[ayaghmour2]

There were a few players I really wanted that I knew wouldn't fall to me (and one I thought would fall later), but I am very happy with my selection. With the 12th pick in the 1934 First Year Player Draft, the Chicago Cougars select CF Carlos Montes from Citronelle. Montes was born in Cuba, but came over to the states as a kid. He was the star of the Citronelle baseball team and hit an impressive .443/.527/.745 as a senior. He stole 35 bases, drove in 30 runs, and recorded 22 extra base hits in 131 trips to the plate. He'll never hit for much power, but I basically got a Cy Bryant replacement here. The 18-year-old has experience at third, short, second, and left, but his home is center field. He's got excellent speed both on the bases and in the field and he's a very smart hitter. He struck out just 9 times while walking 16. He's extremely athletic and he's exactly what I'm looking for in a center fielder. Tom Taylor is there for now, but he's not there to stay. I'd love for Montes to be our franchise center fielder and my scout thinks he has the talent for that role. We do have some good young prospects out in center including Marty Roberts, Ray Moore, and Elias Canady, but I think he is much better then all of them.

I did also make a trade, picking up shortstop Ollie Page from the Washington Eagles for backup catcher Claude Ramsey, former 2nd Rounder Ike Quinn, and our 4th Round pick this year. I already picked up Pete Asher to play short, but I am a little worried that he may not be around too long. Page is 24 and currently ranks as the 18th best prospect in baseball. A 5th Round pick in 1928, his high school stats did not really warrant the selection. But, none the less, the talent was there. He hit just .187/.276/.252 (40 OPS+) at Decatur HS, not too far from Chicago. Page grew up watching Cougar games, and will now get to play for them. He may not quite be ready for the majors, but in his first taste of AAA he hit .281/.363/.407 (95 OPS+) with 5 homers, 7 steals, and 66 RBI's in 528 trips to the plate.

The shortstop is Asher's job and he has a spot reserved, but I'm not sure how much longer he can play short. Despite a +13 zone rating and 1.035 efficiency in 1932, Pete Asher hasn't looked too good recently at short. This year he had a +1.5, but it comes with a .992 efficiency. Still, much better then all our shortstops (minus the 40 innings from Forrest Sylvester) that we trotted out this year. Page has a decent +5.1 and 1.031 in AAA and has a +63.4 and 1.054 in 7,189 innings as a shortstop. I think his glove will be good in the majors and my scout agrees. He reminds me a lot of Russ Combs, which is a little scary. Combs was as good as it gets when healthy, but healthy he rarely was. Page seems to have better luck, but prime Combs was really good. An above average hitter and strong defensive shortstop. I had to give up a decent amount, but it was a good match. Claude Ramsey deserves to start and Washington has Jim Beard (who I actually like better and asked about too) which makes Page's future a little unclear.

Looking back to the draft, we don't have too many picks. We'll be picking 28th, 47th, 66th, and 76th. I traded my fourth today and I traded my third yesterday, but I added the Gothams third from the Eagles and the Cannons fifth before the season started. Those are all our picks in the first five rounds, but I could easily make more trades. We make all the picks through the tenth round, and the last fifteen will be through auto. We should be able to add a few nice new prospects, and could potentially maintain the top spot in the farm system rankings.