[Westheim]

2039 DRAFT POOL ANALYSIS

The new draft pool was a bit weird. The pitching side had a reasonable amount of talent, but the batting side was kinda … well, meh.

There were piles of ho-hum catchers and first basemen on our list, and our system already held quite an amount of ho-hum catchers and first basemen, so while we might take one of each after all, we weren’t going to waste our #20 pick on one of them. The exception might be Dan Whitley, a 20-year-old in college at Arkansas, who might be an OBP guy with a keen eye, but then again had typical catcher speed, which means no speed. Very good arm, good game calling – lots to like.

Like I said, there was no shortage of pitchers, although our analysis of the boys was a bit opposite to BNN’s. BNN listed six position players in their top 10 prospects, and only one of their pitchers on the list matched up with a guy at the top of our draft board. I had no doubt that Kevin Nolte would go in the top 3 in the draft. 92mph fastball, BIG curve, nasty forkball, groundballer – what was the hesitation? I’d take him without asking twice at #20.

Well, yes, there were stories about Nolte being a social recluse that was crafting puppets resembling his enemies and lighting them on fire in his back garden, but come on, check out his curveball again …!*

We had 102 players on the shortlist (including five 2-way players, although none of them was an interesting starting pitcher to begin with, and only two were actually included in the shortlist both as pitcher and hitter), and Scout Man had come up with a hotlist of a dozen or so players again (* high school players):

SP Kevin Nolte (13/16/13) *
SP Jeff Johnson (13/12/11)
SP Corey Mathers (12/13/9)
SP Eric Jacobson (11/14/15) * - BNN #8
SP Bobby Campbell (11/12/13)

CL Aaron Durham (20/14/11)
CL Jesse Beggs (18/13/10)

C Dan Whitley (9/11/18) – BNN #4

INF/RF Ronnie Thompson (16/4/20)
3B/SS Matt Waters (11/10/10) * - BNN #9
SS Josh Jackson (11/10/10) – BNN #7

OF/1B Alex Marquez (9/10/8)
OF Dave Lee (10/11/14) – BNN #2

*Yes, his personality ratings are that bad. :-P Very low leadership and loyalty, low work ethic, high greed.