June 7, 2007
D-Day 2007
By
Zeldink
Posted at 2:03 pm
I did this for last year's draft, so I'll try to do it again this year, as well.
What players will Kriv-dawg pick this year? Will he grab a college reliever at the expense of offense? Or will he pick up a highly prized gloveman at the expense of the offense?
Today's the day when we get to see the Reds GM take a break from screwing up the team's present by screwing up the team's future.
Awesome. The Reds are on the “Next Up” board on MLB.com’s Draft Tracker. The feeling of them being next might be the most exciting part of this snooze-fest.
“The Cincinnati Reds are on the clock,” says Bud Selig, doing his best Roger Goodall/David Stern impersonation.
And the first selection of the 2007 Amateur Draft for the Reds is high school catcher Devin Mesoraco.
The kid has a good [url=http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/events/draft_report/y2007/tracker.jsp?mc=mesoraco]scouting report[/url], even at hitting, which is a marked departure from previous catchers the Reds drafted.
Maybe in two years or so this kid will be up with the team. They sure could use a better catcher.
Ooh! Peter Gammons just burned Joe Morgan!
He mentioned the book Moneyball when talking about approaches to drafting players and said something to the effect of, “Lots of people make fun of Moneyball even though they’ve never read the book.”
😀
Well, the Reds don’t pick again for a while, and work is over for me.
The Reglegs do have two supplemental picks thanks to Aurilia and Schoeneweis. That might be the only productive things that Schoeneweis gave to the Reds, which is still more than Cormier gave. I hope they make good use of them.
You’re teh awesome, Zeldink. Thanks for giving us the draft report.
Like the draft in any other sport, and perhaps even moreso than in any other sport, the draft is a crapshoot. Mesoraco may or may not eventually solve what’s frequently been a problem position for the Reds since Bench hung up his spikes.
If it does happen, the time frame’s likely to be a lot longer than two years.
Even Homer Bailey has taken three years to arrive in the majors, and he’s the youngest pitcher to debut as a Reds starter since 1970 (Milt Wilcox). And Mesoraco is a catcher. That’s especially true if he remains at catcher – there’s a heck of a lot for him to learn before he’s going to be ready to catch in the major leagues.
I don’t think there’s any way a kid drafted fresh out of high school is going to be up with the Reds in just two years.
Yeah, I was obviously being overzealous in my projection. I don’t know how long catchers take to reach the majors, but I thought pitchers had the longer development time. Hitting doesn’t seem to take as long to figure out as pitching.
Still, it would be great if this kid worked out. The Reds have struggled mightily at backstop since Bench retired. I’m not expecting anyone to be as good as him, but it would be nice to have a consistent, good performer. Something more than the one or two good years from the likes of Oliver and LaRue. We’ll see.
Any of us who saw Bench play, it’s almost impossible for us to get excited about another catcher. This guy was THE catcher, the best at his position in the history of baseball.
The Reds have had some halfway decent players behind the dish since then – you mentioned a few, and might I add Bo Diaz and Eddie Taubensee to your list, and maybe Benito Santiago?
But then there are so many guys who would be first-ballot electees to the Reds Catchers’ Hall of Shame if there was one. Trevino, Bilardello, Christmas, Nolan, Gulden, Van Gorder, Knicely, McClendon, Butera, Dorsett, Berryhill, Fordyce, Garcia…I’ll stop there but I’m sure if I sat here long enough I’d probably think of some more. Reed…Dan Wilson…
Anyway, it’d be real nice to see Mesoraco develop into an all-star catcher, a rare commodity around these here parts. I don’t think anybody will ever eclipse Bench, but I’ll settle for him being the next best thing.