm down there as opposed to wasting it up here.
I totally, totally disagree here. No team is ever forced to push a guy up like that so he can get smashed around. The Tigers could have found any number of random AAAA-type starters and stuffed them into the rotation to buy him time. Nothing about their crappy decade forced them to bring up Bonderman. Fans didn’t get excited watching him get cuffed about by the league’s hitters.
I wrote a whole article on this, but the failure rate of pitchers pushed that hard is tremendous — it was a risk of Bonderman’s future that the potential rewards didn’t justify.
John Manuel’s doing a draft chat over at BA, and drops the suggestion that the Royals may be thinking of a value pick at #2– probably not Gordon (and maybe not even Upton, were the Diamondbacks willing to let him drop. Do I get brownie points for the correct use of the subjunctive?).