jacksonianmarch

Beckett dominated. Burnett was lit up. Actually turned out to be a good matchup to get one out of our system, cause nobody was beating Beckett tonight.

I heard both were. Maybe his mama is out, lol. The Yankees selected J. R. Murphy out of Bradenton Florida with their second round selection. He's a recent convert to catcher who has a plus bat for the position and an above average arm. He projects to be a line drive, gap power kind of guy who has a projection to be an above average defender. In a vacuum, I like this selection. But what the hell are we doing here? The only position that we DIDNT NEED FILLED was at catcher Francisco Cervelli 2006- INTL FA signee Jesus Montero 2007- 2nd round pick Austin Romine 2007- 6th round pick Chase Weems 2008- 7th round pick Kyle Higashioka whatever, catcher is the toughest position to get solid depth, and if we draft enough high upside guys at the position, one is gonna bear fruit. That being said, I loved the idea of Renfroe but maybe his signability scared them off (since the yankees 2nd rounder isnt guaranteed for next yr).

The sox keep beating down the door with project high school talents in the first round, dont they. Casey Kelly last yr Ryan Dent the yr before Jason Place in 2006 Of the three, I think Kelly was the most advanced on draft day and he is bearing that out in spades on the mound. I think Fuentes fits into the same category as the other two. Toolsy, raw guy with blazing speed. If he develops contact skills to go along with power, then he would be a hell of a player I like the way the sox staggered reach with probability. I like the Wilson selection. Hard fastball, good breaking ball and solid composure from a big time baseball conference. He's a similar molded guy to Bryce Cox in that he's a high upside pen arm from a major program. I expect him to be in the majors in some capacity and I dont expect him to be a signability case.

Must be. You dont go from consensus 1st rounder to past the second without some sort of concern. My guess is signability.

Yes he is. The Yankees get to select first, but I expect Renfroe to go to us

I love the Yankees. I hate Michael Kay

Interesting pick. Sounds like an Ellsbury comp with a bit more power projection

Ahh, both of his parents are in jail.

I dont know what it is, but every scouting site I have looked at talks about him being a superior talent but every single one of them bring up some "off the field issues". Not sure what happened.

Slade Heathcott goes 1st round. This is a high upside pick, lefty with power to all fields, plus speed and plus arm. He apparently has been a bit of a problem off the field, but on the field he is solid. He did have ACL reconstruction in November, but he is still running at an above average clip. What I love about this kid is that he offers a two way possibility if he fails on the offensive end, topping out at 95mph from the left hand side. I like the pick, I do not think they took the best player available (Tanner Scheppers: shoulder woes will make his stock plummet) but they took a guy who has a ton of talent and should be an easier sign.

Beckett was untouchable, Burnett was horrible. What can you do

Its official. Strasburg goes #1 to Washington #2 Dustin Ackley to Seattle #3 Donovan Tate to SD #4 Jorge Sanchez to Pitt #5 Matt Hobgood to BAL #6 Zach Wheeler to SF

Its official. Strasburg goes #1 to Washington

The sox are high on Stassi and the mock drafts bear that out. I would be surprised if Crow fell that far, although I could see it. I could definitely see the yankees hesitating due to the fact that their pick is no longer protected and I think the sox might pass if there is a solid offensive option on the board.

Speaking of the draft, time for a 1 yr recap. 1st round supplemental pick Jeremy Bleich is in HiA, he has started 12 games, throwing 66IP, with an ERA of 3.96 and a WHIP of 1.34. Not great, but certainly holding his own after skipping lowA 3rd round pick David Adams is holding his own in LoA Charleston. He has 21 doubles in 210ABs, but no homers. His BA is .280 and his OBP .370, so he is certainly doing his job at the top of the order. The lack of homers is concerning, though. 4th round pick Corban Joseph was set for short season, but was called up due to an injury to Garrison Lassiter. After starting out hot, he has fallen on hard time with a line of .253/.327/.341. 5th round pick Chris Smith sucked ass last yr in his short time in short season and has been unimpressive thus far in extended ST. He will be in the GCL this yr and will need to improve to reach his initial potential 6th rounder, Brett Marshall, started the yr off terribly in LoA Charleston. But he has righted the ship of late over his last 6 starts...34IP 25H 8ER 15BB 28K for a line of 2.11ERA 1.17WHIP and a 7.4K/9IP. He remains the highest ceiling pitcher in this draft class. 7th rounder Kyle Higashioka will be the starting catcher for Staten Island this yr. They start in a week or so. 8th rounder Daniel Brewer is killing the ball in Charleston and is begging for a promotion. He's hitting .325 with an .876OPS. 9th rounder Mikey O'Brien will be in the rotation for Staten Island 10th rounder DJ Mitchell has been the sleeper of the draft. He started off in LoA Charleston, where he dominated (42K in 37IP, 1.00WHIP, 1.95ERA). He has since moved to Tampa where his peripherals remain awesome (31K in 26.1IP, 1.21WHIP) but his ERA is at 4.78. He was a solid pick to this point Other guys to follow outside the top 10 picks.... Garrison Lassiter skipped Staten Island to start the yr and went directly to LoA Charleston, where he held his own. He hit .271 with an OBP of .342 before getting injured. He is expected back for the short season teams and should be the starting 3b for Staten Island Matt Richardson will be in the rotation for Staten Island as well. Kyle Turley will be in the rotation in Staten Island. O'Brien, Turley and Richardson will make a heck of a top 3 for SI, and all three will be watched closely as they are high end HS prospects. Couple them with Marshall, who made the jump to Charleston, and the HS pitching out of this draft has promise. And Pat Venditte keeps plugging along. The switch pitcher has served as the closer for LoA Charleston and he has just dominated. 38K in 27IP with only 2ER allowed is impressive. He will likely find it much harder as he moves through the system and faces more advanced hitter who arent shaken by the novelty. Overall, I think this draft is starting to show that it has a lot of potential. But it is a weaker draft as compared to 2007 and 2006 in terms of true high end talent. If every player reaches their potential, I think only one guy is a potential top of the rotation starter (Marshall) with the rest falling into the #2-#4 slots. And on the offensive side, I think only 2 guys have middle of the order potential in Joseph and Lassiter, while the rest slot into the bottom of the order (Adams and Higashioka) or not into the lineup at all. Here is to hoping tonight and the next few days bring brighter things.

The sox are rumored to be trying to trade Penny ASAP.

this is why you have a draft thread. So you can put the signings in the thread after its made

There should be a separate page for the drafts if only to archive for later.

What is the problem with having separate draft threads for both our teams?

The sox pick at the #28 spot, one slot in front of NYY. And I have seen no less than 4 mock drafts that have the sox taking Max Stassi, the second best catcher on the draft board and the highest rated prep catcher. There have also been rumors of the sox working out David Renfroe, a talented shortstop out of Mississippi. The Yankees and Sox are linked to him, although I havent seen him in any first round projections. He might be a fight in the second round, where the yankees pick one slot in front of the sox.

Tonight is the night. 6pm, first pick gets 15 minutes, then every other pick gets 4 minutes through the end of the first day, then its rapid fire, 1 minute between picks. I have seen a lot of projections and each one has a different player falling to the yankees. One projection has Matt Purke falling to NY. He is considered arguably the best HS pitcher out there, he's big, left handed and asking for Porcello money. The fact that the sox pick before the yankees could make that a bit more dicey. Another is Slade Heathcott, a 5 tool CF HSer from Texas. And yet another, is Max Stassi, a high school catcher from Yuba City California. Interesting doings though, include the recent projections that Aaron Crow could fall out of the first round based on his holdout from last yr and that Tanner Scheppers could fall out for medical concerns. Mock drafts from earlier in the yr had both of these players in the top 10, with Crow going as high as #3 behind Strasburg and Ackley. I would absolutely love to take Aaron Crow if he fell. He is all about the money and we have a lot of it. Thats it. Starts at 6pm, should be interesting to have on in the background while watching the yankees.

Another win, its a beautiful thing. We have now won 8 of our last 9 series and head into Boston up a game with Burnett, Wang and CC throwing.

he is an enigma IMO. He is capable of throwing low to mid 90s with some sick offspeed offerings. His location that was so impeccable in Japan, has been awful here. He refuses to give in, which lends to high walk totals, and when he does, he throws a cookie rather than a good hard fastball. I think he needs to be broken down and rebuilt. His mentality just doesnt fly here. In Japan, they didnt keep pitch counts as religiously as they do here and he only pitched once a week. So he could throw 150 pitches per game and get through 7 or 8 innings. Here, he gets through 5 on 100 pitches and he kills the pen. Then he gets dead arm.

you carry that mojo, right into the off day

so he improved rather than you just being proven wrong. I see