[Griever20]

Following the final game of last week, I entered the Draft War room… alone. I sat there, looked over scouting reports, over lineups, over mock drafts, over projections… and was restless. When I heard a voice from the entrance. “Here you are. I heard you were nervously pacing around the offices for days now,” said Rich Buchanan, our owner that was around for the New York Mets series and whose visits are infrequent and rather hands-off.

“It seems like this draft is bothering you way more than last years draft?” He asked me while coming forward to me, handing me a cup of fruit tea. “Why is that, you probably made the biggest pick of your life last year and were not as restless as right now?”

I had to sigh and smile, and decided to answer truthfully. “The reason is that last season, the situation was way easier than this season. I knew, we wanted to pick the best overall prospect first overall, swing for the fences and get it right. With this goal, and the scouting reports at hand, it became rather clear that Tyler Dean was the one guy that had the highest upside, and looking at his #2 prospect rating, we got that one right. This year, the draft pool is… way more tricky.”

Buchanan moved his head from left to right and remarked that “not having the first overall pick makes things more complex as you don’t know what the San Diego Padres are going to do. But, how about you walk me through your thoughts?”

“Why not,” I said and walked over to our big board. “As you can see, the players with the biggest upside are three infielders that scream first base in the future, all of them high school bats. Four infielders if we add Tyler Aurand with his ridiculous 75-80 power potential. The other two players on there are high school starting pitchers, which is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets in the revolver.”

“Why are those pitchers such a risk,” Buchanan asked curiously. “I read that pitchers only very rarely are selected first overall.” I nodded in agreement and explained that “starting pitchers are not usually selected high as the risk of development into a top notch player is very high. You see, in order to become a dominant pitcher, you have to have some good velocity, at least three very strong, fully developed pitches, good to very good movement and good to very good control. And all those traits are not developed in a high school pitcher, they are all only potential that needs to be fulfilled. If you fail in any of these categories, you may be a first overall turd.”

Buchanan laughed quickly, and then asked “why are position players different?” To show him my point, I opened the scouting report of one of the draftees, Bill Beaverson. “Ok, look at this kid, an infielder that can play basically everywhere on the field. He is graded 65-70 in the speed/stealing categories, and can be an above average defender in six positions. Those are skills that are basically set. You can bank on him having those skills in 2-3 years when he makes a major league roster. Leaving the uncertainty with his bat, and yes, it’s an uncertainty, but there are big parts of his game that are projectable for us. Which is where the problem with the big first baseman comes to play.”

Buchanan almost made a hand movement like he wanted to slap his forehead and there was a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. “Because those kids are not here for defence or baserunning, they are here for the bat. And similar to a pitcher, you need them to develop as projected on the bat to become valuable, you cannot diversify the risk like you could with Tyler Dean where you knew that he was a plus-plus defender and a good runner even if is bat would not develop as hoped?”

“Now you got it. And that puts me in a conundrum, adding the fact that I’d like to pick a college player whose ETA is 2024, latest 2025 and that fits in our lineup. On the other hand, picking a high school kid with higher upside could be more beneficial in the long run if he pans out. Now, let me show you what my thought process is and why I am pacing around, trying to make a decision…”