It sounds like you might be a Rockie fan. Good to have fans on board to assist as you should be more interested in the team’s future than a casual observer.

Sorry about the misinformation on Francis. I wasn’t trying to diminish his (Canadian) college experience.

For the 1st round pick, I will particularly look for what is viewed as the best player available. Getting one of the top 30 amateur talents dictates that you deal with the positional issues later. Plus, in the case of shortstop, often players start out there professional careers there, but then they are moved to areas of need. Because usually if someone can play SS, he can play elsewhere.

If I understand this right, we will be drafting 5 rounds. If this is true, I’d be looking for primarily pitching, and athletic players with impact bats that will play in Coors Field. Colorado has done well recently taking athletes like Tulo and Holliday to improve both the team’s fielding and lineup. Even Brad Hawpe was athletic enough to make a decent transition to RF which helped add another solid LH bat.

Regarding Helton’s situation, I personally don’t feel Atkins hits enough to play 1B, nor do I feel Stewart would be an above avg. bat at 3B since he’s stalled in his progression from A ball. This draft seems to have large quantities of 1B types. I wouldn’t be shocked to see some good available players available once Rd. 1 is complete. Even so, a HS-drafted 1B would be hard-pressed to reach the Majors in time to replace Helton before he inevitably falls off with his production.

Basically, the approach I’ve outlined is that Colorado’s draft will be wide open in terms of scope. Whatever player is most appealing when it becomes time to pick will be chosen, more or less regardless of need.

I look forward to your impressions of players the Rockies should consider.

it is a little unclear to me whether the exercise is to try to mimic how the team might draft or to make the best possible pick for the team (taking into consideration financial limitations). How much does the team’s draft strategy enter into this? If an attempt at prediction, the Rockies’ draft strategy-especially in the first round-has been really difficult to predict the last couple years—nobody expected the Rockies to take Weathers or Reynolds (although Tulo wasn’t much of a surprise).

Personally, I’d like the Rockies to look hard at the available college bats-ideally someone who could play OF-in the first round and not be too concerned about team needs. The college bats tend to be safer picks and seem to be a strength in this draft and a quality hitter may fall to them late in the first.

In terms of team draft strategy, the Rockies seem to have gone pretty heavily with college players in the early rounds in recent years. I don’t know if that is an intentional philosophy or just the way it worked out.

Regarding whether there will be an attempt to mimic Colorado’s drafting strategies, that’s a hard question to answer. Because the Rockies have been very unpredictable, that shouldn’t be too hard to approximate. :)

As mentioned earlier, we should really make an effort to take the player who looks like the best available – rather than seeking players to fill a specific need. As I’ve said, I’m predisposed to athletic players with power and power pitchers. But, if a player like Posey or Skipworth falls to #25 overall, (we and) the Rockies would be fools to dismiss them despite having a good young catcher like Iannetta in place.

is listed as Calloway in the poll. My mistake as a typo.

After pairing this list down to Kelly and Webb, I took Webb due to John’s comment. He said Webb is the kind of “moldable” HS pitcher with upside that the Dodgers like at #15. With the types of players the Dodgers have taken (Billingsley, Kershaw, Broxton, etc.), I think that speaks well of Webb.

I left most of the upper level college names off of this list because it seems most lists are set on guys like Alonso, Fields and Friedlich being gone in the first 20 picks. Therefore, I figure there may be some higher-ranked HS players slip to #25 overall.