The Crawfish Boxes

ehh idk

I love the NFL draft and i like the nba draft, its unfortunate the MLB draft is like this…i think if they wanna make it a big event, 2 things need to change…

A. Draft should happen in December
B. You should be allowed to trade picks…

Why should the first few rounds of baseball’s draft be any less exciting or a big deal than the drafts of other sports?

I don't have a problem with it being exciting.

But that’s the problem. It’s not really all that exciting. The MLB draft is so speculative that, with the rare exceptions of guys like Strasburg and Kerry Wood, we’re not going to see any of these players for at least two years, and probably more like four. For the first round, only a little over half of the players will ever actually appear in a major-league game (and, of course, it’s much fewer for the later rounds).

And we know so very little about any of these players. We’ve never seen the vast majority of these kids play. It’s just tough to get excited about a draft that’s (1) a crapshoot and (2) involves players we know virtually nothing about. I’m excited to see what the Astros do, but I don’t care about much else.

"with the rare exceptions of guys like Strasburg and Kerry Wood,"

I mean “…and Mark Prior.” I get my perpetually-injured former Cubs mixed up sometimes.

you are forgiven

forgiven

Stupid question.

Why do we have the 21st pick? I thought we were worse than that last year. No?

Jordan Sams - June 9, 2009 reply

because the draft order is determined by last season's standings.

And we were much better in 2008 than we were in 2007.

This has been bugging me for a while

The Astros only played 161 games last season…there was one makeup game that we just didn’t play because it wouldn’t make a difference. But if we had gotten to play that game and lost it, we’d be picking ahead of the Cardinals.

There was much

about the end of last season that simply was not right.

Xan - June 9, 2009 reply

Big surprise

the nationals take strasburg

wow

if anyone was in suspense about this pick, they were hiding under a rock

#2 - Dustin Ackley - Padres

That should say Mariners

followed by Padres on the clock

I’m trying to scale back my caffeine consumption and my brain is fighting it hardcore

"player evaluation:

graded on a scale of 2 to 7"

So, it’s graded like a tougher slam dunk contest.

#3 - Padres - Donavan Tate

A bit unexpected here, considering his rumored asking price

anyone know of...

somewhere on the internet i can watch the draft live…not a tracker but like legit mlb network on the comp?

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2009/draftlive_app.jsp

nvm

mildly surprising

#4 - Pirates - Tony Sanchez

This pick was apparently settled earlier in the day…

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/06/pirates-to-take-catcher-tony-sanchez.html

here

look at time posted: 3:29 PM CT

#4 - Pirates - Tony Sanchez

Given that this guy was definitely projected to go after 21, this pushes players down the draft board for us

BPro:

Kevin Goldstein (3:34:55 PM PT): The Pirates go with their late decision of Tony Sanchez. This is not a good pick, but it’s too early to call this a bad draft, as they want to spend big internationally and look to slot bust later.

Of course, when the Astros did that last year, it was the end of the fucking world.

And I’ve seen people say that Castro is better than Sanchez

Including our friends at Baseball Prospectus

Bryan Smith (3:35:45 PM PT): This reminds me what the Cubs did a few years ago when they drafted Tyler Colvin with the intention of spending money on Jeff Samardzija later in the draft. We hear the Pirates will be busy in the Dominican and in later rounds, but it’s certainly weird to see Sanchez’ name in the top five. Not more than a couple days ago, Kevin and I agreed that Jason Castro was a better prospect one year ago. And we know what we all thought about that Castro pick then.

i love the draft room

#5 - Orioles - Matt Hobgood

Apparently he flew up the board bcz of signability…

looks like the o’s future is guys like Matusz, Tillman, and Hobgood throwing to Wieters…nice staff in a few years

more from the BPro chat:

Kevin Goldstein (3:35:46 PM PT): Jon (SF): Do you get the feeling that the MLB Network coverage is just going to say that everyone is a good pick and not criticize teams for overdrafting because of money?

KG: Note how the main analyst guy is Marcos from the scouting bureau? He’s not going to criticize ONE SINGLE SOLITARY pick — I’ll bet a ton on that one.

You know, the draft doesn’t occur in a vacuum. If a team doesn’t think that the required money and the likelihood of production match up, then they shouldn’t draft that player. Why is that bad?

that’s a good point—signability is usually interpreted as the baseball club being cheap, but it could just as easily be the players asking for way more than they are worth

see, I don't think it's really like players are asking for more than they're worth.

It’s that no one really knows what a player is “truly” worth. Players are making a bet (and they probably are adopting a more optimistic outlook on their production), just as clubs are making a bet. And when those bets don’t match up well, the player probably won’t be drafted.

At the same time, a “signability” pick might just really be that a team’s valuation process is different from BPro’s or Baseball America’s. That kind of pick will look like the same thing.

MLB Network is putting up Baseball America’s ordered list of the best players available and then discussing it as if it is factual

i got a question

is donovan tate the brother of brandon tate from UNC?

the football player

drafted this past year into nfl

update

6 . Giants – Zach Wheeler RHP
7. Braves – Michael Minor LHP

that was an awful interview with Wheeler.

Let’s never do that again.

8 - reds

Mike Leake RHP

apparently can play many positions