Draft News and Notes
Baseball America reports that Luke Hochevar, Pedro Beato, and Bryan Morris will be re-entering the draft. Hochevar is not a surprise, but Beato was expected to sign with the Mets and Morris with the Devil Rays.
Hochevar has made three starts for Fort Worth (Amer Assoc, Ind) with generally solid results. He went five innings in his first start against Shreveport, fanning nine and walking three while allowing four hits. In his second effort, against Lincoln, he fanned 10 and walked 4 in six innings, allowing four hits and two runs. In his most recent outing, he lasted 5 2/3 innings, giving up seven hits, fanning 9 and walking three in a 8-3 win over St. Joseph’s. (Oddly enough, Matt Harrington is playing on the same team.) His next start, I believe, is tomorrow against Pensacola in an afternoon affair. Hochevar has been consistently in the low 90s, and has hit as high as 97, according to reports.
BA also notes that Scott Boras is “advising” eight players in this year’s draft, in addition to Hochevar:
In order of how they ranked on our initial College Top 100 Prospects list, they are: Missouri righthander Max Scherzer (No. 3), Southern California righty Ian Kennedy (No. 5), Florida first baseman Matt LaPorta (No. 7), Arizona shortstop Jason Donald (No. 17), Arizona State outfielder Colin Curtis (No. 19), Cal Poly righty Gary Daley (No. 24), Tulane first baseman Mark Hamilton (No. 33) and Mississippi third baseman Chris Coghlan (No. 38).
Right now, I don’t see any of these guys as top-10 material. Scherzer’s been hurt and his secondary pitches have been questionable. LaPorta’s regressed this year, still hitting home runs but flashing very little pop otherwise. Kennedy’s also regressed, with his K rate declining and his ERA and his allowed jumping up. Scherzer will probably still go in the first round (the Orioles were reportedly interested at #9, but my guess is somewhere in the second half of the round), but the others are question marks.
MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo has a full cut at the top 30 on-line.
Probably the biggest question is where Washington’s Tim Lincecum will wind up. He’s been under consideration for #1 overall, and I’ve seen at one projection that has him sliding out of the top 10. There isn’t much question that he’s got quality stuff; the questions about him revolve around his small stature, his unusual delivery, and lack of a third pitch. Some think he’ll end up as a closer.
Mike Emeigh
Posted: May 30, 2006 at 01:44 PM |
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Haven't heard.
This article lists some of the more prominent DFEs.
-- MWE
-- MWE
The Mets don't have a first-round pick, but they have a first-round talent under their control. Everyone expects them to sign the 17th-round 2005 draft-and-follow.
"Who is Pedro Beato and why are the Mets guaranteed to sign him?"
RHP, A Dominican kid who went to HS in NYC. The Mets spent a late pick on him last year and he went off to a Florida JuCo. He took off there and is now considered a first round talent. The Mets are "guaranteed" to sign him since they have money and no 1st round pick to spend it on...the way DFEing works they have till a week before the draft to sign him.
Theres really no point in NOT signing him, unless they feel totally differnt about him than everyone else. ANd even then they might as well sign him since hes a nice commodity and would presumably still be a good trade chip 12 months after they sign him
Wow.
That'll be hard considering that in this year's draft there aren't any 1st round quality players available in the 1st round. /sarcasm...kinda
Bad year for the strategy that Sam mentions, but a good year to have lower first round and second round picks IMHO.
Well, then, hell. Just send a check to me. I'll put it to good use.
-- MWE
Dick Kaegel (KC beat reporter) suggests that the Royals haven't yet made a decision on their #1 - they want to see both Miller and Brad Lincoln pitch this weekend in the regionals. Lincecum is no longer in their mix (workload concerns, apparently).
Although the Pirates have been rumored to be looking at Kyle Drabek, Jonathan Mayo suggests that the only HS arm they are actually looking at is Clayton Kershaw (also a Texas kid). He still expects that the Bucs will take Morrow (with Lincoln gone to Tampa at #3).
Mayo expects the Mariners to take Hochevar at #5, the Tigers to take Kershaw at #6, and LA to take Greg Reynolds (Stanford) instead of Lincecum at #7.
-- MWE
-The deadline has not run out on Milton Loo. The Reds have until 48 hours after Loo's team finishes playing in the JC World Series.
-Cincinnati has also signed 25th-round pick Robbie Nickols, a 6'5" lefthander with low-to-mid 90s velocity.
Teams not signing draft picks in the first two rounds will receive compensation picks. For a first-round pick, the compensation pick will be in the same spot as the unsigned pick;
If there is no good #2 pick for the Rockies aren't they best off just picking someone who they won't sign and then getting the #2 pick next year when a better player will be available? Sure, they have to wait a year so the value is discounted somewhat but if they can get a significant better player don't teams have some motivation NOT to sign the players they draft? Will any team employ this strategy? I wouldn't be surprised if one or two teams lowball their picks this year.
Surprised to hear about the LA-Reynolds link, since they've got a good record under White and he looks an awful lot like a bum steer.
Beato has made a full recovery and showed three plus pitches at times this spring at St. Petersburg (Fla.) Junior College: a low-90s sinker that touches 96 mph, a sharp mid-80s slider and a changeup. He has a classic pitcher's build at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds and just needs to smooth out his mechanics and command.
Xaverian is in the same league a my high school and I honestly can't even imagine facing a guy with this kind of stuff. He must have seriously outclassed every pitcher who's ever pitched in this league. By contrast, here's the scouting report on someone who pitched against Xaverian High back in 1996 (I think we even won).
Less than classic pitcher's build at 5-foot-10 and 140 pounds. Wild mechanics and sporadic control on a fastball sits in the high 70's and has been clocked as high as 82 (I'm guessing -- no when even bothered to clock it). No breaking pitches to speak of.
On the other hand, I have no injury history to speak of and have logged very few innings over the last decade.
If there is no good #2 pick for the Rockies aren't they best off just picking someone who they won't sign and then getting the #2 pick next year when a better player will be available?
Is that new? Because I think the O's only got a sandwich pick for not signing Wade Townsend.
If that is true, then yea, that kind of makes sense.
Wow. I don't remember them being all that good.
-- MWE
-- MWE
In other words...exactly ONE double against his 14 or so HRs...which just scares the crap out of me prospect wise.
"Kennedy’s also regressed, with his K rate declining and his ERA and his [hits] allowed jumping up."
And his velo has declined, reportedly.
Minaya said he was never close to signing last year's 17th-round pick, Pedro Beato, who will re-enter the draft and now is a projected first-rounder. Apparently, the two sides were hundreds of thousands of dollars apart and stopped negotiating hours before their midnight deadline Monday.
"We just couldn't agree on the finances," Minaya said. "Around 6 o'clock at night, we knew we weren't going to be in the same ballpark."
It'll be very interesting to see if Beato's agent played this right. The right slot could make his choice a very good one; Beato slips a few places, and he could have one unhappy young client on his hands.
Everything I've seen suggests that Beato could go anywhere from 13-20.
-- MWE
Speculation: Perhaps the Mets have their eyes on someone from the D.R. or Venezuela, whom they now like better than Beato. This hypothetical someone might have created a very real ceiling in Omar's mind in how high he'd go for Beato -- in effect, giving him another option to spend that first-round money and less reason to reach higher for Beato.
-- MWE
Sorry for the OT, but I just had to point out that this construction reminds me so much of the HK-47 droid in KOTOR.
OK, I'm done.
So, did he kill a man in Laredo with his bare hands, just to watch him die? Coke lines off of naked hookers? Was he the real-life basis for the main character in "Fight Club"?
The repeated unspoken is just fueling my out of control speculations. Anyone know?
-- MWE
-- MWE
The "s(teroids) word" has come up alot in conjunction with Drabek. In addition hes supposed to be an arrogant, assholish SOB..of course that can be said about alot of 18-22 year old guys, especially guys who know their whole senior year of HS is directed towards making themselves some millions.
I'd guess that those 2 things are a factor in the Drabek rumors but theres got to be more than that, im sure theres also some specific incident that was real damning.
BTW, wasn't Drabeks dad supposed to be a reall good guy?
Mike is right though, no one will say anything on or off record bout Drabek.
Kasey Kiker also has some whispers about that sort of thing but less severe.
As far as how comperale situations go, suburban Atlanta lefty Miers Quigley drunkenly kicked out the window of a cop car his senior year (pretty routine behavior for Cobb county actually) and saw his stock fall some although its hard to say how much that incident made it fall bc he also struggled w a sore arm at the end of the spring.
Quigley was once a top 10 HSer but didnt go til the 19th round bc of all that plus signablity.
Lastings Milledge we all know about.
Thats all that comes up off the top of my head and even those 2 situations aren't very comparable to Drabeks
He played for a while on the same travel team with Bailey (and Kenn Kasparek, who is a starter for UT), but Bailey was 2 years older. Bailey is a lot bigger, and has better pure stuff. He's significantly more polished than Griffin (but noone has ever accused , and has been a big player on big stages for years. Beckett had better stuff as well in HS, bigger frame too. Wood is no contest - he's got what, six inches on Drabek? Kazmir was similarly impressive in the PG circuit when he was a senior, but threw harder then Drabek. Both of them have (had) the best breaking ball in the draft - I remember Kazmir's slider from the Wood Bat in the fall of his senior year as completely unfair for amateur hitters.
I don't remember seeing Patterson as an amateur, but again, he's a lot bigger than Drabek.
For Mordechai:
Without going into much detail, when you say that the whispers about Kiker are less severe than Drabek - are you sure? I can't imagine what it could be that would be more severe than the rumours about Kiker.
No one has ever accused Drabek of triple digits.
Colt Griffin is sort of apples n oranges with Drabek to me.
Now that you mention it he sounds pretty comparable to Everts to me. Both were 1st round SS prospects if they weren't pitchers. Neither real tall, though Evert has a couple inches on Drabek. Both had solid fastballs, good command and really good breaking balls.
ha, yeah, sorry. i didnt see yours when i posted. i started writing something then did 5 other things then finished.
"Without going into much detail, when you say that the whispers about Kiker are less severe than Drabek - are you sure? I can't imagine what it could be that would be more severe than the rumours about Kiker."
I actaully have no damn clue what Kikers rumors are other than "off field issues and makeup issues". I just hear it about Drabek more so i assume Drabeks problems are worse. I guess that could be bc Drabeks higher profile anyway
What do you hear about Kiker?
As far as controversy going into the draft, Tyler Clippard wasn't a big time prospect, but he got kicked off his HS team his senior year for DWI. There's also Gio Gonzalez who got kicked off his HS team because his coach wouldn't play his little brother and his mom wasn't pleased with that, IIRC.
Thanks, I will.
My newest speculation involves taunting Kiker endlessly about his name, followed by pistols at dawn at 20 paces.
Always good to know that I'm not missing what "everyone knows" but no one is saying. Like when everyone started calling Francisco Cordero "Co-co", as if that's what they had been calling him for years.
Now i mean it could be criminal activities but i mean if the cops have gotten invovled no charges or arrests have been made involving him cos that word would have spread.
I know most at his HS are rooting to see their kid make it big but HS being HS youd figure someone would havea grudge and would spread the HS rumors (that im sure exist) to the media with more specific detail and accusations
I do feel a little dirty vicariously wondering about the private life of a HS senior but its how it goes.
Plus im not that far removed from HS so its not like a long lost experience here.
Im actually really surprised that NO ONE knew about Jeff Allisons drug problems either cos you KNOW that a good portion of his HS did
See, I wouldn't care either if it didn't affect his draft position, but I keep hearing that Drabek is the most talented pitcher, but that he won't be picked first due to "character issues."
If he's still available when my team is picking, and they don't pick him and defend it because of "character issues", I think we fans have a right to know what those issues are. Character issues are just as likely to mean "lazy" as "the girl elected not to press charges." If it's leading to possible on-field changes, I think there's more of a right to inquire beyond morbid curiousity.
I agree with this. If Drabek is not having the sort of trouble that is likely to become a matter of public record, it would be unfair to him to make it public.
The only thing that I know for sure is that Drabek comes with a "potentially explosive, handle with care" label. Kiker, too.
-- MWE
Hochevar's next start - his last one before the draft - will be on Saturday against Shreveport. It will be the second time that he's faced the Sports, so we'll see how well they handle him.
-- MWE
It doesn't seem like Hochevar is that close to the majors, at least compared to maybe Lincecum.
I don't think they are, to be honest - I think that's a Boras-started rumor designed to drum up the market for/interest in Hochevar (and it wouldn't be the first time Boras had done something like that). Dick Kaegel, the Royals' beat writer for MLB.com, had heard nothing of the sort when Jonathan Mayo asked him about it.
-- MWE
The rumor is that they will only draft him if they have a pre-draft deal with him. So holding out won't be an issue.
Jim Callis said in a chat yesterday that "we should have a story up at baseballamerica.com in the next couple of days that will shed light on" the Drabek issues.
Seems to me that it's better not to bring it up until you can print real information. That sort of thing often causes issues to seem much more serious than they really are.
Is he going to be available at #24 realistically?
There's a good chance.
-- MWE
Then again, Chuck James is on the 40 man roster now. So what do i know.
Even better, he's from Georgia! Just moved across the river to Phenix City to join the best HS team around.
Kikier wears eyeblack when he pitches. I don't need to know much more than that.
I'm glad this is out in the open, because it has been bothering me for several months.
Maybe the AFLAC is the projected height :-)
if someone knows how to format this properly (since the pre tag no longer works) let me know.
<font face="courier">Last First Birth ht Th Dec Wins WPct ERA
Martinez Pedr 1971 71 R 281 197 0.701 2.72
Valenzue Fern 1960 71 L 326 173 0.531 3.54
Guidry Ron 1950 71 L 261 170 0.651 3.29
Colon Bart 1973 71 R 221 139 0.629 3.94
Hampton Mike 1972 70 L 239 138 0.577 3.97
Boddicke Mike 1957 71 R 250 134 0.536 3.80
Gordon Tom 1967 69 R 242 127 0.525 3.93
Honeycut Rick 1954 71 L 252 109 0.433 3.72
Higuera Tedd 1958 70 L 158 94 0.595 3.61
Guzman Juan 1966 71 R 170 91 0.535 4.08
Franco John 1960 70 L 177 90 0.508 2.89
Underwoo Tom 1953 71 L 173 86 0.497 3.89
Lidle Cory 1972 71 R 132 70 0.530 4.52
Cormier Rhea 1967 70 L 130 69 0.531 4.08
McClure Bob 1952 71 L 125 68 0.544 3.81
Shirley Bob 1954 71 L 161 67 0.416 3.82
Berengue Juan 1954 71 R 129 67 0.519 3.90
Bankhead Scot 1963 70 R 105 57 0.543 4.18</pre></font>
yeah, the only 5'9" guy on that list is tom gordon. not too many lefties either.
Can someone please explain this?
Kikier wears eyeblack
Hmmm...this plus use of the term "catcher" is making me think something about his sexuality is the problem for baseball teams.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it didn't sound as if Kaegel had ever even heard of Hochevar. If true (and presumably it's not), that's slightly amazing.
Not when you consider it was an mlb.com "writer"
and im only somewhat kidding
this makes no sense to me actually. And the Coco thing was kinda new to me too. Think it is from FrancisCO COrdero
"Speculation: Perhaps the Mets have their eyes on someone from the D.R. or Venezuela, whom they now like better than Beato."
Sorry for the OT, but I just had to point out that this construction reminds me so much of the HK-47 droid in KOTOR.
Psst - I thought the same thing. ;)
Well, the MLB.com writers are tuned in to their team's thinking. If the Royals were seriously considering Hochevar as an option, I'm sure that Kaegel would have heard something to that effect, and said so; he didn't know Lincecum's name, but he did know that Lincecum was no longer on the radar.
-- MWE
Kris Johnson from WSU and Brad Furnish from TCU.
I don't know if they're pitching, but if they are check them out.
They could be nice mid-round picks.
Chad Huffman is a good hitter for TCU.
At WSU Damon Sublett is a power hitting 2b (.394, .500, .642) and dominant closer (no ERs, 4 hits, 23 Ks in 12+ innings) but hes hurt somehow and i dont know what he'll be doing
Baseball America article on Drabek is at ESPN now.
Well, that cleared it all up! Let's hope this wasn't the Drabek article Callis was talking about.
I'm sure it was not.
-- MWE
disappointing
ROWDY HARDY WAYNE!
ROWDY HARDY GARTH!
Wait.. a pitcher named Rowdy Hardy was declared academically ineligible? Stunning!
Heck.. he sounds smart enough!
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