Which Team Do You Think Had The Best Draft?

They did a good job of getting Correa and McCullers. I liked the Twins early picks, too - they got the best talent in Buxton and I liked the Berrios pick. Pirates getting Appel is great, considering how little draft budget they had.

But the Padres got three potential TOR starters and then built from there. Unlike other clubs, they didn’t piss away six of their top 10 picks on guys who will become fan favorites during their third seasons in the Texas/Southern/Eastern League, and they were still drafting and signing guys with at least one above-average tool deep into the mid-30s.

1: Pittsburgh: Mark Appel-RHP, Barrett Barnes-OF, Wyatt Mathisen-C, Walker Buehler-RHP
-This is probably going to surprise people but I have the Pirates at number one. They only had one extra first round pick so they didn’t get as much talent as some other teams. But I absolutely love that they quite possibly got the best RHP in this draft with the 8th overall pick. Now they may not sign him but they’ll get the 9th pick next year because of it and a bigger bonus pool. I love that they didn’t take a lesser player like Heaney or Dahl just to get a signable guy.
I also like Barnes as an outfielder with speed and power, Mathiesen as a catcher with a solid bat and potential behind the plate. If they can sign Buehler to go with Adrian Simpson, they’ll have a pair of nice projectable RHPs in their system too.
Not signing Appel or Buehler will bump this draft down but getting Appel signed nets Pittsburgh a helluva prospect at 8th overall. Signing Buehler nets them a good prospect and the 9th overall pick next year. I think the Pirates played the draft well. Much better than my Cardinals who just dished out 1.6 million to James Ramsey…ugh. Strategy is as important as numerous picks to me. That’s why Pitt is number one.

2: Toronto: Marcus Stroman-RHP, DJ Davis-OF, Matt Smoral-LHP, Anthony Alford-OF
-No team picked up more potential starters than the Blue Jays. Toronto loaded up on raw, high ceiling high schoolers and sprinkled in a very good college pitcher in Stroman. Davis, Smoral, Alford, Nay, Gonzales, and DeJong could all wind up either in the every day batting order or in the rotation. Stroman could start or be a shut down closer. My concern is the level of rawness this class has. Reminds me of the 2007 Blue Jays draft which featured Justin Jackson, Eric Eiland, John Tolisano, and Kevin Ahrens. 5 years later that draft yielded little help from the high school ranks for Toronto.

3: Houston: Carlos Correra-SS, Lance McCullers Jr-RHP, Rio Ruiz-3B,
-Jeff Luhnow, known more for going after college guys, came away with 3 very good high school prospects. Correra has the ability to become one of the best SS in baseball. McCullers at least has a closer’s profile if he can’t stick in the rotation. Ruiz has very good potential as well. Outside of these three, though, the Astros draft featured a lot of high floor, low ceiling college players that Luhnow loves. I’m not sure Fontana sticks at SS and Rodgers may not have enough stuff to be a big league starter. Not getting Virant signed hurts their draft.

Not only with the big 3 (Correa, McC, Rio!) but with Fontana (underrated IMO) and Phillips. Phillips JUST turned 18 and was starting to show a lot more than he did previously. I like their college Pitchers too.

San Diego did very, very well as well. Fried looks like he could become Kershaw (still a lONG ways a way from that..) and they got 2 other guys who could be very good as well.

I liked the Jays draft (as always) they went for high upside HS and picked who they wanted.

They got arguably the best pitcher in the draft at 8th overall, they have a backup plan in Walker Buehler, they also came away with two strong hitting prospects in Barnes and Mathisen

As I said, I give the Pirates credit for having a good strategy for this draft. However, they got a tremendous talent in Appel to go with that strategy.

Again, Toronto and Houston got more talent, but Pittsburgh did very well with the picks they had.

I like to look at more than just the amount of early round picks a team has to gauge how well a team did in the draft. It’s really no fun at all to point to a team like Toronto with 4-5 first round picks and say they did well. Of course they did well. They should have done well. They should have gotten 4-5 of the top 100 players in the draft.

But you have to go with the ‘Stros here. Saving $2M on Correa over Buxton was genius. I have a feeling this will start a trend where most years the top pick will not get the top bonus. Obviously, the occassional Strasburg/Harper year will occur, but most often I think the top team will have 2-5 guys they like comparatively, and take whoever is willing to give them the most room to be aggressive later. I think it’s a great strategy.

Just by overall talent, not giving extra points for talent relative to draft order. (Which is a perfectly valid way to look at it as well.)

HOU
TOR
SD
PIT
MIN
STL
CHC
SEA
BAL
BOS