Hultzen is an above-average health risk. College pitchers have the worst turnout ratio of any other pick partly because they tend to flame out in the majors and mostly because they get injured and lose stuff.
Hultzen's stuff declined about a month and a half ago and his K/9 dropped signficantly since then. Given that hes moving to a 5-man rotation, how do we know that he has the stamina to maintain that early-season stuff?
Bauer was the only pitcher I would have considered at #2 as he had a rare blend of advanced pitching mind, stuff, mechanics, and polish. Hultzen is a nice prospect, but man this reminds of the year we took Morrow...

He is 92-94 and touches 96!  I remember trying to explain to people why Hultzen made sense for Pittsburgh when they were reported to be taking him, but didn't get much traction with the peanut gallery.  A 92-94 lefty with a ++change and +comand, in Safeco no less?  Yes, please.

Another reason this ticks me off is because with Bauer you could have handed him a 10-year contract and not worry about him breaking down, like Felix. With Hultzen we've added another key piece to our rotation that has timing bomb in his shoulder. At any point, Pineda or Hultzen could implode and destory your game plan.
 
The fact that Bauer has a better heater, better and more diverse offspeed, his stuff is still improving, better mechnics, better results in less of pitchers park, and obsesses about analyzing pitching... I really dislike this pick. I think Bauer's ceiling and floor are both higher than Hultzen's. 

Early this year he was hitting mid-90s and was K'ing in the high 14s.
 
Since the past month-and-a-half, hes been low 90s with some high 80s mixed in and K/9 completely dove downward.
 
His velocity HAS to recover to justify picking him this high. I can't see how Hultzen is better than Bauer ANYwhere without that added velocity back.
 
Which is his real velocity? His velocity over the past couple months is the same as its been pre-2011. That is a very long dead arm period for a pitcher with 6 days rest and not a ton of innings.

Not a huge fan of the Hultzen pick, but it's not the end of the world either. "Better" players were available, but the M's still got a reasonable pick. Getting say, the consensus 5th best player with the #2 pick is hardly a tragedy, especially when it's a LH college SP. By all indications, we could have very well ended up with Francisco Lindor. Hultzen is going to be very expensive, this pick was not made for the wrong reasons.
I will say it's been entertaining to see how quickly opinions on Hultzen have spun around on other M's sites in just one day. Anything can happen in the MLB draft. *Never* rip on a potential pick under the assumption that they're going to a different team.

Needless to say I've only seen a little video on him, but based on scouting reports he was sitting 90-95 early season and 88-93 late season. He throws a mix of four-seamers and sinkers. 

Drives me crazy that scouting reports have Hultzen as low injury risk and Bauer as high risk. The entire premise is false.

Late-season Hultzen throws about as hard as Bedard does now. Hamels throws a bit harder, but only by 1+mph.

A personal point of interest I just learned with Hultzen was that he grew up in Bethesda, Maryland - about 45 minutes south of me. If any of you make it out to Baltimore or DC, Bethesda is definitely an interesting place to visit. Imagine a city with all of the poor people removed, surrounded by (a) hicville country on one side and ghetto on the other, (b) DC to the south, and (c) the University of MD about 30 min away.
Some facts I pulled off of the Wikipedia page...
1st on Forbes' most educated American small towns
1st on CNNMoney's top earning American towns
1st on Total Beauty's Hottest Guy cities (I guess they must have mistaken me as a resident)
Best educated city in America on the 2000 Census
85.86% White, 7.92% Asian, 2.67% Black
$117,723 median income in 2007
12th most expensive housing in 2010 (avg house at $806,817)
8 Pulitzer Prize winners lived there as of 2009

I definetly prefer Hultzen to Cole, but really wanted Bauer if we were going for SP.. I really think thats a major miss. Bauer had franchise player type potential. 
 
Hultzen is a very safe bet to be a #2-#3 SP that fits really well in Safeco. I think hes a bit of an injury risk, but he should be good and probably soon.

On the other hand, what if Hultzen early-season velocity was a sign of things to come?
 
Hultzen was sitting a legit 90-95 and was striking about 15 K/9 in the first couple months.
 
It makes you wonder, what if that velocity comes back? He would be scary.
 
I'm not sure if I agree that Hultzen is a safe pick (the change in velocity and mechanics), but there is upside there and he is probably already MLB ready (if not very close). 

I've looked over Hultzen's video again, and I have to categorize him back as high risk from an injury perspective. He displays the high elbow and poor timing at times. He also has an inconsistent followthrough and supinates his forearm. I also don't like the fact that he doesn't utilize his body in the delivery (poor hip/shoulder separation). He doesn't have awful abduction or timing, but hes has red flags everywhere.
I've been trying to buy into the Hultzen decision, but looking over it again I think Hultzen's velocity NEEDS to come back to justify him at #2. The results were simply completely different. He was the most dominant pitcher in college (Ks) when he was stting in the mid-90s (and its understandable with that decption), but merely good when back at high 80s low 90s velocity.
After giving it time to sink in, I still really dislike the decision to take Hultzen over Bauer, but it could work out IF that velocity comes back.

Beating a dead horse at this point so I just wrapped up my take on Hultzen.. I followed him closely this year (more than anyone on this board) and the Ks DROPPED the second he stopped sitting in the low-to-mid 90s like he was in the first two months.
My opinion is that the early-season velocity is a significant part of his prospect status. He can be a good #2-3 (thats a good Safeco fit) even with the declined velocity, but I want more with a top 2 pick.
Sitting 92-93mph he was monster. He was running a K/9 around 15 with minscule hits+BBs and was completely unhittable.

Thanks man. :-)
Looks like he was sitting in the low 90s early in the game, and around 90-91mph for the rest of the game.
Thanks for graph above as well. If you re-format a little we could figure out exactly how the numbers differed..

Good stuff, we can break this down now. More accurately Hultzen's velocity was probably gradually declining. Early season reports had him SITTING mid-90s, but the first report I heard of high 80s being mixed in was start #10, so I'll use that as a cutoff point.
1st half (high reported velocity):
61.3 IPs
1.17 ERA
5.6 H/9
1.5 BB/9
14.3 K/9
9.9 K/BB
 
2nd half (lower reported velocity):
53.6 IPs
1.67 ERA
6.2 H/9
2.2 BB/9
9.7 K/9
4.46 K/BB
So we can see that while the overall hittability did not change much, the dominance was at a completely different level. Hultzen particularly early in the season was especially dominant. Through his first 5 starts, Hultzen was running a 16.25 K/9!
This is why I think the velocity is extremely important when projected Hultzen's upside. We will find out very early next season what we've got in Hultzen.

As a close follower of College Baseball (huge OSU Beaver fan!) I completely disagree with your assessment.  I think that the difference in first half and second half statistics has much less to do with reported velocity (especially since I trust "reported" velocities about as far as I can throw the scouts and campus crew who are recording them ;) ), and much more with opponent faced.  You have to remember that college players don't have spring training and that the first half of the season is very similar to the big colleges tuning up and against much lesser competition.  It is very similar to the MLB guys throwing spring training games to a bunch of AAA'ers.  Especially for the teams in big time conferences ( like Virginia and the ACC ).  His stats changed drastically because the hitters he faced changed drastically.
Take for instance one of my favorite players, Sam Gaviglio.  Who through his first 6 starts of the season was working on 41 straight scoreless innings.  Of course it was coming against Connecticut, and Hartford and UC-Santa Barbara.  Sam id a great pitcher and was on a great run, but of course once the incredibly tough Pac-10 season started his results took a slight tumble.  He still posted nice numbers but it wasn't the almost 14k per 9 he was running in the first half, or the 5 k/bb he threw against non Pac-10 opponent (as opposed to the 2.5 k/bb he had against the pac-10).
Both goo pitchers (Hultzen better of course), both had their stats diminish because of starting conference play.  I am sure that fatigue especially towards the end of the season also set in, but this is mostly an opponent effect. 
I would say that the ACC's sched in terms of difficult non conference to conference is AT LEAST as drastic as the difficulty going AAA to MLB.

Perhaps thats part of it, but the drastic change in K/9 correlating with velocity loss has to be the main culprit. Usually if a pitcher is striking out 15 K/9 in A-ball , it won't drop to under 10 K/9 in high A. If it does, its a sign that the stuff won't translate as well at higher levels.
 
 

Regardless of whether the gun was adequately reflecting 90 or 95 mph, Dreamcatcher's numbers show a definite pattern of velocity dropping from the first to the sixth inning.  Stronger early, less strong as the game went on.

Hultzen was not dominant (though he had 6 K in 6.1 IP).  He never looked like he had the hitters bamboozled, and he certainly labored in the first inning in particular.
But!  he never gave anything up.  He just threw a very effective, if not dazzling, game.  And he helped himself with a very athletic defensive play.
It is true that Hultzen is a big part of their offense (he hit 5th and stayed in the game as DH after leaving the mound), so I don't know if we can directly translate how his season will go when he's not batting and taking BP and playing 1b (and, trust me, Charlottesville is a hot, humid place once summer weather starts).  I wouldn't discount that they think he'll benefit from giving up hitting.
It seems pretty clear that he's capable of Vargas-plus results even without added zip.  Admittedly, that would be kind of a letdown with the #2 overall, but that's also a pretty solid floor if you assume Rendon was damaged goods, that the HS kids wouldn't sign and if you were not a Bauer-believer (I wasn't; Taro was).  However, I think that we easily could see more from Hultzen.  (But considering that the actual Vargas just beat the actual Cole Hamels, maybe we don't need more than a super-Vargas.)

Jason Vargas 2.0 would be realistic mid-range projection, but I'm hoping for more.. Maybe Z is banking on that velocity coming back with a new workout routine or under Eliot's program?

How to explain the huges K loss correlating with velocity though?
And the video? Where is he throwing a Santana/Hamels change? He doesn't have their 3rd pitches either (curve and slider).

Right, but the Ks clearly dropped over a larger sample. College level ball is generously High A even at the high-end (realistically closer to single A). I'd be more concerned about Hultzen if his K/9 dropped so extremely because he faced slightly better competition. That would suggest that his game isn't going to translate at the higher levels. Someone like Hamels was King 14+ in AAA.
I don't think thats the case though. With Hultzen's deception his fastball comes onto hitters a lot quicker than the raw velocity. It makes sense that he would be untouchable when he was sitting mid-90s early in the year. That may as well be upper 90s from a hitter's standpoint. Even at 92-93mph it probably looks like mid-90s.
Honestly Doc, do you grade him with a Santana-change based on the video? We have two seperate games fully taped and I'm not seeing that kind of change.

Plus for sure, but Santana/Hamels?
I think Hultzen is going to be a good SP, no arguments. If hes hes sitting low 90s he has a shot being an immediate ace though.

Struck out 8 of the 10 batters he faced in 3.0 IP (one fluky single -- bounced out of the fielder's glove, one popup), then left with "flu symptoms."  Replay ought to be on espn3.com.

The velocity in the first couple of innings is what Hulzen was sitting at early in the season. I'm still a bit concerned because it seems to die off in the middle-later in the game, and has been inconsistent this year, but its good sign that it came back in his last start of the year.
If Hultzen can sit around 93-94mph as a pro, I think he has an excellent shot at being an immediate impact player. If hes sitting 90-91mph like more recently, I'm a lot less high on him..
Or maybe he ends up in the middle? I think its impossible to know until he gets a couple months of starts in the minors next year.

Great memories from 2009.. :-) I was clearly wrong in hindsight on Fister and that was a borderline flame war. Let's pass on having Part 2.

Hultzen looked like he should have stayed in bed, but came out firing and dominating. Too bad he couldn't stick around to finish the game. But those radar gun readings look great, and you can't argue with the results. The kid's a bonafide stud and a gamer.