Who will the Padres take?
June 6th, 2010 | Published in Myron Logan, San Diego Padres, baseball, draft | 2 Comments
The MLB draft is tomorrow, televised on MLB Network at 4 PM PST. The San Diego Padres select ninth in the first round and then not again until 59th.
The Mock Draft: Attempting to predict what all 30 teams are going to do in the first round. Generally fun, generally sort of useless and hard to do. Good for discussion, though. Below, I have listed, from difference sources of various credibility, a few mock drafts:
| Source | Player |
| Keith Law | Karsten Whitson, RHP, HS |
| Baseball America | Kolbrin Vitek, 2B, Ball State |
| Kevin Goldstein | Nick Castellanos, 3B, HS |
| Minor League Ball | Michael Choice, CF, UT-Arlington |
| Jon Heyman | Zack Cox, 3B, Arkansas |
| MLB Bonus Baby | Kolbrin Vitek, 2B, Ball State |
There are more at the Mock Draft Database.
The name I’ve heard most is Kolbrin Vitek, the 2B from Ball State, but that surely doesn’t mean the Padres will take him. If they do, it sounds like a position change is a no-brainer, and that he will be targeted for center field.
From what Jed Hoyer and company have said, and based on their track records, it appears that the Padres are going to take the “best player available.” Not a bad philosophy when, you know, the idea is to get a good baseball player. In all seriousness, I have a lot of faith that the front office is following a good process here. We will have to wait and see if the results follow.
June 7th, 2010 at 2:49 am (#)
mb, the thing is who i think is the best player available might be completely different than you think is the best player available. I’m sure the Padres thought Stauffer, Dykstra, Antonelli, Schmidt, etc… were all the “best player available,” when they were taken with the teams 1st pick. Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but you have to agree that the more prevalent thing might be to figure out who does the front office is the best player available.
From looking at previous drafts (and various blogs and message boards) it looks like our FO is high on HS bats and college pitching. Well the problem is that neither of them are #9 pick status (unless Pomeranz falls) So then when options 1 and 1A are taken who do you take?
IMO the best player available will be Karsten Whitson, but there has been virtually nothing linking him to the Padres. It appears that barring someone from the top 3 falling, the Padres will chose between Vitek and Choice. Choice is definitely the more “elite” prospect, but has problems with his swing that could lead to a huge bust. Vitek is easily more polished and a 1st round talent, but he doesnt have anywhere near the ceiling of Choice.
So safe pick for the new regime, or do they gamble?
June 7th, 2010 at 7:50 am (#)
Ben, the Padres’ scale, at least in the Fuson-Alderson years, was weighted heavily towards “low-risk.” Most people would agree that “best player available” means “most talented,” not “good combination of talent and cost.” It’s clearly not easy to decide on “most talented,” but there’s no way the Padres thought that Dyktra, Schmidt, or Antonelli had the best baseball skills and tools of the available players. Other teams followed (and still follow) a similar model, it’s not a character flaw, but it’s something like having a fetish. Guys who like flabby women (or women who like flabby men) aren’t working off the same scale as most people, but on their scale, the flabsters are the “best.”
I’ll be disappointed if they take Vitek. Small conference, didn’t go to the Cape, has to move to a new position out of the gate. I do like that there’s no consensus among the predictions, that means we’re not leaking like a BP oil well as we used to.