2045:04 Bucharest Times: Analyzing all pitcher draft picks in Amateur Draft

[allenciox]

Now that the amateur draft is complete, we have put together an analysis of all pitchers chosen in this year's draft. This will be followed by another article where we analyze all the batters chosen.

First, a few general notes. This draft included players in the 20th round that were better than many of the first round picks available prior to the 2044 season. In projected quality, it probably exceeds even last year's bountiful crop --- but unlike last year, few of the players (and none chosen by Bucharest) are good enough to be promoted immediately to the major leagues. In fact, six of the nine pitchers chosen by Bucharest are currently high schoolers. According to the GM, the rotation is going to be dominated by players already in the majors (or in AA) for the next five years, so picking a number of young players with undeveloped potential could result in a few of them actually outperforming their potential and becoming true major league stars several years down the line. Of course, as in everything else, time will tell.

Nine of the 20 picks were for pitchers, and all of them were starters. There were quality relief pitchers but they were scooped up by other teams before Bucharest had a chance to draft them. The GM seems to have a policy of "draft SPs as not all of them will make it to the majors, and use free agency to get RPs since they are cheap there". We will see if that policy works, but it is the opinion of this newspaper that the GM might have gone overboard here --- though certainly having a surplus of good SPs four or five years down the road might open up some intriguing trade possibilities.

Round 2 (15th pick): 19-year old António Torres is the only pitcher chosen by Bucharest likely to be ready for major league play in two to three years time. We have him rated as the fourth best pitcher overall in the draft, even though seven pitchers were picked before him. He has four strong pitches already and can sometimes hit 100 mph on the radar gun, so his arm is already fully developed. His main limitation is that his strong arm tires easily and he usually tires after only 80 to 90 pitches. He is too good to start in the rookie league, we expect it to be more likely that he is deployed immediately to A Jakarta or even AA Asuncion. Finally, Antonio is known for working really hard --- usually the first one on the ball field and the last to leave.

Round 5 (39th pick): Southpaw Dana Pualani , on the other hand, is only 16 and appears to be a solid future prospect. His fastball already sometimes hits 92 on the radar gun and should just improve as he matures and his arm gets stronger. He also has five solid pitches that he can turn to, with every one an "out" pitch. A groundballer, he gives up few gopher balls and, as he spends time in the minor leagues, should be able to more consistently throw those pitches more consistently for strikes. Finally, he has the stamina to pitch 110 to 120 pitches before tiring.

Round 9 (71st pick): Jason Lee is a good solid choice to be picked up at almost the halfway point in the draft. He only has three pitches, but the 18-yo high schooler already has pretty good control of all of them. One difference between him and essentially every other player in the draft is that he tends to throw his pitches up in the strike zone, leading to a lot of fly balls. Considering that, his movement is not bad, and he is also expected to be able to more consistently throw strikes as he matures.

Round 10 (79th pick): Xing-fu Bao is similar to Jason in that he also has three strong pitches. There the similarities end. He pitches the ball low in the strike zone, which gets a lot of ground balls, and, even at his young age, rarely gives up home runs. But his control is lacking and is only projected to be average when he matures. Of course, projecting futures for sixteen-year old's like him and Dana (above) is tricky --- you never know what you are going to get, however, in his case he is known for his powerful work ethic. Furthermore, considering that he can already hit 97 on the radar gun at such a tender age, he should definitely be a fire baller.

Round 12 (95th pick): EwungaGoiba Ghera is another intriguing pick, that at 17, might have considerable upside. He also only has three pitches, but has considerable stamina.

Round 13 (103rd pick): Richard Balgera , at only sixteen, was the last of the undeveloped youngsters chosen in the draft. There is not a lot of difference in projected ability between him and the three other high schoolers picked in the 9th, 10th round, and 12th rounds, so the competition between them over the next few years should be interesting to watch.

Round 14 (111th pick): Oscar Hadingham is the first of these picks where I really question the wisdom of the Bucharest GM. He is projected to have significantly worse potential than the previous picks. At 19, he is more fully developed, but still, on his best days, his fastball still tracks in the low 90s. He does have four good pitches, however. Perhaps the GM sees something in him that I miss.

Round 17 (135th pick): Brian Warner is an interesting and curious pick. He was basically ignored by scouts, and the 18-yo recent high school graduate was not expected to be picked in any round by any team. On the other hand, all the ingredients are there for a significant upside, and this is the point where taking a flyer on an interesting youngster might pay off significant dividends down the road. He conceivably could be someone who washes out in the minors in a few years, but, on the other hand, I could easily seeing him with a starting role in the majors five or six years down the line. Though he has four pitches, he really only relies on three of them.

Round 18 (143rd pick): Xylon Vassilikos The only mystery about Xylon is why nobody picked him up before the 18th round. Bucharest got a steal here, in my humble opinion. He seems to be on a par with their 9th, 10th, and 12th round picks, and far better than their 14th round pick. And he has pinpoint control that would put most existing big-leaguers to shame. Why didn't they pick him up earlier? There seem to be two possibilities. The first is whether he will end up being a starting pitcher or in the bullpen. Though he has three pitches, his fastball is not particularly notable, and his stamina is not great either. Still, even if he ends up in the pen, he is sginificantly better than a number of relief pitchers that went before him.

In all, a pretty decent --- though not spectacular --- collection of pitchers. Though probably not as flashy as last year's pitcher picks, where they picked pitchers in each of the first five rounds, Bucharest appears to have been focusing on batters more this year: Six of their first eight picks were batters. Stay tuned to tomorrow's paper where we will outline how they did on the batters they did choose.