2007 Draft

[UK]

UK UK PM ME I LUV YOU.

With Vitters going to the Royals and the Doolittle rumors quietening, Parkers the best choice to project for them to take. They cant afford guys like Porcello or Wieters. They might be able to afford Price because he's the kind of prospect who you could have some returns to the investment on the sale of the team if hes a Prior type prospect.

I apprec. the love, I really don't have an idea though, I'm more confident with their 2nd pick. (Do the math)

[Asmodai]

Yeah but in my mock hes off the board. Oakland gets two picks before the Cubs select again. Its not likely that he makes it through especially since Beane knows Hendry was there.

[Izzyman]

Doesnt seem like to many of you guys are interested in the draft, if you are I will try to post the picks here as I hear them tomorrow. I will also try to give as much info as I know or can find on the draft picks.

I'm interestd, this is better than christmas. I just found out I have a game of my own so i'll read through these paiges to get my updates when I get home. I need you jdk you have to come through .

Thanks for everything you've done with the draft coverage.

[Fan_In_NY]

From one of my sources , the Orioles surprisingly have Wieters in their "last 5" to choose from. Considering they dont have a 2nd and 3rd round pick they can pool that money to sign him. They have been refusing to work with Boras in the past but there is no directive from Angelos coming down saying not to take a Boras player. Outside of Wieters, they are looking at just pitchers with Ross Detwiler, Rick Porcello, and Phillippe Aumont as three of their final 4 players on their short list. They feel that Price is definately going to TB, and the Royals may make Porcello their pick. Also the Nats have a good relationship with players from Jersey and may make a run after Porcello.

[Asmodai]

your second and third round picks dont add up to the much more than a million and wieters wants about 7 million over slot.

[BW23]

Callis guesses LaPorta. Mayo guesses Aherns.

[Fat Strat]

Did you guys catch this article by Goold on the PD?

Baseball Draft: Cardinals get STOUT
By Derrick Goold
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Jun. 07 2007

Any attempt to handicap who the Cardinals will take with the 18th pick in
today's entry draft is a fool's errand.

The Cardinals certainly have their type: They lean toward college players,
covet talent that has shown success in wood-bat leagues or tournaments, and
favor predetermined signability.

But those traits are only a portion of the flood of intelligence the Cardinals
have gathered, filtered, distilled and ranked in preparation for the draft.
Only the Cardinals know their recipe, making almost any projected pick, well,
half-baked.

"We have a very different way of looking (at the players)," said Jeff Luhnow,
the Cardinals vice president and farm director who enters his third draft with
the team. "We have different lenses that we put on them that will separate them
in very unique ways. It is possible our first pick or second pick will be a
little bit of a head-scratcher for the pundits who have predicted (those)
rounds. I think we have better information. We have better and different
information."

Despite winning the World Series, the Cardinals have their highest pick since
2000 because of their 2006 regular-season record. At No. 18, it will be only
the third time since Braden Looper was picked third overall in 1996 that the
Cardinals have had a selection that high in the first round.

The team, which will be represented for the televised portion of today's draft
by assistant general manager John Mozeliak and special assistant Alan Benes,
will have four of the first 82 picks.

It's No. 18 that makes this draft different.

"The caliber of player that we're talking about this year at 18 is definitely
different than the caliber of player that we've talked about at 28 and 30 the
last couple of years," Luhnow said. Added general manager Walt Jocketty,
"There's the idea the player you take (at 18) is closer to the big leagues, and
there's not a lot of projection."

Luhnow said the Cardinals have a group of 14 players they view as preferable
for the 18th pick. Several are high school pitchers, the likes of which the
Cardinals haven't selected since 1991. In a first round rich with prep
pitchers, that's a possibility in this draft, he said.

Steering the Cardinals to their top 14 and how they view 900 players under
consideration is an omnivorous program that devours their information and helps
sort the players. They used the program last year and improved on it this year.

"Version 2.0," Luhnow said. It's a blend of scouting and statistics that Luhnow
and his staff have taken to calling The STOUT System. That's a nickname
conjured by senior quantitative analyst Sig Medjal. The "ST" is for stat and
"OUT" is from scout.

"It's a very thoughtful combination of the stats and the scout's opinion coming
together," Luhnow said. "The STOUT System includes makeup assessment, physical
projection, hustle, athleticism. It takes all of that. Mechanics. Scout's
opinion on future defensive positions. The type of defender that player will be
at the various positions. Base-running skills."

The program also helps to equalize statistics from all levels of draft-eligible
competition. One of the players on the Cardinals' radar is Beau Mills, among
several highly touted third base prospects. He hit an NAIA record 38 home runs
and batted .458 for Lewis-Clark State, in Idaho. But the competition level
leads to questions about how his numbers compare to, say, a third baseman who
played in the Southeastern Conference.

The Cardinals have a way to calculate that. But it's not just numbers. The same
day the general managers from San Francisco and San Diego saw Mills play,
Luhnow was there. He recalls the ferocity with which ground balls were chopped
at Mills and that Lewis-Clark players' box in the offseason. Toughness becomes
a plus.

The Cardinals held five workouts for draft-eligible players, in which hitters
swung wooden bats and pitchers showcased their stuff. They also were used to
confirm what Luhnow described as the Cardinals seeing "some characteristics in
a player that we think we can change and turn them into a major leaguer where
the results haven't shown that so far."

An example would be North Carolina State pitcher Andrew Brackman. A former
power forward on the basketball team, Brackman has a 6-4 record and 74
strikeouts to 37 walks in 78 innings. He has a good fastball but reportedly has
fought elbow inflammation. He's a player, as Luhnow said, "you can dream on
being a No. 1 starter despite (the fact) his performance levels haven't reached
that level."

Money also factors into 18. With new rules in place — including teams receiving
an equal first-round pick the following year if they don't sign their selection
— it's difficult to read which players could fall because of uncertain
signability.

Georgia Tech catcher Matt Wieters, considered by some pundits as the best
college position player in the draft, is a candidate to fall for that reason.
The Cardinals may choose one of "those guys who would not accept what we have
to offer at this point," Luhnow said.

The rankings from STOUT and the signability projection join a gob of other
information on little magnets for each player in the Cardinals' draft room. And
there is one other element on some magnets:

A star sticker.

It designates what Jocketty has called a scout's "gut feel."

"That means this player is going to perform well above where he's going to be
taken in the draft," said Luhnow, who has drafted several of the organization's
rising prospects in the draft's second day. "It not only breaks ties, it moves
guys up. That's how we find big-leaguers on Day 2.

"We have people who have watched these guys for their entire careers," Luhnow
added. "We have people who know them personally. We've dissected their game in
numerous ways. Everything ... to find major-league players."

Very interesting. I wish I knew more about the players involved, but I just didn't have time to get into the draft this year.

Please keep us informed on what goes down.

[Izzyman]

Thanks strat that was a good article.

[Jocephus]

dont know if this has been posted yet, but its a draft prediction from some mlb.com writer...i'll just post the cards:

18. St. Louis Cardinals: Kevin Ahrens, 3B, Memorial HS (TX)
Long considered to be going to the Reds at No. 15, it now seems like Ahrens will be available here. The Cardinals seem not to be a college-only team right now and might want to show that by taking the high school bat in this spot. He plays shortstop in high school and isn't bad there, but the consensus is that he should move to third where he should profile better both offensively and defensively.
Last projection: Jake Arrieta

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd ... &fext=.jsp

[Fat Strat]

Matt Wieters, C

Someone scout him for me. What kind of production would he project toward that he's worth the signability risk that seems to be attached to him? Also, is it smart to take another C, when we have two young catchers already ahead of him in the system?

Personally, I don't think position matters much in the draft. Ability is what matters, but I'm just getting into this MLB draft thing, and I don't pretend to know anything.