Draft Refresh
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Stub here for a fresh battery of questions at G-Money. When he put up that great article last week, and the ballclubs started drafting, first thing you noticed was that G's "ones to watch" hitters flew off the board like Peregrine Falcons. Also, he reacted to Sam Carlson like "He'd a been fine at #17 overall" and the Mariners promptly said exactly the same thing after they drafted him. Guess my question there would be what caused the tumble to #55; the trend against High School pitching is strong, but that strong? Teams just felt skittish about the 6-months-a-year Minnesota snow, I guess.
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EVAN WHITE, 1B
I am heavily biased against this template, the glove-first 1B. G sez "think Eric Hosmer" and the Mariners reinforced that too. But here's the thing: the average WAR return over a #17 pick's CAREER is about 5.0 or so.
The biggest question on a mid-round first pick is really --- > does the guy wind up starting for you in the bigs. Other questions are secondary. It's not like the NFL, where the pressure on you is to get an All-Pro at that spot in the draft. The M's need decent return, and they advertise that Evan White will deliver it. Sporting News concurred that Mr White is "great value" at #17. That always boggles me, the idea of "great value" at such a high pick. LOL.
Looking at this draft generally, you think about Heredia, Gamel, and Haniger as performance heroes as opposed to Jesus Montero & Co. as pedigree heroes.
Scott Hunter sez "Evan White had me at hello" which reminds you of Kyle Seager types. Here is a Seattle Times article with video.
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SAM CARLSON
One of the main reasons that Sporting News gave the M's an A in their evaluation. The M's happened to be in Minnesota when they drafted Carlson so could bring him into the clubhouse. Did I read right, that the first 10 picks are pretty well locked up?
Lookout Landing has an article with an excellent vid of Carlson's motion. For a teenager?! the American-style checkpoints just go bing-bing-bing. From an aiki dynamic-CG standpoint? It is butter-smooth acceleration of the CG, great connection of the CG to the energy in the baseball, graceful deceleration that doesn't look like much wear and tear. The guy was in high school? Must be very gifted in the mind-body department.
LL's comprehensive piece also discusses Carlson's arsenal at length, with great videos of each pitch. Fastball: already ML plus. Curve: you can see the Erikkk Hanson two plane break from the monitor. Change: -10 MPH but arm action is hard to tell.
It's an amusing question: how do high school hitters survive such a pitcher? Carlson got blasted in the state final (?). Doesn't matter; I'm just wondering how an 18-year-old gets a hit against a prototype James Shields. Just noodling, y' unnderstan'. ... well, it was a state championship lineup, and some 18-year-olds are purty good hitters.
Jason Churchill had Carlson going #18, immediately after the Mariners' pick. Here is his writeup on Carlson, actually on the first round. His description has Carlson as able to compete in the big leagues right now, from an arsenal standpoint, though Jason wouldn't put it that way.
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M's DRAFT GRADE
That isn't how I look at it. But the M's head of drafting, Scott Hunter, sez
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Mariners director of scouting Scott Hunter said this after Day 1: “I don’t think as an organization we could have done better than we did today.” He’s not wrong. The Mariners’ aren’t here just because of their first-round pick, Kentucky first baseman Evan White, though he was great value at No. 17. No, Seattle’s here largely because of its second-round pick, Sam Carlson. See, Carlson was expected to be a first-round pick — both Baseball America and MLB.com rated the prep right-hander from Minnesota as the No. 15 overall prospect in the draft — but there he was when the Mariners picked at No. 55. Sure, maybe he dropped for a reason and maybe Carlson won’t have a great career. But the Mariners have to feel pretty fortunate that a prospect who works in the mid-90s and was considered a top 15 prospect was around at No. 55. So they get an A in this evaluation exercise.
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ASK G-MONEY DEPT.
My first Q would be, where do the M's draftees fit in their current top 15-20, if at all. Would you rather have Sam Carlson or Nick Neidert if you had 5 minutes to choose? Evan White or Dan Vogelbach?
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'ave at thee,
jemanji