When I was a young front-office type back in the early 1990s, Houston Astros GM Bill Wood, one of the nicest people I’ve ever come across in the baseball industry, took me aside for a little lesson.

His message, somewhat paraphrased, was, “Your job in the scouting department is to create assets for me, the general manager, to turn into a team that can win the National League pennant. Don’t worry about what’s in our system, who’s on the major league club. Get me assets that I can use.”

When I think about the Tampa Bay Rays pick at the beginning of the 2008 draft, that lesson keeps coming to mind. Tampa Bay is set for a serious run, not only at the respectability that they’ve never achieved since expansion, but in the AL East race for years, even with the ominous presence in the division of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

What is the biggest asset a team can have in today’s major league environment? Young pitching! No one has too much young pitching; it’s like having too much money in the bank. If you are a GM and you have young pitching to deal, you can dictate your price.

Tampa Bay has great young pitching at the major league level with the likes of Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza, Andy Sonnanstine, Edwin Jackson, etc. The Rays also have great young pitching in the minors with Wade Davis, Jeff Niemann, Jacob McGee and David Price rising through the ranks. But a team never has enough pitching.

University of San Diego lefthander Brian Matusz seems to me to be about as sure a thing as can exist in a college pitching prospect. He has stunning consistency, four pitches that can be plus at times and a completely-clean health record. The most comparable prospect to Matusz in the past few years is Florida Marlins lefthander Andrew Miller, the consensus best talent in the 2006.

Miller, who was drafted with the sixth overall pick two years ago by the Detroit Tigers, was packaged with top outfield prospect Cameron Maybin last winter to acquire perhaps the best young hitting prospect in the game, third baseman Miguel Cabrera. That gives you a pretty good idea of what Miller’s value as an asset was.

On the eve of this year’s draft, it appears that Florida State catcher Buster Posey or Georgia high school shortstop Tim Beckham will be drafted first overall by the Rays. All indications point to Beckham being the pick, though there is a split opinion in the organization on the two.

Posey is a great prospect who should be a solid major leaguer with a B.J. Surhoff career track. Beckham is the best athlete in the high school class and a player along the lines of the Upton brothers, who went first (Justin) and second (B.J.) when they were drafted.

But who is potentially the biggest asset for the Tampa Bay franchise over the next 1-3 years as they move towards the top of the AL East standings, and possibly in position to even win a World Series?

For me, it has to be the top college pitching prospect in the 2008 class: Brian Matusz.

DRAFT WILD CARDS

Draft wild cards are prospects that for signability, talent or injury-related reasons—or a combination thereof—are difficult to nail down to a range where they might be drafted. They could go very high, they could slide to an accommodating club, they could slide out of signability range altogether.

Some of the biggest wild cards in the 2007 draft were righthander Rick Porcello, catcher Matt Wieters, righthander Andrew Brackman and righthander Matt Harvey. On draft day, first baseman/outfielder Matt LaPorta was added to that list. All but Harvey (third round) were drafted in the first round when it was all said and done, but where those players were ultimately drafted caused other prospects to move into their slots.

Who are their equivalents this year?

--Fresno State righthander Tanner Scheppers is obviously one. Teams were scrambling to get accurate medical information on exactly the nature of his shoulder injury, after it was evidently misdiagnosed initially as a stress fracture of the shoulder. Scheppers looked solid as a 10-15^th pick overall, but where does he go now?

--California high school righthander Gerrit Cole is even more complicated. He may have the best fastball ever for a high school pitcher, with late spring reports of him touching 101 mph. He has Scott Boras as his advisor. There are also questions about his delivery, his secondary pitches and his baseball personality. But on raw talent alone, every team has to account for him.

--Vanderbilt third baseman Pedro Alvarez was the top prospect in the 2008 class coming into the spring. A broken hamate bone shaded his performance this spring, and he also has Boras as his advisor. So what’s the difference between Alvarez and a historic group of similar college corner infielders that includes Yonder Alfonso, Justin Smoak, Brett Wallace and Ike Davis, and even top high school slugger Eric Hosmer? That’s for the teams at the very top of the draft to figure out, weighing cost vs. perceived certainty.

--California high school outfielder Zach Collier and Connecticut prep third baseman Anthony Hewitt both have great tools, but neither has a significant track record against prospect-level pitching. With scouts more and more focused on evaluating high school prospects well before their spring senior seasons, how does this play in?

MARLINS PICK AT NO. 6

The most common name associated with the Florida Marlins in the No. 6 slot is California high school catcher Kyle Skipworth, the best high school catching prospect since Joe Mauer. While I wouldn’t bet on Skipworth winning a batting title, I would definitely take the over/under with odds on Skipworth hitting more major league home runs than Mauer, who hit his first of the 2008 season the other night.

But what about Yonder Alonso? The University of Miami first baseman is regarded as the most professionally-ready hitter in the draft. If he hits with power, he could be a perennial all-star in the big leagues.

The twist for the Florida franchise, when considering Skipworth vs. Alonso, is that Alonso is a Cuban-born young man who, like so many Miami-area citizens, came to the United States as a youngster and has thrived while family and friends remained behind in the Castro-state. If Alonso becomes an all-star, he not only becomes the face of the Marlins franchise but the face of a community. What are the business/marketing implications of that and how does that compare to the scouting/development comparison of Skipworth vs. Alfonso?

If there was ever a ready-made hometown selection, Alonso would be it.

Hey, wasn’t Mauer, a St. Paul high school player, considered a hometown selection in some circles when the Twins picked him over Mark Prior with the first pick in the 2001 draft?

HIGH SCHOOL PITCHERS

Lining up the high school pitchers in the order they will be picked is a difficult task. I have always felt, when considering the strengths in this draft (college corner hitters, college power relievers), that high school pitchers will slide out of the first round and weigh heavily in the comp round, where teams with extra picks are more likely to take that chance.

So which high school arms stay in the first round?

Missouri’s Tim Melville entered the spring as perhaps the top commodity in this demographic, but struggled early in the spring with many factors beyond his control (weather, family issues, freak injuries). But he was his old self late in the spring and now seems like a lock to go in the first round.

Cole, on the strength of his huge fastball, has to figure in somewhere, although it will likely be later in the round for a niche team, much like Porcello slid conveniently to Detroit a year ago.

No one has disputed, at any point, that former third base prospect-turned-power righthander Ethan Martin belongs in the first round. Nor has Illinois righthander Jake Odorizzi done anything to suggest he isn’t a first rounder. He was touching 95 mph in his last outing with his best breaking ball of the spring.

Texas righthander Ross Seaton? Same story. Aaron Hicks (California) and Casey Kelly (Florida)? Count on them as position players. Mike Montgomery(California), Tyler Sample (Colorado) and Kyle Lobstein (Arizona)? Extremely projectable and worthy of consideration.

I said a month ago that there would be only three high school pitchers in the first round and I still think that might happen. Maybe four, but that’s it. So there may be some high school pitchers who come up a bit disappointed on draft day.

OTHER THOUGHTS . . .

--I’m not sure why there is speculation that the Brewers will take Miami second baseman Jemile Weeks with one of their six picks in the first 62. It’s a lose/lose situation for the Brewers. They already have a second baseman named Weeks. If Richie learns to hit (he’s currently batting barely .200 and has yet to prove he’s an every day big league hitter), then there isn’t a spot for Jemile. If Richie doesn’t hit, then how does Doug Melvin go before Milwaukee fans and say, “The last Weeks didn’t hit, but they are brothers and very similar athletes, we think this one will hit.”

--The more and more I hear about Canadian Brett Lawrie and his hitting ability, the more impressed I am. Lawrie could be drafted before the Toronto Blue Jays get a shot at him at No. 17. I had an interesting conversation with righthander Stosh Wawreszek, who has played with Lawrie through the years, at Perfect Game’s Pre-Draft Showcase in mid-May. Stosh, who throws 90-93 mph with a 78-mph curveball, pitched to Lawrie on various British Columbia and Team Canada squads since Lawrie took up catching last year. At the beginning, Stosh related, Lawrie couldn’t catch a thing and was a danger to himself. But by late this spring, Lawrie had improved so much that he considered him the best catcher he had ever thrown to and had complete confidence in him in all regards.

--Scouts play a dangerous game when they talk about taking relief pitchers and moving them to starting roles because their raw stuff profiles better. Texas Christian righthander Andrew Cashner started in high school and for two years in junior college, and struggled, which is to say he has a track record as a starter. Arizona’s Ryan Perry has the same type of track record as a starter, not good. Notre Dame’s Kyle Weiland has no track record as a starter at all; he’s been a college closer for three years. Some arms and personalities just work better out of the bullpen.

--Last year’s head-scratcher in the first round was the previously-mentioned LaPorta, drafted by Milwaukee with the seventh overall pick. The converted first baseman was hitting .288-13-43 in his first 50 games in Double-A, and has left everyone saying, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

So who is this year’s surprise in the top half of the first round going to be? There are about 16-18 players whose names are in the top 15 on every speculative draft list. Who is going to break into that bunch? A high school tools-monster like Collier or Hewitt? A polished college hitter such as South Carolina’s Reese Havens or Wichita State’s Conor Gillaspie? A hard-throwing reliever like Arizona’s Daniel Schlereth?

It’s difficult to say, but there probably will be at least one. There almost always is.