DRAFT 2008
For A Change, 2008 Draft Unfolds
Much As Was Projected
By Allan Simpson
The overriding theme in this year’s draft is that it went pretty much according
to form. Teams drafted players on the basis of ability, giving little or no
consideration to signability.
There were no cat-and-mouse scenarios comparable to what happened in the last
two drafts, when righthander Rick Porcello and lefthander Andrew Miller, in
particular, were able to conveniently slide down the first round to the Detroit
Tigers, who showed no hesitation in meeting their perceived final demands.
Porcello, the consensus best prospect a year ago behind No. 1 overall pick David
Price, established a big price tag for his services and scared off enough team
to reach the Tigers at No. 27. Detroit was also the beneficiary of the
reluctance of teams at the top of the 2006 draft in committing to Miller, the
No. 1-ranked talent. He went to the Tigers with the sixth overall pick.
There wasn’t a single pick in the first round this year who slipped appreciably
for signability reasons. Even the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the No. 2 pick,
showed no hesitation in drafting Vanderbilt third baseman Pedro Alvarez, the
draft’s projected No. 1 pick at the start of the 2008 season and still the No.
1-ranked overall talent at the end, according to a number of clubs. In recent
years, the Pirates had been reluctant to draft a player with a high price tag,
but that mindset appears to have changed with a new front office in place.
Alvarez is being advised by agent Scott Boras, who is expected to pursue a
multi-year deal with contractual guarantees that might approach some of the
biggest contracts in draft history that Boras has negotiated, including Mark
Teixeira ($9.5 million in 2001), Matt Wieters ($6 million in 2007) and Porcello
($7 million in 2007).
The irony of it all, from a Pittsburgh standpoint, is that new Pirates club
president Frank Coonelly previously worked in the commissioner’s office and was
responsible for recommending to clubs that they toe the line on a slotting
system that was instituted early this decade to curb escalating signing
bonuses. Most teams abided by Coonelly’s recommendations to pay bonuses on the
basis of a decelerating scale, and the first-round average for bonuses steadily
declined. But several clubs paid little or no heed to baseball’s unenforceable
de-facto slotting system—different from a slotting system in place in the NFL
and NBA, which were collectively bargained—and last year the first-round bonus
average climbed significantly to its third-highest figure ever.
It will be interesting to see how Coonelly handles the negotiation with Boras on
Alvarez, and it is anticipated it will take right to the Aug. 15 deadline to
get a deal in place.
While nothing is official, it appears the slot amounts recommended by Major
League Baseball for players in the first five rounds are roughly 20 percent
higher this year than a year ago. That would mean a reversal of the
across-the-board 10-percent rollback on bonuses instituted in 2007, while
adding roughly 10 percent to the slot amounts that were in place in 2006.
Draft Free-Fallers
While there were no projected first-round picks who weren’t drafted on the first
day, when six rounds were held, one player who was drafted much lower than
expected was Missouri high school righthander Tim Melville. He recovered from a
slow start to the 2008 to largely restore his value as a legitimate first-round
talent in the weeks leading up to the draft, but his family reportedly filed a
letter with all 30 clubs and the Major League Scouting Bureau to advise them
that their son intended to honor his college obligation to North Carolina. The
Kansas City Royals elected to draft him anyway, in the fourth round.
Several other prominent high school arms slipped much farther than their talent
warranted, including Kentucky righthander Daniel Webb (ranked No. 36 on PG
Crosschecker’s pre-draft top 250), New Jersey righthander Quinton Miller (No.
63), Tennessee righthander Sonny Gray (No. 67), Mississippi lefthander T.J.
House (No. 78), Georgia righthander Michael Palazzone (No. 88) and Indiana
righthander Alex Meyer (No. 103). All those pitchers were heavily committed to
college, and thus were significant signability risks. Webb and Meyer are
Kentucky recruits, while Miller has committed to North Carolina, Gray to
Vanderbilt, House to Tulane and Palazzone to Georgia.
Two players who fell significantly from pre-draft projections were Pepperdine
righthander Brett Hunter and outfielder Eric Thames, but both slipped because
of injuries. Hunter missed most of the season with a tender elbow and made two
appearances, with mixed reviews, late in the season before working one of
Pepperdine’s NCAA regional games, and reportedly touched 95 mph. Thames had
surgery on a torn quad and was expected to be out of action for 3-4 months.
Both players were selected in the seventh round, Hunter by Oakland and Thames
by Toronto.
All players who fell in the draft, either for injury or signability reasons, are
expected to be selected in the mid- to late-rounds and followed over the course
of the summer season before teams make a final determination to sign them prior
to or at the Aug. 15 signing deadline.
First-Round Firsts
As anticipated, there was a run on first basemen in the first round of historic
proportions as six were selected in the first 23 picks—seven if Arizona State
third baseman Brett Wallace ends up back at third base, his position his first
two years at ASU. Wallace, the 13th overall pick, moved to third
this season to accommodate teammate Ike Davis, who was selected with the 18th
pick. The only draft that previously produced as many as four first basemen was
in 1978.
Florida high schooler Eric Hosmer was the initial first baseman drafted, third
overall by Kansas City. A run on college first-sackers then began with Miami’s
Yonder Alonso (Reds, 7th), South Carolina’s Justin Smoak (Rangers,
11th), Wallace (Cardinals), California’s David Cooper (Blue Jays, 17th),
Davis (Mets) and Wake Forest’s Allan Dykstra (Padres, 23rd).
There was also an early run on catchers, with four selected in the first 18
picks. That also occurred in 1967 and 1975, but none of those drafts matched
the emphasis on catchers quite like 1970, when Georgia high schooler Mike Ivie
was picked No.1. That draft produced three catchers in the first four picks,
four in the first eight and six altogether in the first round.
A record-tying 21 college players were selected in the first round, duplicating
the figure achieved in 1992—though there were only 28 first-round selections
that year.
The 2008 draft also was significant from the standpoint that it produced a
record-tying low of two high school pitchers in the first round, a mark set
first in 1984 and duplicated in 1988. The first selection this year wasn’t made
until the 15th pick, when the Dodgers took Georgia righthander Ethan
Martin, who was primarily a third baseman until this season and was still
considered primarily a position player by some clubs. The other selection was
fireballing California righthander Gerrit Cole, taken by the Yankees with the
28th overall pick. Cole was reportedly clocked at 101 mph in one
late-season outing.
Showdown of No. 1 Teams
The NCAA super-regionals begin this weekend at eight sites around the country,
but the Coral Gables, Fla., regional should be the most intriguing as it
matches PG Crosschecker’s pre-season No. 1 college team Arizona, and Miami,
which has been ranked No. 1 continuously since mid-March.
Anticipation for that series heightened Thursday when the two schools combined
to have five players drafted in the first round, including Alonzo, second
baseman Jemile Weeks and Carlos Gutierrez of Miami, and pitchers Daniel
Schlereth and Ryan Perry of Arizona.
The trio of Miami players in the first round represented the fourth such
occurrence in draft history. Meanwhile, Arizona has a trio of its own worth
noting as sophomore closer Jason Stoffel could well join Perry and Schlereth,
who serve as his set-up men in the back-end of Arizona’s dominant bullpen, as a
first-rounder a year from now.
Miami had six players drafted on the first day, but no school played a more
prominent role through the first six rounds than Long Beach State, which had
seven selections. First baseman Shane Peterson was the Long Beach’s initial
selection at No. 59.