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.