Draft Preview - Tampa Bay Rays

The sixteenth team draft preview on my blog focuses on the Tampa Bay Rays and their scouting director R.J. Harrison.

Here's an excerpt from the writeup, which features small writeups on 20 players involved with Harrison's work:

R.J. Harrison is one of the most experienced scouts at the scouting director level, and he’s been with the Rays since their scouting department was created in 1995. A former minor league player, Harrison’s been scouting or managing in the minors for some 30 years, and he’s been at the national crosschecker or higher level for over 10 years now, and his experience is a major asset for Tampa Bay. He’s going to be running his fifth draft as the scouting director for the Rays, having taken over for current Cubs scouting director Tim Wilken when Wilken left for Chicago. Looking at some of the trends from his first four drafts, it’s pretty easy to point out an affinity for the Pacific Northwest, and for the West in general. The Rays’ West Coast Crosschecker is Fred Repke, a man made famous by such signings as Evan Longoria and James Shields, with Jake McGee on the way, from his years as the Rays’ Northern California and Northern Nevada area scout. The Pacific Northwest scout in this situation is long-time scout Paul Kirsch, who has turned that region into the Rays’ territory. There weren’t any early Pacific Northwest picks in 2009, but there were plenty of West Coast picks, starting with Diekroeger and continuing through Malm and beyond. Expect that trend to continue in 2010, as they still have a strong scouting presence out west. Looking at specific personnel trends, it’s fairly obvious that the Rays prefer prep hitters greatly over college hitters, especially hitters with athleticism to spare. Malm was a notable exception in the 2009 draft, but the power upside with him was the draw. On the pitching side, the Rays like to fill up their system with raw upside arms from the high school level, though they mix in a fair number of college arms. They’re much less set on prep arms than they are prep bats, but in general, this is a scouting director that prefers prep players over college players, especially beyond the early first round, where obvious candidates such as David Price and Evan Longoria came into play.

Direct link here.

I'm also running a special on the 2010 MLB Draft Notebook, as the next 13 buyers will be entered in a drawing for an autographed baseball from Jameson Taillon. If you'd like to read more about the promotion, go ahead and do so here.

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What do you think? What will the Rays do?