Projection, jection
Hopefully people get my weak Schoolhouse Rock reference with the title…
Just wnted to let people know they should check out my first crack at the top 30 picks in the upcoming draft. The entire first round can be found here. Some interesting movement up and down.
Biggest rise: Andrew Cashner, from 20 to 11. Keep in mind that I only did picks 1-20 last week, so I can’t really pick players I have at 21-30 who didn’t seem to be in the first-round picture not long ago. Cashner, the TCU closer, is in the mix in a bunch of places (see rumor mill below) and is in the Rangers mix for sure.
Biggest slide: Shooter Hunt, from 11 to 20. He still could go anywhere from 11 down to 20, but some concerns about his command (which invariably lead to questions about if he can start) combined with some less-than-stellar performances lately may contribute to him slipping closer to the bottom part of the first round. It’s really been his last two starts, in which he’s given up eight earned runs in 14 IP (5.14 ERA), allowing nine walks while striking out 14. Unfortunately, last impressions often are the most important come draft time and losing in the conference tournament (6 IP, 5 ER, 5 BB, 9 K) probably hasn’t helped. If he comes out and throws well in his regional start before the draft, that might reverse the slide some.
Rumor mill: Couple of good ones floating around lately. One has Cashner rising up into the top 10… up to No. 6. The feeling had been the Marlins would take HS catcher Kyle Skipworth — and that might still happen — but it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any truth to this rumor about the big-armed TCU closer moving up that high.
The other one is one I mentioned in the projection, and that’s Gerrit Cole going to the Rangers at 11. He’s in the mix, it almost seems certain, but I’m hearing more and more that it’s a distinct possibility. He evideintly was registering regular 99 mph on guns at his last start, even touching triple-digits, with a lot of juice on hand to see it. Cole is a Boras guy, and right now it seems like the Rangers at 11 and the Yankees at 28 are the two places he could go in the first round.
MLB.com Geeking on the Draft 
mr. mayo, nice job on the mock. i was just wondering when the draft tracker with the scouting reports and videos would be up?
I’m checking into that. In the meantime, have you read through all the reports we’ve been doing that have enhanced video reports in them as well? They can be found at:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2008/reports.jsp
The Draft Tracker is expected early next week, as far as I’m told…
I noticed that you went a little light on the college bats in your round 1 projection. Any reason why you left David Cooper, Connor Gillaspie and Reese Havens out of the top 30?
I can’t say that there’s one specific reason, and I think all three could sneak in when all is said and done. I don’t think Gillaspie is really a first-rounder, at least not in the eyes of scouts I’ve spoken to about him. I had Havens in the top 30 at one point — and had heard he was gaining steam, perhaps with the Red Sox at 30 — but then I spoke to someone who mentioned that the Sox brass was at the beginning of the SEC tournament when Havens struck out three times in the opening game, perhaps adding to the concern about how his bat will play at the next level. As for Cooper, I wanted to get him in there, but just didn’t find the right fit. There are a couple of teams looking at college bats where he could figure in if the choices I laid out in the second half of the first round (Ike Davis, Jason Castro, Jemile Weeks, for example) don’t work out.