MLB Draft

[Terps]

Originally Posted by DeToxRoxDVHStyle

Where'd Almonte get drafted?

He hasn't been drafted yet.

[SackAttack]

Nor has Jeffrey Maier (unless I missed it), which is funny after the first round talk.

[SunDevil]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/thiel/273042_thiel07.html

Alas, the odds are against M's top pick

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

By ART THIEL
P-I COLUMNIST

This just in from Twilight Zone News Services:

SEATTLE -- Picking up a phone to answer a call from the Seattle Mariners, highly regarded pitcher Brandon Morrow suffered an injury to his pitching elbow Tuesday that may have to be repaired by "Tommy John" ligament replacement surgery.

"I don't know what happened," said a distraught Morrow, a right-hander from the University of California. "I just reached for the phone on the table and all of a sudden I had this sharp pain. I heard a little pop. Honestly, I didn't do anything unusual."

The call was to tell him that the Mariners selected him with their first-round pick, fifth overall, in the amateur baseball draft. Club general manager Bill Bavasi cautioned that nothing about the injury was definitive.

"We know a little bit about pitching injuries, and there's always a possibility it's just a cramp," Bavasi said. "He told us he can't pick up a can of soda without severe pain. But you know how kids exaggerate."

Morrow, a 6-foot-3, 190-pounder with a fastball clocked as fast as 99 mph, had some shoulder problems in his sophomore year at Cal, but this injury appears unrelated to anything except a phone call from the Seattle club.

The main reason surgery was contemplated was that arm problems have become nearly a requirement for pitching draftees in order to advance in the Mariners' farm system -- or wash out of it.

Bavasi dismissed the notion that, rather than resenting the injury phenomenon among drafted pitchers, the Mariners should embrace it as one of the club's few traditions.

"There is nothing to connect Morrow's problem to the problems of others in the organization," he said. "It's just a coincidence. But it does seem to be a record as far as earliest career injury -- under five seconds."

Following the rutted path of other young pitchers such as Ryan Anderson, Clint Nageotte, Travis Blackley, Rett Johnson, Matt Thornton, Aaron Taylor, Jeff Heaverlo and Sam Hays, as well as more distant one-time prospects such as Ken Cloude, Bob Wolcott and Roger Salkeld, Morrow figures to receive a large signing bonus to be baseball-incapacitated for one to two years. In the argot of baseball, it is known as the Tommy John scholarship.

Perhaps Morrow will return to major league success after surgery, as have Gil Meche and Rafael Soriano. Even if he doesn't, Morrow's loss may no longer be such a serious consequence, and not just because the club and fan base are forgetting what winning was like.

In recent years, Mariners scouts have put a lower priority on the annual amateur selections from the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

The combination of a shrinking pool of American baseball talent along with the club's drafting and trading mistakes have left the Mariners with just one player on the current roster whom they drafted in the first round -- Meche in 1996.

Only four others on the 25-man roster are club draftees: starting pitcher Joel Pineiro (1997, 12th round), utilityman Willie Bloomquist (1999, third), reliever J.J. Putz (1999, sixth) and catcher Rene Rivera (2001, second).

The Mariners have shifted emphasis to the international free agent market, where there are no rules (other than a minimum age of 16), draft order, regulations or agent Scott Boras. In that way, the operation is much like Chief Sealth High School girls basketball, or the worldwide energy market.

The Mariners began spring training with a 40-man roster that included no fewer than 13 international, non-drafted free agents, compared to eight from the U.S. draft who originally signed with the club. Among the international entries are pitchers Soriano, Felix Hernandez and Julio Mateo, and infielders Jose Lopez and Yuniesky Betancourt.

So it appears the amateur draft for the Mariners, already an enterprise whose fate is filled with odd creatures, trap doors and magic dust all worthy of Hogwarts, is slipping steadily toward the background.

Since only nine of the 364 college pitchers the Mariners drafted in 30 years have become major league starters for the team, Morrow's odds of success were roughly akin to the chance of a home run by Adrian Beltre.

In light of Morrow's injury, Bavasi was asked whether it might be worthwhile in the future to offer surgery to pitchers immediately upon signing, rather than wait for the inevitable.

"Don't be silly," Bavasi said. "These things go in cycles. All teams have injuries, especially with pitching. We've just had a bad run."

Asked whether "bad run" also referred to the Mariners' myriad basepath misadventures this season, Bavasi walked away.

He left too soon and was called out.

[Terps]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Nor has Jeffrey Maier (unless I missed it), which is funny after the first round talk.

Yeah, I was gonna mention him too, but I didn't know if any non O's (and Yanks) fans remember who he was.

[Terps]

Dola,

Draft is over. Maier and Almonte went undrafted.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Terps

Dola,

Draft is over. Maier and Almonte went undrafted.

Which might be the jackpot as far as Almonte is concerned. We'll see.

[INDalltheway]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Dodgers used a sandwich pick on Luke Hochevar and never signed him last year. Drafting Mattingly this high can't be any worse than that.

That said, the Dodgers also didn't have another pick 'til 4.7. If they felt Mattingly would go in the 2nd or 3rd round - and I don't know if he would have, but they seemed to feel that was the case - and they were as sold on him as they seem to be, then drafting him in the first round is fine.

I am just saying that after seeing him play I am very suprised he would be a first round draft pick. He could turn out to be a great ball player, but I never imagined him being one of the top 50 players to be drafted.

[sterlingice]

A little late to the party, but I did want to make a couple of notes.

1) It seems baseball has gotten pretty decent at projecting out position players but not pitchers at all. Let's not pretend that drafted pitchers are any sort of sure thing, so to call Miller the consensus #1 among pitchers makes him something like 10% rather than 9% chance of being a quality major league player. So, if you're going to take a chance, would you rather spend $6M on one or $4M on one and $2M on a "signability" guy who falls to round 2?

2) Last I had heard, Andrew Miller was demanding a major league contract. I would never ever ever ever ever draft a player demanding a major league contract, especially not a pitcher unless there's some sort of insane extenuating circumstances. Small market teams can't play around and have a player use 1 or 2 of a player's only 6 years with them in the minors, learning to play. Same with juggling a 40-man roster spot- not difficult usually but stupid to put a team in that position.

SI

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

I read that he was kicked off of the Mississippi Rebels' baseball team after committing three team violations. What's that all about?

I really have no idea. There are rumors, but who knows. But if Ole Miss would have had him pitching last year, they would have beaten Texas in the super-regionals. He would have been a first-round pick if it had not for his past problems.