Cole Goes No. 1 to Pirates, as
Expected, but Lots More Intriguing Topics
The Pittsburgh Pirates ended months of
speculation Monday by taking UCLA righthander Gerrit Cole with the
No. 1 pick in this year’s first-year player draft. The first 60
picks are also now in the books.
With those early developments to draw
on, here are 10 overriding items from what we have seen so far:
1. The More Things Change, The More
They Stay The Same
In the final result, the six players
that were deemed to be the best talents in this draft ended up being
taken with the first half-dozen picks. The only real suspense was
which team would take Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon, but he ended
up going sixth to the Washington Nationals.
Cole and Rendon were projected to be
the top two picks in the draft at the start of the 2011 season, yet
neither player performed as juniors anywhere close to how they did as
sophomores, leading to all kinds of speculation in the weeks leading
up to the draft that their status would be impacted accordingly.
But talent is still talent, and the
Pirates refused to be led astray in their pursuit of Cole, who had
the best raw stuff of any pitcher in the draft. Rendon, who dealt
with a nagging shoulder injury, had far too good a track record
before this season to slide too far.
2. UCLA Pair in Select Company
Cole and fellow UCLA righthander Trevor
Bauer were the first and third overall picks in the draft, marking
the second time in the event’s 46-year history that one college
team provided two of the first three selections. The first such
occurrence was in 1978, when Arizona State third baseman Bob Horner
was taken by the Atlanta Braves with the No. 1 pick and shortstop
Hubie Brooks went third to the New York Mets.
Rice came close to matching that mark
in 2004, when its three-man starting rotation of Philip Humber went
third, Jeff Niemann went fourth and Wade Townsend went eighth.
Cole became just the second pitcher in
draft history to be selected in the first round in a prior draft and
resurface later as the No. 1 pick overall. He was taken in the first
round of the 2008 draft out of a California high school prior to
enrolling at UCLA.
The only previous such occurrence came
in 1975, when Southern University catcher Danny Goodwin went first
overall to the California Angels, four years after the Chicago White
Sox failed to sign him with the No. 1 pick out of an Illinois high
school.
In 2006, righthander Luke Hochevar went
first overall to the Kansas City Royals, a year after he turned down
an offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the supplemental
first-round.
In contrast to Cole, Bauer was never
eligible for the draft out of high school as he enrolled at UCLA
midway through his senior year.
3. Pitchers Dominate
Led by Cole, the first four picks in
the draft were pitchers, a draft first.
The only previous draft that was
dominated by pitching right out of the chute was 2004, when shortstop
Matt Bush went first overall, and the next seven picks were pitchers.
Bush, however, has since become a pitcher himself after his career as
a position player went nowhere. He is currently pitching in Double-A
in the Tampa Bay Rays system, and his four wins this season have
pushed his four-year career total to six.
4. Tampa Bay Dominates
With 10 of the first 60 picks, Tampa
Bay can make an easy case that it has gotten more talent out of this
draft than anyone so far.
The Rays took South Carolina
high-school righthander Taylor Guerrieri (24th) and
Louisiana State outfielder Mikie Mahtook (31st) with their
first two picks, with both players sliding 10-12 picks lower than
where they were projected to be taken.
They then filled in with a nice cross
section of position players and pitchers, from all demographics.
Curiously, the Rays never took a player from Florida, as had been
widely speculated—if only to possibly get a local discount on a
player or two, to lessen the significant financial hit the team will
undoubtedly take to get all 10 players under contract.
Best draft to date, other than Tampa
Bay? That’s a tough call because of the incredible depth in this
draft, but Arizona, Milwaukee and Washington made some noteworthy
selections.
The Diamondbacks were targeting
pitching with their three picks Monday, and scored big by taking
Bauer with the third pick, Oklahoma high-school righthander Archie
Bradley with the seventh selection, and Kent State lefthander Andrew
Chafin midway through the sandwich round. With two of the first seven
selections, the Diamondbacks face a significant financial outlay to
sign both Bauer and Bradley, but Bradley’s bonus can at least be
spread out over a five-year period because of his dual-sport status.
Milwaukee landed two prime-time college
arms, Texas righthander Taylor Jungmann and Georgia Tech lefthander
Jed Bradley, with picks No. 12 and 15. Both pitchers were heavily
under consideration in the first 10 picks.
Washington didn’t pick first overall
for the first time in three years, but may have gotten the best
talent in the draft for the third year in a row if Rendon overcomes
the shoulder woes that plagued him this spring, and returns to the
same player he was as a college freshman and sophomore. He began the
2011 season as the consensus No. 1-ranked prospect for this year’s
draft.
The Nationals also scored by taking
Kentucky righthander Alex Meyer with the 23rd pick overall
and Miami-Dade JC outfielder Brian Goodwin with the 34th pick. Coincidentally, all three players are represented by the Scott
Boras Corporation, which also represents Stephen Strasburg and Bryce
Harper, the top picks in the last two drafts.
5. Wyoming In, Southern California
Out
In one of the more curious developments
of the 2011 draft, a player from remote Wyoming (outfielder Brandon
Nimmo, selected 13th by the New York Mets) was selected in
the first round, while no high-school player from talent-rich
Southern California was claimed in the first round for the first time
in draft history.
Nimmo became the highest selection ever
from Wyoming, which has no formal high-school or college programs.
The previous high pick from that state was University of Wyoming
outfielder Bill Ewing, the NCAA home-run leader in 1976. Ewing was
selected by the Angels that year in the fourth round. Wyoming has
since disbanded its baseball program.
6. For Whom the Bell Tolls
The highest-ranked player not to be
drafted through 60 picks is Texas high-school third baseman Josh
Bell, ranked No. 18 overall on Perfect Game’s list of the top 331
prospects for the 2011 draft. Bell, one of the elite power prospects
in the 2011 class, was passed over after he sent a well-publicized
letter to Major League Baseball, requesting that he not be drafted as
he intends to attend college at the University of Texas.
Those kind of letters, which typically
surface just prior to the draft, are not uncommon from top
high-school prospects, but are often be perceived by big-league clubs
as a smokescreen to discourage some teams from drafting a player so
he might fall in the draft to a team of his choice. It will be
interesting to see which team bites on Bell when drafting resumes
today, and when.
Other top prospects who were not picked
Monday are Tennessee high-school lefthander Daniel Norris (No. 19), a
Clemson recruit; Oregon State catcher Andrew Susac (No. 27);
California high-school catcher Austin Hedges (No. 31), a UCLA
recruit; and Arkansas high-school righthander Dillon Howard (No. 31),
an Arkansas recruit.
Also passed over were Texas A&M
righthander John Stilson (No. 37), who was projected to go by the
middle of the first round before a shoulder injury in late May
sidelined him for the balance of the 2011 season; and Texas Christian
lefthander Matt Purke (No. 44), an unsigned first-round pick from
2009 who was expected to be one of the top 3-5 players in this year’s
draft before he was sidelined off and on this season with some
shoulder-related woes of his own.
7. Georgia Not On My Mind
Unlike in the 2010 draft, when Georgia
high-schools produced five of the first 30 picks, the first selection
from that state didn’t come this year until the last pick of the
first round (33rd), when Richmond Hill High lefthander
Kevin Matthews became somewhat of a surprise selection. Matthews was
rankled No. 142 on PG’s list of the nation’s top prospects, and
was expected to be selected after at least 2-3 other Georgia players
had been taken first.
Notable other players who were drafted
higher than projected by PG were Stanford lefthander Chris Reed (No.
61), taken 16th by the Los Angeles Dodgers; and Nimmo
(44th), claimed 13th by the Mets. In all, PG
accurately projected that 27 of 33 possible picks would be taken in
the first round.
PG also nailed the 40th pick
(South Carolina outfielder Jackie Bradley), the 53rd pick
(Georgia prep outfielder Dwight Smith) and the 55th pick
(Florida prep righthander Hudson Boyd).
8. High School Players Dominate
Despite proclamations that this draft
featured possibly the greatest depth of college pitching talent ever,
more high-school players (31) were drafted through the first 60 picks
than any other demographic. There were also four junior-college
players selected.
If anything, catchers were in short
supply. Only one catcher, New Mexico’s Blake Swihart (Red Sox,
26th) was drafted Monday, with Susac and Hedges being
among the notable omissions.
9. Draft Oddities
Archie Bradley (Diamondbacks, 7th),
Jed Bradley (Brewers, 15th) and Jackie Bradley (Red Sox,
40th) were all drafted Monday, marking the first time that
players with that surname had become such a major factor. The only
previous occurrence that a player named Bradley had been selected in
the first round was in 1975, when the Dodgers drafted Kentucky
high-school shortstop Mark Bradley.
Second baseman Kolten Wong (Cardinals,
22nd) became the first native Hawaiian ever to be drafted
in the first round out of the University of Hawaii.
Four players in the first 14 picks were
drafted from Florida schools, but that state hardly can take credit
for their development.
High-schools infielders Francisco
Lindor (Indians, 8th) and Javier Baez (Cubs, 9th)
both grew up in Puerto Rico before moving to Florida, while Jose
Fernandez (Marlins, 14th) defected from Cuba before
landing at a Tampa high school.
The fourth player, Indian River State
JC infielder Cory Spangenberg (Padres, 10th), grew up in
Pennsylvania, and attended his freshman year of college at Virginia
Military Institute, before spending his 2011 season at a Florida
junior college.
10. Where Are The Players?
Major League Baseball continues to push
the draft as a TV production, but it was evident that it still has a
long way to go to be considered in the same realm as the drafts in
basketball, football and hockey.
The most glaring omission from Monday’s
made-for-TV event was the absence of early-round draft picks of any
kind, leaving the event with little buzz. Numerous projected high
selections were invited to MLB’s New Jersey studio, but every one
elected to boycott the event, for any number of reasons.
Only one player was in studio for the
second year in a row, and that player, Georgia high-school outfielder
Larry Greene, had to wait until the 39th pick before his
name was called.
Meanwhile, the NHL will conduct its
2011 entry draft in less than two weeks in Minneapolis, and not only
will it be televised throughout the United States and Canada, but it
will be witnessed live by thousands, including all 30 players who
will be taken in the first round. Major League Baseball could learn
something on how to conduct a draft by watching that event.