Did someone say "Lance Berkman"?

I'm about as far from an expert scout as you can possibly get, but I absolutely love Smoak's swing. I think he's going to make whichever team takes him very, very happy.

Is his bat Ryan Zimmerman insta-callup material? If he's expected to shoot to the bigs quickly I'd love to see him in Washington.

"Is his bat Ryan Zimmerman insta-callup material?"

That's a pretty high bar. I'm probably too conservative to predict that for anybody.

I do think he could be in the bigs by the tail end of 2009, if everything goes right.

Does anybody know if the A's really have a chance to sign Smoak out of highschool and were just cheap, or was he going to college no matter what. I've heard about a thousand versions of this story and have no idea what to think about it.

This is what Beane had to say about it in Jan 07:

Blez: There have been different reports about what happened in the negotiations between you and Justin Smoak. Smoak's turned into a great prospect. Baseball America reported that he wanted $1 million and that you were offering $950,000. Was it ever really that close?

Beane: (Laughs) No, no. I'll try and give you the Reader's Digest answer. We never even made an offer to Justin. In fact, when we drafted him, we drafted him late. He was projected to go in the first or comp round. To his credit, he made it quite clear the amount of money that he was interested in signing for. We just said we'd draft the kid late just in case there was some point during the summer he changed his mind. Quite frankly, I'd spoken to him and he's a great kid. I know his coach a little bit at South Carolina and we at no point were trying to bribe him out of his scholarship because it's a great university. To put it plainly, we said we look forward to seeing you in three years, go out and have a great career. In fact, Justin and I had a conversation at one point even though he had a number that he wanted he was very committed to going to South Carolina and I congratulated him on that decision. We never even made an offer. That was total fiction. I can assure you that if we were between $950,000 and a million dollars we would've found a way to get it done. I was a proponent of the kid going to school. He was committed and he's a South Carolina kid. I think some of the college programs are a great developer of talent and I'm a big fan of these kids going and coming out three years later.

http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2007/1/31/12213/8750

"Does anybody know if the A's really have a chance to sign Smoak out of highschool and were just cheap, or was he going to college no matter what."

He said before the draft that he wanted a million bucks to sign, and they took him late to try and see whether he'd come down from that to something that was smaller (but still above slot). He didn't, so they didn't sign him.

[Edit: Or what Winnie said.]

He said before the draft that he wanted a million bucks to sign, and they took him late to try and see whether he'd come down from that to something that was smaller (but still above slot). He didn't, so they didn't sign him.

Damn. Seems like a million bucks would have been a bargain. No way the A's are getting him now.

"Damn. Seems like a million bucks would have been a bargain."

Yeah, but in fairness, if any other team thought he was worth a million bucks at that time, they would've taken him in the late first or sandwich round. It's not a misjudgment that's exclusive to the A's.

Yeah, but in fairness, if any other team thought he was worth a million bucks at that time, they would've taken him in the late first or sandwich round. It's not a misjudgment that's exclusive to the A's.

True. I'm just retroactively bummed about it.

Giants, please!