A Rough Draft

Over the next week and a half there will be a little bit of normalcy brought back into my baseball life, as the annual MLB June Amateur Draft is almost upon us. Sure a lot has been changed, much to my dismay, but some of the same intrigue that has fascinated and drawn me in over the years still remains. The scouting reports, the player highlight videos, the rankings, the mock drafts, the discussions with people on all different forums and making my own predictions as to who the Pirates will take with their first few picks of the draft.

For me it is process I enjoy almost as much and sometimes even more than any other analysis of players, particularly MiLB prospects, and every imaginable metric under the sun. I can and have gotten lost for hours just reading about every draft prospect that could possibly selected. In the end I know nearly as much about them as I do my own children.

I have my favorites, which often change from day to day and sometimes hour to hour, there are players that I want to avoid like the plague and then there are the players that I want the baseball gods to bestow upon my team. For the most part it is more of the first two categories that exist in drafts, so there is not much praying involved. As of right now I am in the middle of the yearly process, which involves a lot of writing down names that fall in to each of the three, but mostly two, categories.

Round 1 (Pick #7)

Favorites

1) Heston Kjerstad (OF)-Arkansas 2) Max Meyer (RHP)-Minnesota 3) Reid Detmers (LHP)-Louisville

Avoiding

1) Nick Gonzalez (SS/2B)-New Mexico State 2) Garrett Mitchell (OF)-UCLA 3) Patrick Bailey (C)-NC State

Praying

1) Emerson Hancock (RHP)-Georgia 2) Zac Veen (OF)-Spruce Creek (Florida)

Comp Pick A (Pick #31)

Favorites

1) Dillon Dingler (C)-Ohio State 2) Jared Shuster (LHP)- Wake Forest

Avoiding

1) JT Ginn (RHP)-Mississippi State 2) Slade Cecconi (RHP)-Miami

2nd Round (#44)

Favorites

1) CJ Van Eck (RHP)-Florida State 2) Blaze Jordan (1B)-DeSota Central (MS) 3) Alika Williams (SS)-Arizona State

Avoiding

NO ONE

This of course is just a rough draft, with a lot of analysis going on behind the scenes. For the draft nuts like myself, these names are ones that you can talk about endlessly. For the causal fan amongst us, you may be wanting a little bit more. Don’t worry, that will definitely becoming. Until then you can always check out my original, off the cuff draft piece from over a month ago; some things have changed while others have remained the same. Or if you like, ask me to talk a little bit more about my current train of thought because I am always up for the conversation.