21st Round - Kendall Korbal, RHP from Blinn College in Texas
20 years old and 6'6", 210 lbs, Kendall has a fastball that reaches 93 and the makings of solid secondary pitches. He could end up as a starter or a reliever with power stuff.
22nd Round - Cody Decker, 1B from UCLA
A senior first baseman from UCLA, Cody banged 20 homers this season. He doesn't have the height of the rest of our draft class, but he attacks the ball and can hit it a long way.
23rd Round - Jeffrey Ibarra, LHP from Lee University in Tennessee
A California native and standing 6'6" and 180 lbs, Jeffrey is a left-handed reliever with a low 3/4 arm angle making him tough on left-handed hitters.
24th Round - Ben Davis, OF from University of Southern Mississippi
No flashbacks here...Ben actually goes by "Bo". A senior centerfielder, Bo plays with a lot of energy and hit .371/.488/.649 this spring.
25th Round - Ty Wright, OF from Georgia Southern
A 6'0", 235 lbs left-fielder, Ty was the Georgia Junior College player of the year in 2007 and a Second Team All-American in 2008. He combined to hit .365/.457/.658 over his past two seasons at Georgia Southern. Ty plays hard and has some serious strength.
26th Round - Kevin Winn, 2B from Louisiana Tech
Kevin had a big senior season at La Tech hitting .380/.440/.606 while striking out just 11 times. His father is Earl Winn, a scout for the Twins, and his brother plays in the Phillies organization.
27th Round - Cameron Monger, OF from University of New Mexico
Despite being a solid 6'2", 205 lbs, Cameron runs the 60 in about 6.3 seconds. He didn't get to play all that much this season at New Mexico, but he can impact a game with his speed.
28th Round - Vince Belnome, 2B from West Virginia University
A junior left-handed hitting 2B, Vince was a Third Team All Big East selection in 2008 as a sophomore and this year hit .417/.520/.655.
29th Round - Robert Poutier, RHP from University of Virginia
A 6'4", 190 lb reliever from UVA, Robert has pitched 54.2 innings over the past two seasons, yielding 49 hits and 20 walks while striking out 73. He has a nice FB/SL mix.
30th Round - Babawande Olabisi, OF from Stanford
A terrific athlete, Wande hasn't had much of a chance to play at Stanford, amassing just 23 ab's over the past three seasons. Nevertheless, he can really run and has plenty of strength. Wande was born in Lagos, Nigeria before moving to Saudi Arabia where he played for the 2000 Little League World Series team. He is a member of the royal family of the Urhobo tribe in Nigeria. Here's a good article.
That's it for today. We still have some work to do tomorrow, but we're pumped how everything has fallen so far. We feel we have a lot of upside in this draft, and we're happy to add so much size and power. If a basketball or football game breaks out in Peoria, AZ, we'll be ready.
10 comments:
we are so lucky you post Paul. Like power arms, exciting - like ocela pitcher. can we get some call ups to elsinore. theres nobody w potential outside of pelzer & forsythe. how about decker & darnell playing 2nd?
Go Lobos!
Nice to see the Padres pick up a kid from my alma mater, even if it is in the 27th round.
Monger is scary fast. He stole 58 bags in 56 games in JUCO. He may just be as fast as Tate.
Just curious, have the Padres taken any other Lobo players in recent years?
Paul, thanks again for the updates. Olabisi sounds interesting.
WebSoulSurfer: According to Baseball-Reference.com, the Padres have drafted five (now six) players from U. New Mexico. None reached the big leagues; the most recent was OF Mark Wulfert, 1995 (11th round).
A lot less "pitchability" and "ballplayers" in this Padres draft class, what would be the reason behind this change in philosophy?
Paul: just want to say "nice draft", appreciate the effort of the management team, and particularly, your blog.
The front office can't promise wins or pennants, but just give us exciting baseball - give the team a chance - and the fans will be there to watch. The problem with trading Peavy, Gonzo, or other key building blocks (as rumors have had it) is that it puts the chance of a pennant at 3 to 5 years - again. A 10 or 15 game losing streak or even indifferent field play doesn't deflate fan interest as much as FO moves that push out pennant hopes for years.
It looks like the Padres are drafting to put exciting players in the field for years to come. It's promising, very promising, and we'll all be watching. - Scott
Is there ever a decision to make about the two way guys or are they all generally considered pitchers that can hit until they prove they aren't big league pitchers?
guapo,
Though a lot of amateur players play both ways, they are usually drafted as one or the other. That doesn't mean that they can't or won't switch at some point during their careers but that doesn't happen too often.
Cptjacker,
It's all the same people here in the draft room, so there hasn't been any change in philosophy. I think it's really two things:
1) What happens to be available to us in the draft in any particular round
2) Player profiling
By "profiling" I just mean that people normally associate high school picks with athleticism and upside and college picks with polish and low ceiling. That isn't always the case. We've taken high schoolers at times that we thought had some polish and we've taken some college players we thought were raw and athletic.
Nevertheless, this draft class definitely has a lot of size, power, and athleticism.
Paul,
Is it safe to say that you intentionally focused on college players later in the draft, or did things simply shake out that way?
polyphonic,
Absolutely, and that's for two reasons:
1) Most high school players would prefer to go to college rather than sign for the relatively small signing bonuses in the later rounds.
2) We get to a point where we need to make sure we can field full squads in both Eugene and Peoria, as they start their season in about a week.
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