Astros Shadow System: Who to take 1st Overall

Looking ahead to the draft, I am thinking about what to do with the 1st overall pick and how to best improve the Astros shadow system. Catcher is a big hole in the farm system with Matt Roberts doing little at North Carolina and Curt Casali not projecting to be a starting catcher. Mike Zunino would be a good fit. Kevin Gausman is already in the system, so that helps. Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa could both be impact players. I have Garin Cecchini and Nick Castellanos as future potential 3B and a pile of good OF'ers in the lower levels. Drafting on need, Zunino would be the way to go.

I've thought about going outside the box and drafting someone like James Ramsey and signing to a cheaper deal in the 500K - 1 million range so there would be more money to spend on other players that could be signable with higher than slot amounts later in the draft. If I would sign him for $1 million, that would leave $10.73 million for the other 10 picks in the top 10 rounds. That would allow for the supplemental pick to sign for slot or higher and the rest to get $1 million or better, each. The 50th pick in the draft is slotted at $1 million so I would think just about anyone taken in the rest of the draft would sign for that kind of money.

Players like Giolito, Correa, Buxton and Zunino are hard to pass up but getting talent that slides could be worth it. Maybe not. What do you think? What would you do? Who would you take?

Here are the players currently in the Shadow Astros system. Some of these guys could move around in the rookie levels but these are the players who would be in the Astros System if all were signed in the last two years.