Baseball Draft

Nobody cares much about the baseball draft, inasmuch as it's largely a crapshoot, but it's happening today, and MLB.com has a nifty draft-tracker that pops up each pick as it is made, and allows you to view players by team, name, or position.

The first pick went to Arizona, who took Justin Upton, B.J.'s little brother, a Virginia high schooler. The next eight were collegiate, and then six of eight were high schoolers, including the Yankees with Carl Henry, an Oklahoma shortstop, with #17. The Red Sox first pick, #23 was Jacoby Ellsbury. Now the Sox have scored an apparent coup at #26 with Craig Hansen, closer from St. John's, who was a first-pick possibility among the pundits. I don't know if quality, health, or signability sent him down, but I can't help thinking he's a bargain at #26. More later...

Update: 1:33pm
More on the Sox first two picks: Jacoby Ellsbury is a center fielder, lefty, out of Oregon State University. 6'1", 185, born 9/11/83 in Oregon. Known for speed and defense, has a pretty good eye (30 BB, 17 K this year) but lacks pop.

Craig Hansen is a righty closer, pitched for St. John's University. 6'5", 185, born 11/15/83 in New York.

Some commentary: Gammons, writing May 22, lists both Ellsbury and Hansen as top-tier guys. Hansen was supposedly a lock to go to the Mets at #9, if not earlier.

Some people with more information are really live-blogging the draft. The writers at Baseball America predicted the top 18 picks (!!) accurately very shortly before the draft began. Their live blog is here. Also, Minor League Ball has a series of open comment threads for each round here.

Update: 2:10pm
The Sox have made their three first-round supplemental picks:

#42 - Clay Buchholz, Angelina (Junior) College, Texas, 6'3", 190, 8/14/84. Right fielder, bats left, throws right.

#45 - Jed Lowrie, another Oregonian, Stanford U, 6'0", 180, 4/17/84. Second baseman, switch-hitter.

#47 - Michael Bowden, the Sox's first high-schooler, Waubonsie Valley HS, Illinois. 6'3", 215, 9/9/86. Right-handed pitcher.

And the first second-round pick: #57 - Jonathan Egan, Cross Creek HS, Georgia. 6'4", 210, 10/12/86. Righty catcher, and only the third catcher taken in the draft.

Update: 2:25pm The other team to have a dream draft order was the Marlins, with five of the top 44 picks. Having made six picks, they have five pitchers (including two lefties), four of whom are straight from high school. I don't know if this is chance, design, or bias in setting up their rankings (i.e. valuing HS pitchers higher than most do). Meanwhile, the Yankees, they of the depleted farm system, have had just two picks - a high school shortstop at #17 and left-handed-batting righty pitcher out of U-Texas Austin at #63.

Update: 4:00pm
The Sox picked up their sixth pick at #138. William Blue is a high school righthandeded pitcher from Morro Bay, California. He's the youngest Sox draftee so far, born 4/5/87.

The Globe site has a draft tracker just for Sox picks with more details on the players. For instance, they tell us that Egan was highly ranked before he committed to Georgia for college. Drafting guys like him is one of the luxuries of having so many high picks: we can take a chance on better players rather than settling.

Update 4:45pm
With Reid Engel, younger than Blue by a month, picked up out of Lewis-Palmer HS in Colorado, the Sox have snagged four straight high schoolers. Engel is a left-hitting, right-throwing outfielder, and the Sox got him at #168.

Now they've got pick #198 (and so forth), which they'll spend on Jeffrey Corsalletti, an outfielder from the U. He also bats left and throws right, and is a native Floridian born 2/22/83.

The Cardinals have picked up Wilfrido Pujols with pick #200, wrapping up the sixth round, and InstantReplay will wrap up its draft coverage. I'll add any more tidbits I find in the comments, and I'd be interested in any real information on any of the new batch of Sox prospects.