KG released his Top 50 today in terms of pure talent, with a mock draft coming tomorrow. Here’s where he ranks a bunch of the guys the Phillies have been linked to…

22. Anthony Hewitt, SS, The Salisbury School (CT)
What He Is: On a pure tools level, he’s the best athlete in this year’s draft, maybe the past several years.
What He’s Not: A baseball player.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: An absolute monster.
Backup Plan: You want fries with that? All kidding aside, he’s a bright kid who’ll go to a good school and end up just fine if this whole baseball thing doesn’t work out.
Open Issues: His risk/reward balance is so thrown off that people have a hard time coming up with a good valuation; like many East Coast prep kids, he’s a year older than most high schoolers.

25. Zach Collier, OF, Chino Hills HS (CA)
What He Is: A toolsy player who rocketed from decent prospect to surefire first rounder with an outstanding spring.
What He’s Not: Polished or experienced.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: A player with a very good batting average and decent power.
Backup Plan: Fourth outfielder.
Open Issues: Without a ton of power or a ton of speed, is he a tweener?

28. David Cooper, 1B, California
What He Is: Yet another bat-only college first baseman, but loaded with everyone’s favorite two p’s, power and plate discipline.
What He’s Not: A guy who will ever be a good defender or win a foot race.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: A middle-of-the-order run producer.
Backup Plan: Something less than that, but he’s pretty much first base and DH only.
Open Issues: He is what he is, as his body doesn’t offer a ton of projection.

30. Daniel Schlereth, LHP, Arizona
What He Is: The son of an NFL lineman and a bulky lefty who’s velocity is hard to match among this year’s crop of southpaws.
What He’s Not: Anything more than a reliever.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: Randy Myers?
Backup Plan: More of a set-up type.
Open Issues: He has a long medical record, including a Tommy John surgery; his delivery has a lot of moving parts.

38. Brett Devall, LHP, Niceville HS (FL)
What He Is: As advanced as any high school arm in the draft, with outstanding control and a deep arsenal.
What He’s Not: A power arm.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: A fourth starter.
Backup Plan: Some kind of big leaguer.
Open Issues: Can the fringe-average fastball set up the secondary stuff? Does his ceiling justify his price, or is there such a thing as a safe high school arm?

We’ll do this one with bullet points, just some general thoughts. Tomorrow I’ll post my final mock draft as well as some thoughts on the Phillies 7 early picks, and then on Thursday we’ll follow the draft as it happens and discuss the Phillies picks as well as other picks of note.

* Jim Salisbury, the only Phillies beat writer who really gives service to the draft, had some interesting notes in this article, which you may have seen by now. This is the money quote from Arbuckle;

“Can we take a kid who is worth $300,000 and give him $1.5 million? No,” Arbuckle said. “Can we take a kid who might be worth $350,000 and give him $600,000? If we see value and it’s the kid we want and that’s what it will take to sign him, then yeah, we might do that.”

There is some promise there, but of course “might” is the operative word. My stance on taking the best talent is well known. I don’t expect the Phillies to go crazy and sign every unsignable kid to a huge bonus, I just don’t want to see guys taken and given well below slot bonuses just to keep the draft budget down.

Continue reading More draft thoughts →

Wow. It really kind of crept up I suppose, but the draft starts next Thursday at 2PM, and the first round + comp round will be shown on ESPN2 I do believe. I’ve posted two mock drafts, and I suppose I’ll churn out one more next Wednesday, trying to incorporate the murmurs on what teams are thinking. There’s lots of smoke and little fire at this point, and I trust the track record of teams more than the latest buzz, and those track records are what I built my last mock draft on, so not much is likely to change, but I will make a few adjustments. I’m going to devote this post to the first round and the compensation round, and then I’ll look at guys we can possibly grab in the 2nd round on Tuesday before wrapping everything up on Wednesday before the draft. On draft day, I’ll make a draft discussion thread and update it as the day progresses. If you’ve just stumbled onto the site, you can check out everything I’ve written on the 2008 draft by clicking here. You can see my first mock draft here, and my second mock draft here. Now, onto our first 2 picks.

Continue reading The draft is a week away →

I meant to do a writeup on this before, but it slipped my mind. I just read Callis talking about it again two days ago, so I guess its time to address it, even though I’d just like to ignore it and move on. In his first mock draft, posted a few days ago, Jim Callis at BA projected Anthony Hewitt heading to the Phillies at #24. Here was his writeup

24. PHILLIES. Philadelphia GM Pat Gillick built the Blue Jays’ World Series clubs on sheer athleticism, and the best athlete in this draft is Hewitt. He’s very raw, but that never has scared Gillick. Collier and Hood are two other possibilities.

Projected Pick: ANTHONY HEWITT.

This fits the profile. The Phillies love raw athletes, and they loved them even before Gillick came aboard. Hewitt is an apparent “toolshed”, ala Greg Golson, but from what I remember before Golson was drafted, Hewitt is even more raw. Golson was a highly touted prospect, ranked the 7th best prospect in Texas, which was loaded in 2004. So, how did Hewitt make it here when he wasn’t even ranked by BA in their Top 100 high school seniors?

Continue reading First Jim Callis mock draft/impending doom →

Baseball America has an article today talking about the choices for pick 1.1, and while that doesn’t really pertain to the Phillies, near the bottom of the article there were two interesting tidbits.

Front-office executives contacted for this story said MLB had yet to inform clubs about the 2008 slot recommendations. However, the enforcer of MLB’s slot system last season, former MLB vice president Frank Coonelly, has taken over as president of the Pirates. Pittsburgh picks second overall, and Coonelly said in his introductory press conference that the Pirates wouldn’t be beholden to a slot bonus and would do what they needed to improve the club. He has reiterated the point since.

One NL scouting director commented, “Everyone will be waiting to see on Pittsburgh. Is (Coonelly) going to step out of the system?” If the Pirates do, the director predicted, other teams could follow suit, though those decisions will be driven more by ownership than scouting directors.

MLB officials already have informed clubs of several small changes to the slotting program. Last year, teams were told to not give any player selected after the fifth round bonuses higher than $123,300, the slot for the last pick of the fifth round. This year, clubs have been informed they can go up to $250,000 for bonuses for two players without having to run those bonuses through the commissioner’s office.

Also, MLB sent a memo to clubs telling them in effect to take the player they want and not to worry about signability—though this should not be seen as a signal to spend heavily. It’s more likely a case of the commissioner’s office providing more flexibility to scouting directors who are disgruntled about the effect of slotting on the draft, though it’s uncertain whether owners will actually open their wallets. Agents are certainly still trying to steer their players toward more free-spending clubs, according to area scouts.

This is pretty interesting. Then again, the Phillies took a pick last year they thought they could sign (Workman), then didn’t when they realized what it would take to sign him. Hopefully the Phillies have a plan with regard to what they can spend and they draft accordingly. Oh, and lets not draft any 4th/5th year seniors in the first 8 rounds just so we can give them well under slot bonuses. Thanks.

Baseball America has the update today;

Jonathan Mayo has reported in his blog and Baseball America has confirmed with two scouts that Fresno State junior righthander Tanner Scheppers has a stress fracture in his shoulder and will not be able to throw for six weeks. This is obviously a significant blow to the draft stock of a player who had a strong chance to go in the top 10 picks in June, not to mention a crippling blow to Fresno State’s postseason aspirations.

//

There are just five college starting pitchers who are regarded as sure-fire first-round picks, so Scheppers going down figures to boost Tulane righthander Shooter Hunt’s chances to go in the top 10 and help Eastern Kentucky lefthander Christian Friedrich sneak up close to the top 10. It also could impact the back half of the first round, where clubs might reach for a college pitcher like California’s Tyson Ross if they don’t feel comfortable taking a risk on Scheppers. Whoever does land Scheppers will get a high-upside talent at a spot in the draft that would have seemed very unlikely up until this week.

So, how does this immediately impact the Phillies? Well, the Phillies were only able to land Cole Hamels because he was coming off an arm injury, and they turned the same trick last season, taking an injury risk in Joe Savery who slid down draft boards because of the uncertainty surrounding his labrum. Scheppers was being pegged as a potential Top 10 guy, I had him at 13 in yesterday’s mock draft, and this should slide him down lots of boards. The Phillies are picking lower in the first round than they have in a long time, and Scheppers will likely be the most talented guy available. Clearly they’d have to really make sure his arm is sound and he’s fully healed, but this could really work in the Phillies favor.

Three weeks ago, I rolled out version 1.1 of my mock draft, so I figured it was time to do a bit more digging, try and find some more info that might make the pick a bit more clear, and then make a few necessary updates. To be clear, I have no inside information here, its based strictly on looking at players available and then the team’s past drafting history. I’ve compiled first and supplemental first round data for all 30 teams from 2003-2007, in hopes of finding patterns which might make this a bit easier. Of course, teams can always throw a curveball and do something unexpected, and even the most detailed mock drafts done days before will have things out of place. But thats part of the fun. So, for each pick, I’ll give my updated pick, my last pick for the team, and the under each team a brief analysis of past drafts. If you’ve found my site and you support another team, please chime in if I’ve missed anything, if you have some info on who the team is leaning towards, etc etc. So, lets get going

Continue reading 2008 Mock Draft, version 2.1 →

*disclaimer*

Mock drafts done two months before the draft are pretty much worthless, but as you know, I love thinking about the draft and trying to figure out what teams will do. So, I figured it would be fun to start looking at teams, consider their drafting strategies in years past, the available talent, and then start to think about how the chips will fall. Since the Phillies pick at #24, its highly unlikely we’ll have any idea what they are planning to do until we get a lot closer to the draft, but I enjoy these types of exercises anyway, so we’ll just go with it and then after the draft, we can look back on this and laugh

* end disclaimer*

So here goes

Continue reading 2008 Mock draft, version 1.1 →

As the minor league season kicks off and the rest of the phuturephillies team begins to flex their muscle with reports from their respective affiliates, I’m going to shift my writing to more analytical pieces, and for the next 2 months, I’m going to focus a lot of energy on the draft. My goal is to again have a Q/A with Jim Salisbury as we get closer to draft day, and also to start looking at potential draftees. I know there are a few big draft fans here, so hopefully we can get some interaction going on that front, even though its still 2 months away. The Phillies first few draft picks look like this;

#24
#34
#51
#71
#102
#109 (supplemental pick after 3rd round for failing to sign Workman)

So, with 6 picks in the first 109, the Phillies have a chance to add a lot of quality, the question, as it always is, will they be willing to spend? More below the fold..

Continue reading Time to start thinking about the draft →

Baseball America today released their top 50 college players in each class. You can check it out here. This kind of goes along with a previous post, talking about guys that slipped away. Kyle Gibson, who we took in 2006, is now ranked the #1 college sophomore in the country. Brandon Workman, who we failed to sign this past summer, is ranked the #13 freshman in the country. Incidentally, they are the only two guys drafted by the Phillies on any of the top 50 lists. Looking at this year’s junior class, ie, the draft eligibles, the Angels have four guys they drafted in 2005 and didn’t sign, the Red Sox have 3, including consensus #1 Pedro Alvarez, and a bunch of teams have two guys. 23 of players were not drafted in high school, which gives you an indication of just how fast things can change in the prospect world.