We're 41 days away from the amateur draft! The Pirates, Mariners, Diamondbacks, Orioles, and Royals will lead off with the first five picks. Click here to see the entire draft order. Several of the links below require subscriptions, which we heartily recommend purchasing. Today's notes:
- ESPN's Keith Law hears that South Carolina outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. has a torn ligament in his wrist and could miss the rest of the spring (Twitter link). Bradley was expected to be a first round pick before the injury.
- Baseball America's John Manuel, Jim Callis, and Conor Glassey make picks for the first round – not projections, but their own preferences.
- UCLA righty Trevor Bauer is a top five candidate, writes Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, but there are concerns over his workload. Talking to ESPN's Jason A. Churchill, one assistant GM admitted he's worried about Bauer's pitch counts. He's averaged 124.5 pitches per start, according to Churchill.
- In a draft heavy on pitching, Goldstein says second baseman Kolten Wong out of Hawaii "is now getting late first round consideration."
- Connecticut outfielder George Springer has bounced back lately, perhaps enough to put him within the first ten picks, says Churchill. For more on Springer, check out Ben Nicholson-Smith's interview. Ben's other prospective draft pick interviews include Sonny Gray, Matt Purke, Danny Hultzen, and the elusive Gerrit Cole.
- Current buzz from Churchill still has Rice's Anthony Rendon going to the Mariners at #2 overall.
I don’t know if the pitches per start would effect a kid negatively
if anything it could make his arm more durable.
Depends on how gradual the process was. 100 pitch pitch counts are stupid and probably have more to do with people liking a well rounded number than any solid evidence. Pitchers used to go 120+ on average like 10 years ago. Hopefully this 100 pitch pitch count trend is reversing as it’s really stupid. That said I don’t think it’s a good idea to have someone who’s used to 80 pitches an outing jump up to 125 within one year. Arm strength is a gradual building process.
Bauer will be a stud in the MLB. If I was a GM, I wouldn’t hesitate about drafting this kid. Too many teams are worrisome about pitch counts that they don’t realize it makes a pitcher’s arm stronger as long as their fundamentals and technique are sound, and Bauer’s are.
I also hope he somehow falls to the Minnesota Twins. Not just because his name rhymes with Mauer, but because he’s a great pitcher as well.
It’s a shame that the Pirates have the first pick, they’re just going to screw it up anyway…
Do the Pirates pick the wrong players, or do they groom them wrong?
It’s kind of like the chicken or the egg, except the answer is probably both.
To grab a quote from Ted Berg quoting Joe Sheehan many years ago:
“The principles behind TNSTAAPP are pretty simple. Pitchers are unpredictable. They’re asked to perform an unnatural act–throw baseballs overhand–under great stress, thousands of times a year. They get hurt with stunning frequency, sometimes enough to cost them a career, more often just enough to hinder their effectiveness. (Modern medicine has dramatically changed what a pitcher can do to his arm and still have a career.) Even the better ones–Andy Pettitte, for instance–have wide year-to-year variations in their performance. It’s only the very top 0.1% of pitchers who are consistently good year-in and year-out over substantial careers.
That’s major-league pitchers, who have proven themselves to be the best in the world at what they do, and are physically mature. Minor-league pitchers have all of the inconsistencies of the class, and are still developing in significant ways: physically, mentally and emotionally. If you can’t predict where most major-league pitchers will be two years out, it’s quite a conceit to think you can predict where any minor-league pitcher will be even one year out.”
Hindsight is definitely 20/20 when it comes to drafts, especially when comparing someone like Bullington to Upton but I’m sure there might be some alternate universe out there where Bullington is the best pitcher in the league right now. There are too many variables.
i don’t see anyone even worthy of a #1 so u might be right about the pirates screwing it up but baseball drafts are always a gamble.
i hope bradley falls to the Rangers we need some close to major league hitting talent when Hamilton is gone
who do you see the giants picking?
any good canadian prospects ?
i think the sad part of the draft is that the teams that struggled the most and need the most help (pirates, mariners, orioles, astros, royals, etc..) they only get one draft pick in the top 60. Dbacks at least got 3 but teams like the Rays get 10 (16% of the picks))!! Granted they lost a few Type A’s… definitely going to have fun rebuilding with a group of draftees.