Giants May Draft A Pitcher With Fifth Pick

sense when is picking pitchers a bad thing even more so one that likely won't be ready for a few/several years.

I don't get why teams worry about "logjams" and stuff like that. The MLB draft is a crap shoot - injuries, bad scouting reports, etc - can effect things. An organization should draft the best available talent.

If a need happens to fall 2-3 players +/- your actual pick - you hope for them/make adjustments. If not, you pick the best player and figure out the rest later.

Ask Toronto how passing on Tulowitzski because of "organizational need" has worked out.......

I like the idea of some draft coverage here. Nice touch, Tim.

I agree, Kudos on adding some draft coverage!

The consensus top 3 seem to be Beckham, Crow, and Alvarez. The D-Rays don't necessarily are stacked at all 3 positions (well, they are stacked at every position). Beckham makes sense if they are starting to worry about Brignac. Crow makes sense because you can never have too much pitching. Alvarez makes sense because they could move him to 1st (or DH while Pena is finishing his contract).

That said, maybe Alvarez's injury allows him to drop some. If so, the Giants absolutely need to take him. By most accounts, his defense is solid enough to hold up in the majors. But I if any of those 3 (or Matusz) fall to the Giants, they need to go with that player. After those 4, I think the decision becomes a little more difficult because the top 3, followed by Matusz, seem to be pretty clear right now.

Still time for some moving and shaking of course.

FineHamAbounds is right on the money - take the best talent available - period. Worrying about having too many quality players at a certain position (with maybe the exception of catcher) is not a problem. Especially for a team with as little talent as the Giants.

Aren't 'stud' position prospects much more likely to be successful than 'stud' pitching prospects? Take the best player available, worry about the rest later.

How long does a team have to wait to trade new draftees? Even if you can't trade picks, there should be a way to trade that prospect in the future. :shrug:

Re: take the best player available, ordinarily I would agree.

However, in the context of the current Giants franchise, with its relative depth of pitching and dearth of hitting, they desparately need an impact position player in the system, the closer to the ML level the better.

The Giants are a franchsie that needs this kind of player to get seats filled - remember that this is essentially a privately funded ballpark that the owners have to pay a debt-service on.

Its all well and good saying you can trade later if you can't fill a position of need now, but in reality, I think that's happening less and less now, with teams not prepared to trade impact players from the farm.

Either way, there's a strong chance they'll be picking VERY near the top of the 09 draft.

well i was hoping to see melville pitch today but their game was cancelled due to the field being under water. I asked one of the players and they said they have had a lot of games cancelled thus far. Now St. Louis will start to get good weather sometime soon, it was still 60* today, but I wonder if they will make up these games? If they dont, and Melville isnt able to pitch as many games as other h.s. pitchers, such as gerrit cole for example, how will this affect where he is drafted? I dont think it will affect where he is drafted, but you never know.

"Furthermore, if Tim Beckham falls to #5, I already feel bad for the Giant's pockets as Scott Boras will absolutely handle them during negotiations due to the desperation for impact bats."

If Beckham somehow magically falls to number five and the Giants won't pick him because of his price then Sabean should be fired on the spot and Magowan should be ran out of town. He's a potentially elite offensive force at a premium defensive position and is capable of playing very good defense at short as well. The rest of the premium bats in this draft are somehow all projected first baseman (Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer, Justin Smoak, Yonder Alonso) which is sadly the only position where the Giants already have an elite prospect.

If they have the oppurtunity to add Beckham and don't, then Giants fans might want to change their affiliation to the team across the bay, where at least the guy knows how to run a winning organization.

Best available, it's not like early draft players always make it to the bigs. Get whatever because the team is junk and any position is fillable.
Thank you