Never Outhustled

1 thing to keep in mind when it comes to signing players this year is the changes in the slotting system. In the past, players drafted after round five were to be signed for no more than $123,300. That made it difficult to sign high schoolers with scholarships. This year, the amount has been raised to $150,000 and you may also sign 2 players for up to $250,000 without needing commisioners consent. The Brewers normally would sign about 25 to 28 players, but a few more might be possible this year because there are no DFEs.

BA had Willinsky as there #198th prospect. Inconsistent power reliever.

Obviously, I'm stoked as can be for Lawrie. I haven't been this excited for a draft prospect since I begged for Braun. Lawrie should debut in the top 10 in the P50, in fact, he should be #6. Odorizzi was slated to go to Colorado at # 25 for weeks, so I didn't put him in my 6 pick mock, but he slid down when Friedrich slid to Colorado. He's exactly what you look for in a HS arm. His velocity has been on the increase just lately. I'm suprised so many are disappointed with the Fredrickson pick. Scouts say he has the same fastball, and a better breaking ball, than White Sox 2007 1st round pick Aaron Poreda. Poreda is also a huge lefty that played at the same college.With a few treaks as a pro, Poreda has took off, and presently has a 3.34 ERA in A+. Everyone should be esctatic with that kind of production from a projectable pitcher taken after the top 10 picks. Poreda had a better ERA at San Francisco, but wasn't close the Fredrickson in K totals. Fredrickson was red hot to end the season, we may have nabbed him at the perfect time. Lintz is another perfectly projectable HS arm. Cutter Dykstra is a true baseball player, and also has batspeed to hit for power. The only underwhelming pick to me was Logan Shafer. He just seems to be a low ceiling guy. I feel the same way about him as I did when we selected Gwynn and Eric Farris. There was some really interesting players still on the board, like Aaron Weatherford and Chris Carpenter.

Or the Pirates could have drafted laPorta, signed him for slot, and he might be in the Majors today. As Patrick said: Of course you have to make sure you make the right pick (attention Pirates).

Jack Z has averaged .5 pitchers before round 3 in his 1st 8 drafts. If he drafted 3 pitchers before round 3 this year, that would be a massive influx of pitching compared to usual.

Isn't the main reason he is falling because not every team is willing to take a 1B that high? He'd have no problem being the top 1B most years. Just the fact the he's a solid 1st rounder suggests his career will be pretty awesome. As we were told last year when the Brewers took LaPorta, 1/2 the college 1Bs taken in round 1 have made the HOF. He had a terrific year this year, that can't be ignored.

Actually, Erracart is the only 1 we have now. LaPorta can play RF, Nelson OF and 3B, and Fielder can't play 1B http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. We both love Lawrie, but Smoak is pretty awesome, and a very safe sure thing. It makes sense to keep drafting sure thing 1Bs, and then flip them for pitching. Melvins actually done it twice already with Sexson and Overbay.

If Smoak falls out of the top 10, its possible, while a longshot, he's available at #16? The Brewers have to pick him then right?

BA is speculting that the White Sox new farm director might convince them to pick his godson, Jason Castro. That would pretty much slide the board enough to guarantee multiple quality college arms for the Twins to choose from at #14, and giving us a shot at Lawrie. Castro would be a terrible reach at #8. The Reds picking Lawrie at #7 was a little far fetched too. I love Lawrie, but I wouldn't pick him over Posey, Matusz, or Gordon Beckham. We seem to have man crushes on a number of the same players. We're not the same person are we?

Bill Hall is worth far more to a team that will use him as a middle infielder than what he's worth to the Brewers as a 3B. If we can get a starting pitcher for Hall, than thats what should be done. Dillon can platoon with Branyan until Gamel is ready.

I never thought of Cutter Dykstra to the Brewers, but I guess I should have, the Brewers love bloodlines.

Heres a thread at Minor League Baseball by John Sickles on who will ranked the top 10 prospects in baseabll next year. Every fans list has LaPorta, and some have Gamel.

LaPorta with homer #15 in game 2, and Dave Welch is, um, having success early.

Miley and Stovall in the supplamental round? That would be underwhelming.

Fielder had more win shares than Kazmir last year, (Kazmir only threw 206 innings) so I don't know how they'd have won 12 more games with Kazmir. However, this argument actually shouldn't even exist. We're grading Jack Z's draft, so we should only be looking at players he could have drafted. Its not Jack Z's choice to only draft players who sign for slot. Kazmir signed for well over slot, a big part of why he was available to the Mets.

I like Jemile as a 2B, but I think Gamel and Escobar are the guys who'll replace Hall and Hardy.

My guess is the Brewers thought Brewer was pressing, trying to do too much because he was disappointed about being back at WV. Whatever the reason, it looks like it was a wise move. Brewer is 4-10 with 3 walks and just 1 K and 0 errors with BC.

Wow, another rediculous statement. Trolls aren't welcome at Brewerfan. Devall would jump at the chance to be the next Yo Gallardo, but he doesn't have that kind of ability.

Thats rediculous. How many of those guys finished in the top 5 in the MVP voting last year? None. Francoeur wouldn't even start on the Brewers. Kazmir is good, but hasn't had a great season yet and is fragile. Blanton and Francis are just average pitchers.

During Salome's suspension, he got to spend a whole lot of time working with Charlie Greene on his defensive skills. Charlie Greene is a terrific coach. Oddly, it may turn out that the suspension was a major positive for Angel's career.

Dominguez broke his arm in the 3rd game of 2006, and redshirted. Heres his Louisville player profile I thought you did a solid job with your last 5 picks. With #16, obviously I'd rather have Lawrie, I haven't been as excited about a potential pick since 2005, when I begged for Ryan Braun. If Lawrie was gone, and Scheppers was healthy, I'd be esctatic with him, and I don't usually want to target pitching. He'd be just too good to pass if healthy. However, with the injury, I'd need more info about him before I could pull the trigger on him.

I agree with your post, but Lawrie is not a regular HS players. He's been mashing college and pro pitchers all spring.

It was kind of Bush of me earlier to critique others selection without posting mine, so here I go. Bang away. 16. 2B Brett Lawrie, for all the reasons I posted earlier. He could be a more patient Dan Uggla, or a righthanded hitting Chase Utley. 32. 1B Davis Cooper, He plays at Cal, which is notorious for supressing power numbers. If you were to curve his stats for this you could argue he's been every bit as good or better than any hitter in college baseball this year. No one right now is complaing that Laporta wasn't a need pick, and Cooper's bat fits that same category. In most drafts, he'd be the top 1B, but this year is an unbelievable crop of 1Bs, pushing him down the board. To put into context how hitting at Cal effects a players numbers, just like at the Cal 1B before Cooper. Thats Brewer prospect Chris Erracert, who presently has a 900 OPS in AA as a 3rd year pro. Erracert's best college season was his Jr. year, when he hit 288 with 8 homers. Cooper is hitting 378 with 19 homers this year. 35. IF/CF Tyler Ladendorf, possible 5 tool player with excellent production at JuCo level. 53. LHP Robbie Ross, good velocity for a lefty, smooth delivery, athletic, good makeup, strong slider. Only negative is lack of height, but the Brewers don't get hung up on that. 54. RHP Scott Gorgen, again , the Brewers don't get hung up on height. Gorgen has pitched every bit as well this year as any draft eligible college pitcher. He has a plus changeup, which will allow him to be a quality reliever if his braking ball doesn't improve enough to keep him starting. While short, he's wide, strong, and athletic. 62. 3B Chris Domingez, huge raw power and power production (21 homers), and made big strides defensively this year with just 6 errors (3B draft prospect Connor Gillaspie has 16) and slicing his K totals to a manageable 45, down from a D1 leading 88 last year. Whats especially impressive is this is just his 2nd year of college game experience as he redshirted with an injury his freshman year. The Brewers love big upside, and this 6-4 240 pound rocket armed monster has it. 94. LHP Dave Duncan, huge with upside, sinker could be more effective in pro ball. 128. CF Charlie Blackmon, spent 1st 3 years of college as a pitcher, used as a position player for the 1st time this year, and still was able to hit 383 with 8 homers and 20 steals. Big, strong, and athletic with upside.

Thers been a ton of discusion of the merits of the Brewers loading up on pitching in the draft, because its a present need at the Major League level. This lead me to checking into the validity of this, so I checked out the 4 most recent drafts to use history as a guide. Based on recent history, drafting pitching for a quick fix is not realistic for the Brewers. There are no starting pitchers from the draft held 1 year ago, drafted #16 or later who signed for slot value, starting in AAA yet. There are no starting pitchers from the draft held 2 year ago, drafted #16 or later who signed for slot value, starting in the majors. The draft 3 years ago is the best draft in recent baseball history. There are 3 starting pitchers from the draft held 3 year ago, drafted #16 or later who signed for slot value, who are starting and have ERAs under 5, as of May 30th. They are Micah Owings, Garret Olsen, who only has a 6 game sample, and Matt Garza, who the Rays aquired this past offseason for a position player. Despite an awesome draft, theres presently just 3 pitchers who are assets to there teams rotations. The 2004 draft was opposite of the 2005, it has been just bad so far. Amazingly, there's not a single pitching starting in the majors who was drafted #16 threw round 5 who signed for slot value. While I didn't have the ability to peruse that entire draft, the only remotely effective starter I could find was 13th rounder Andy Sonnastine, who presently has a 4.98 ERA. Our own Yovanni Gollardo was an extremely effective starter, but he is presently on the DL. Its interesting that a HS pitcher beat all the college pitchers to the bigs, as most are suggesting the Brewers draft college pitchers for the quicker impact. Jason Windsor made some starts in each of the last 2 years, but was ineffective, and is no longer in the Bigs. While teams have consistently found quick impact pitching in the draft, those players have been long gone by pick #16. Loading up on pitching early, in a draft filled with impact college bats, and a few interesting HS bats, would be haphazard, and would destroy the Brewers oppurtunity to have possibly their best draft in the last 9 years.

Actually, if you look at the draft day thread from last year, I predicted he could be in the Bigs as early as this year. However, Laporta wasn't available at #16.