Bear
06-01-2008, 06:00 PM
BY ANDREW BAGGARLY
Mercury News
JUNE 1ST, 2008
According to ESPN.com’ Keith Law, the Giants are leaning toward Georgia shortstop Gordon Beckham with the No.5 pick on Tuesday.
This makes total sense to me. Ideally, the Giants get a college hitter who can move quickly and make an impact, but that’s a secondary consideration to ceiling and athletic ability. If you’ve followed Brian Sabean’s career way back to his tenure as the Yankees’ scouting director, you know how much he prizes athleticism. (Hello, Derek Jeter.) He’s spoken often in the past few years about getting younger and more athletic. And yet, more than one scout has told me that so many of the top college bats in this draft are “glorified softball players.” I have a feeling Sabean is thinking the same thing.
Guys like Justin Smoak, Yonder Alonso or Brett Wallace are already confined to first base, for all practical purposes. If you’re an AL team, you can live with that. But in the NL, the guy like that better have a Prince Fielder-type bat to take him with a top-10 pick. Smoak, I think, is the best of that bunch, and so I wouldn’t completely rule him out.
But G-Beckham, by virtue of being a more athletic and yet offensively gifted middle infielder, makes a lot of sense. If he can’t stick at SS, he can always move to second, third or even outfield. You’ve just got more options with a guy like that.
Plus, the Giants put a load of stock in the Cape Cod League. Players who excel there are easier to project making a successful transition from aluminum to wood. No coincidence, Todd Linden was a stud in the Cape. And G-Beckham happened to hit nine homers and had the best offensive showing of anyone in the Cape last year.
My hunch is that high school SS Tim Beckham (unrelated to Gordon, or David for that matter) is the top player on the Giants’ draft board by virtue of his exceptional tools, but they expect he won’t fall to them. So I’m assuming Keith Law’s info is pretty good and Gordon Beckham is their most probable choice.
Oh, one other point: There has been a lot of speculation that the Giants won’t take a first baseman because they have Angel Villalona in their system. I can tell you there’s NO WAY the Giants would let organizational need determine their pick — and they certainly wouldn’t limit their options because of a 17-year-old from the Dominican, who is far, far, far, far from being a sure thing. (See: Guzman, Joel.)
Now, if you’re Philly and you have Chase Utley signed to a long-term contract, you probably don’t take someone who plays only second base. There’s probably a half-dozen players like Utley in the major leagues who would impact their club’s draft strategy at their position. But the vast majority of the time, teams that have the top dozen or so picks aren’t drafting based on the relative strengths or weaknesses of their organizational inventory.
Mac, do we know anything about this guy?:confused:
Mercury News
JUNE 1ST, 2008
According to ESPN.com’ Keith Law, the Giants are leaning toward Georgia shortstop Gordon Beckham with the No.5 pick on Tuesday.
This makes total sense to me. Ideally, the Giants get a college hitter who can move quickly and make an impact, but that’s a secondary consideration to ceiling and athletic ability. If you’ve followed Brian Sabean’s career way back to his tenure as the Yankees’ scouting director, you know how much he prizes athleticism. (Hello, Derek Jeter.) He’s spoken often in the past few years about getting younger and more athletic. And yet, more than one scout has told me that so many of the top college bats in this draft are “glorified softball players.” I have a feeling Sabean is thinking the same thing.
Guys like Justin Smoak, Yonder Alonso or Brett Wallace are already confined to first base, for all practical purposes. If you’re an AL team, you can live with that. But in the NL, the guy like that better have a Prince Fielder-type bat to take him with a top-10 pick. Smoak, I think, is the best of that bunch, and so I wouldn’t completely rule him out.
But G-Beckham, by virtue of being a more athletic and yet offensively gifted middle infielder, makes a lot of sense. If he can’t stick at SS, he can always move to second, third or even outfield. You’ve just got more options with a guy like that.
Plus, the Giants put a load of stock in the Cape Cod League. Players who excel there are easier to project making a successful transition from aluminum to wood. No coincidence, Todd Linden was a stud in the Cape. And G-Beckham happened to hit nine homers and had the best offensive showing of anyone in the Cape last year.
My hunch is that high school SS Tim Beckham (unrelated to Gordon, or David for that matter) is the top player on the Giants’ draft board by virtue of his exceptional tools, but they expect he won’t fall to them. So I’m assuming Keith Law’s info is pretty good and Gordon Beckham is their most probable choice.
Oh, one other point: There has been a lot of speculation that the Giants won’t take a first baseman because they have Angel Villalona in their system. I can tell you there’s NO WAY the Giants would let organizational need determine their pick — and they certainly wouldn’t limit their options because of a 17-year-old from the Dominican, who is far, far, far, far from being a sure thing. (See: Guzman, Joel.)
Now, if you’re Philly and you have Chase Utley signed to a long-term contract, you probably don’t take someone who plays only second base. There’s probably a half-dozen players like Utley in the major leagues who would impact their club’s draft strategy at their position. But the vast majority of the time, teams that have the top dozen or so picks aren’t drafting based on the relative strengths or weaknesses of their organizational inventory.
Mac, do we know anything about this guy?:confused: