The baseball draft is the most inexact science
of all the drafts in the major professional sports. It has been littered
through the years with first-round picks who weren’t even on the radar of
teams’ scouting staffs entering their draft year.
There is no classic example to illustrate the point more than the Minnesota
Twins’ selection of Mt. Vernon Nazarene (Ohio) righthander Tim Belcher with the
No. 1 overall pick in the 1983 draft. Belcher was unknown to most teams,
including the Twins, little more than two months before that year’s draft.
Baseball scouting has become much more sophisticated over the last 25 years,
but this year’s draft should still have a few surprises in terms of how
prospective draft boards were lined up in January, prior to the start of the
2008 season.
No player has improved his stock this spring more than Texas Christian
righthander Andrew Cashner, who has a legitimate shot of being selected in the
top half of the first round. The 6-foot-5, 195-pound Cashner isn’t exactly an
unknown as he’s been drafted three times before, including in the 29th round by
the Chicago Cubs a year ago. But he gave no indication of being an early-round
pick, let alone a first-rounder, at the outset of the 2008 season.
A transfer from Angelina (Texas) Junior College, Cashner was earmarked last
fall for a starting job in the TCU rotation and was throwing 89-92 mph with an
average slider in that role—nothing to get scouts excited about. But when he
was installed as a closer to start the 2008 season, his prospects for the draft
turned around almost overnight. He soon began pumping 97-98 mph fastball in
short bursts (he reportedly hit 100 in a game against Baylor), and the velocity
on his slider spiked. Suddenly, he became the scourge of the scouting
community.
Cashner’s record this spring speaks to his dominance. In 43 innings spread over
25 appearances, he had allowed just 14 hits (.104 opponent batting average) and
struck out 65.
Several other players have seen a pronounced surge in this year’s draft—like
Cashner, many are college closers who have either rediscovered themselves in a
new role or seen a sharp increase in velocity in that capacity.
“The thing you’ve got to always remember about the draft,” said an American
League scouting director, “is that it is in June, not January. A lot of things
can change over the course of a season. Just as there were players in January
we thought would be first-round picks and have faded, there are guys who we
never thought would be early-round picks in January that have emerged as top
prospects.”
In contrast to Cashner and some of the other fast risers, some notable players
have fallen this spring, perhaps none so precipitously as Louisiana Tech
righthander Luke Burnett. He projected as a likely first-round pick off an
all-star season as a closer last summer in the Cape Cod League, but never got
untracked this season when he was moved to the Louisiana Tech rotation. His
record says it all: 0-4, 8.41 with 32 walks and only 30 strikeouts in 41
innings.
We’ve unveiled a list of the top 250 prospects for this year’s draft elsewhere
on the PG Crosschecker website, and our take on the 10 biggest surprises on the
list from the college ranks—at least from the standpoint of where the players
stood at the start of the 2008 season, and where they may now be drafted—is
noted below.
The high school ranks also have seen their share of surprises, none more than
Texas righthander Ross Seaton, California outfielder Zach Collier and
Washington, D.C., lefthander Danny Hultzen. But we’ll save that list for
another day.
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