With just three rounds under our belt we have a long night in front of us tonight. The good thing is that we have the opportunity to digest what has transpired and create a comprehensive plan for tomorrow, which will be rapid fire. The bad thing is that the draft at this stage is much more unpredictable.
Nevertheless, we're very happy with our first day. We've been excited about selecting Tate for weeks, were pleasantly surprised that Williams was still there, and were happy to add a starter with both athleticism and stuff.
Thanks for all of the comments so far. We're excited that you're excited.
16 comments:
picking Tate is great, but what gives fans reason to be optimistic you sign him. I have serious doubts.
Are Max Stassi's bonus demands completely outageous, or is he just really strongly committed to UCLA? I'm hoping we up the draft budget a "bit" more and get the high upside catcher we need in the system.
I love the draft so far, it's exciting to get some guys with upside and athleticism. I think a defensive outfield will lead to wins in Petco.
When was the last time that the Padres began the draft with 2 HS prospects? Speaking of HS prospects will we see another 6 or 7 late round HS players that have a strong commitment to college? If so is there a better chance that we sign a Brett Mooneyham this year?
Also, I agree with Jeremy that the Padres might not be able to sign him. He was on BP with Darren and Randy Jones this afternoon and he seemed almost more interested in football then playing baseball (but that might have just been my impression).
Thanks Paul for keeping up updated.
The theme so far seems to be "Tumbling dice." Do you feel the farm system has matured to the point that gambling is more apropriate, or is it just dictated by the available talent?
While I didn't hear the interview Padman42, one thing it could be is not showing his cards to try and get more from the Pads.
The evil agent may have already advised him to put up a front that he's more inclined to play football, in order to try and get more money from the pads.
Other guys I'd love to see us target tomorrow:
Zack von Rosenburg: From what i've seen he's a projectable high school kid with great fastball command
Keyvius Sampson: A big HS arm, who says you have to spend a 1st round pick to get mid 90's velo.
Kent Matthes/Angelo Songco: Might as well continue the OF stockpiling with some more "typical" Padres picks. Good college hittability OFers with plus power.
Luke Bailey: Will he be able to throw? If so, a good fallback if we don't go with Stassi.
Also: Daniel Tuttle/Michael Heller: Power armed HSers
Shaver Hansen/Derek McCallum: Offensive College 2b
Stephen Perez: Little SS, big bat
I'm glad Padres have gone for athleticism and position players not simply Billy Beaned the lower ceiling college pitcher. I hope Moorad proves his worth with these tough signs. Hope someone did a medical so he doesn't pull a Schmidt, Dykstra, Carillo, Stauffer. Comparisons to Bush and Faison are way off Tate is the first Padres 5 tool potential since Ray McDavid pre-having the brace named after him.
Very good first day Paul. You guys deserve a lot of credit for taking some chances. This is the second year in a row where I can't believe our good fortune in round 2. I was stunned to see Darnell there and I am stunned to see Williams there (I see him as a Curtis Granderson type). I expect that Williams will be an above slot signing like Darnell.
It's great to take the risk, but you have to close now. Drafting and not signing players is not an accomplishment :)
Would love to see a Max Stassi type dropper. It would be nice to see that type of commitment to add another first round caliber player outside of round 1 (much like Darnell and Portillo last year), but I would guess the draft budget is already pretty committed.
Do you guys like Washington closer Brian Pearl OR AJ Morris out of Kansas State?
Tate talking about his football commitment: It's what smart players do to maintain leverage.
Very happy with the team's first 3 picks. Now let's grab some of the drops and values in the next few rounds.
Paul,
It looks like the Padres have changed their draft philosophy a bit this year taking two high school players with high upside and potential signablity issues, is this a result of new ownership/management, the lack of success of the old philosophy or are you guys using the same philosophy and these are the picks that have resulted from it? Either way I love the first two picks and don’t really know much about the third but from what I have seen so far I like!
field39,
Certainly the maturity of the system has helped, but quite frankly this was about taking the best available players at the time.
Stephen Cook,
That is an excellent question and the answer is #3: no change in philosophy.
The fact is that we have not picked in the top 15 for a number of years so the available talent is quite different.
We've actually taken a number of excellent athletes in the past couple of years: Forsythe, Darnell, Tekotte, Hunter, Antonelli, Chalk, etc. I think athleticism is often mistaken for crudeness. Just because one guy has more polish to his game does not mean that he isn't as athletic.
This year we just didn't see an abundance of good college athletes with some skills, so we leaned heavily on the high school position players early in the draft.
Lean on another one. His name is Max Stassi.
I'm VERY excited about our draft as a whole this year. Not only did we go for big upside in the first two rounds, pouncing on a faller in the second, we also picked up a guy from my overnight wish list right off the bat this morning! And then we just went BIG.
I'm looking forward to the basketball team running out there in a couple of years. Some great athletes here.
My question for Paul is: do you see this crop of players as significantly riskier than the more college oriented "Depth" drafts of the past couple of years?
Obviously, we've had some terrible first round luck (Carrillo, Schmidt, Stauffer), but it seems that we're taking a different type of hitter and a different type of pitcher this year.
I would argue that with the more recent shift toward lower upside, "signable" college players in the sport in general, it actually makes sense to target high schoolers with signability issues. Even if the don't eventually pan out as Major Leaguers, they're more likely to show scouts significant skills in the next couple of years, perhaps becoming more valuable trading pieces than the pitchability/hittability guys we've been prone to taking.
I'm actually a bit surprised that teams stay with slot as much as they do. When we passed on Porcello a couple of years ago, it seemed pretty clear that he'd be likely to proved a better return on investment than Schmidt, even if only because of trade value, even before Schmidt came down with the injury.
I just hope we sign our draft picks in the first 4 rounds. Love the picks but it doesn't mean anything if they don't sign. We have had enough heartache this year to see that happen as well. Please try and let us have some confidence in the organization.
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