The HoG's Totally Uninformed Baseball Draft Preview

The MLB Draft starts at noon, and so I'm going to break it down now knowing that it will soon be outdated. I'm going to focus on the Royals, picking 2nd in the first round, and the Rockies, picking 8th, because those are our hometown teams and they need the help. I'm sure Dan O'Dowd and Dayton Moore read this blog and will take the advice given.

I put in five solid minutes of Interweb research here, so I'm an authority on the subject.

After David Price goes No. 1 to the D'Rays, the Royals will have a decision. They're notoriously cheap and they traditionally shy away from Boras guys who'll demand big bonuses. ESPN's Keith Law says that under Moore, however, this may change, and they might even draft honest good players after the third round instead of taking cheap losers they can sign for a thousand bucks. They seriously did this for years, and you can see the result.

Anyway, this draft is loaded with third basemen, and it looks like the best available guy for KC will be a hot corner. Yes, they have Alex Gordon there, but with the second pick you don't quibble about position. There's no guarantee that Gordon will evolve into an All-Star, and most young 3Bs can move to first or a corner outfield spot.

Law has Josh Vitters going to the Royals. Vitters is from Anaheim and played for Cypress High. He definitely fits the mold of a guy who could move across the infield diamond, and he has it all in the batter's box--no idea if he can run or not. A no-brainer pick. A consolation prize may be Matt Dominguez, another California high school 3B from porn capital Chatsworth.

At No. 8 sit your Colorado Rockies. The franchise has taken a pitcher in the first round every year of their existence save for four: 1B Todd Helton in '95 (that worked out), 3B Ian Stewart in '03 (he's supposed to be the jewel of the farm system and a future megastar), SS Chris Nelson in '04 (no clue), and Troy Tulowitski in '05 (already up with the big club and looking great). Last year they went back to the mound and took Stanford product Greg Reynolds.

Who might fall to the Rox is anybody's guess, as the baseball draft is a huge riddle due to signability issues. There's a kid named Phillipe Aumont on the radar, but he's projected to go earlier. Plus, they already took a Canadian pitcher in the first-round once (Jeff Francis in '02), and even though he and Larry Walker have worked out we don't need any more of those guys in Colorado. In fact, we should be sending unsavory Coloradoans to Canada with more regularity.

Other possibilities include Daniel Moskos, a hard-throwing lefty closer from Clemson who projects as a starter in pro ball. Mike Moustakas is a current shortstop and HS teammate of Dominguez in Chatsworth. He may be my favorite, as he could possibly convert to catcher. I love guys with that kind of versatility. He also pitches and brings 93-97 mph heat. Awesome. I don't know why so many of these guys have Greek surnames, but if they are as good as Kevin Youkilis of Kevin Kouzmanoff I'll take it.

I've been hearing great things about this kid Jason Heyward, a high school centerfielder from Georgia. That's who Law projects for the Rockies. He's not quite a five-tool guy, as he doesn't have blazing speed, but he seems like a hard worker. Someone on XM Home Plate last week said that he's tremendously mature for a rural kid, which seems like a sweet description. Go get him.

I may post updates, or a may watch some porn from Chatsworth. We'll see.

Update: KC threw everyone a curve and took my boy Moustakas. Awfully high for a guy without a clear-cut position or big power, but hey, they're the Royals. The Cubs ended up with Vitters at 3, while the Rockies just took Price's Vanderbilt teammate Casey Weathers at 8. ESPN says he's the most major-league-ready reliever in the draft and could easily be up later this year, but ESPN is a bunch of fucking liars and you can't trust 'em. The French Canadian kid is still on the board, thank heavens. This draft is much, much faster than the NFL version.

Second update: Five minutes a pick. Brilliant. I'm not watching, as I'm at work, but I hav been following the excellent Baseball Prospectus live blog--those guys know their shit.

Third update: The Canadian, Aumont, went to Seattle, which is virtually in Canada. We can all rest easy now. The Red Sox don't pick in the first round, but I have no idea why. You can't trade draft picks in baseball, but you give yours up if you sign other teams' free agents, and they have "sandwich" picks that come from somewhere, and it's all a bunch of gibberish.