2012 7th-Round Pick: 1B Taylor Ard
I have made references in the past to a bleeding from a parallel universe in which the Mariners moved to Tampa, which in our world has resulted in the Rays drafting all the relevant players from the Pacific Northwest. We just drafted Ard out of Wazzu. The Rays still haven’t made their move. Perhaps we are safe now.
Ard’s been drafted a couple of times already, but never by the Rays. The Marlins tried it in 2010, when he was at Mount Hood CC, and then the Red Sox made the attempt last year in the 25th round, but he wanted more than they offered, so he sat out. Hitting is the thing that Ard does well. He has power to any part of the ballpark and last year he led the Pac-10 in dingers with ten, tied for RBI with fifty-five, and ranked second with a .577 slugging percentage. He was All-Pac 10 last year, and was All-Pac 12 this year, with the same slugging percentage (ranking third this time) and twelve dingers (also third). BA adds that he’s handled wood bats pretty well too, but had power numbers without the good batting average while in the Cape Cod League.
Based off the profile, I’m guessing he’s purely a first baseman, since he doesn’t appear to have speed to speak of. Some say his defense is pretty good too. One would hope that he hits enough to make the positional thing a non-issue, but again, some average issues with wood bats and doesn’t walk a great deal either. It’s a decent pick for the time.
Comments
6 Responses to “2012 7th-Round Pick: 1B Taylor Ard”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Walks more than he strikes out and hits for power – a tough combination to come by these days, especially from a real conference. I like him – this is the kind of player the M’s are often short of in the organization, someone who isn’t just swinging from the heels at every pitch to generate power.
Somewhere, Carlos Peguero is silently sobbing.
Carlos Peguero’s got a 1.000+ OPS in the PCL, so I doubt it.
I’m not trying to say that you can’t be a good/valuable player with plus power and bad discipline, but it just seems as though that is ALL the Mariners have had in the power department the last bunch of years. Peguero, Halman, Liddi, Robinson, etc. It might be nice to have a guy who can drive the ball when he makes contact, AND can make contact.
And he went to the same high school as Richie Sexson.
Oh wait that may not be such a plus. 😉
Jasper_C- and he went to the same college as John Olerud. That’s a good thing.