Pirates select Cole Tucker

The Pittsburgh Pirates apparently chose need over the best player as the Pirates selected Cole Tucker with their first pick in the amateur draft.
Tucker is a 6'3 Arizona high school shortstop that has the body frame to move to other infield slots or possibly stay as the long term shortstop.
Many observers appear to think that this was a bit of a reach and the Pirates' decision to make a "need pick" brought back memories of the selection of Tony Sanchez in round one that proved to be a disappointment.

Tucker is projected to be a player with a plus glove with gap power and not a real threat to develop power as a plus tool, so think of  Tucker as a typical Pirate shortstop than an Alen Hanson type.

The Pirates used the pick obtained from the Marlins for Bryan Morris on Connor Joe from the University of San Diego.
Joe is listed as a catcher/first baseman but could be moved to the outfield.
Joe hits nine homers for the Toreros but is said to have more doubles power (21) than homer potential in the pros.
Most saw this as another reach, but the Pirates may be keeping their high picks around or under slot money to go after some hard signs and gambles in the second round of the draft today...

I may be back AGAIN as Giants top pick Tyler Beede pitches this afternoon, so I may be back with a scouting report tonight.....

Indians select Bradley Zimmer

The Cleveland Indians continued their investment in bats as for the third draft in a row,the Tribe selected an outfielder in the first round of the MLB draft.
Bradley Zimmer joins Tyler Naquin and Clint Frazier as the most recent first rounders taken by Cleveland.
The 6'5 lefty swinger played his college baseball at the University of San Francisco like his brother Kyle,who was a first rounder by Kansas City in the 2012 draft.
Zimmer is projected as a centerfielder by the Indians and looks to have four tools,but average power at best.
Sounds a lot like Tyler Naquin did to me and Naquin has been good,but not great as he works his way through the Indians system.
Zimmer is larger though and might develop more power as he fills out.
As I said earlier,I didn't read as much on the draft this season,so my thoughts are more reading the reports of others and then reading between the lines by looking at the numbers.
Good speed,defensively appears that he could handle center and should hit for a high average.
The biggest question appears to be can he hit for average power,if he can,Zimmer should be project as an above average centerfielder.
If he cannot,he might be more of a 4th outfielder and you do expect more than that from a first rounder...

The Indians also had the 31st pick in the first round with their compensation pick for losing Ubaldo Jimenez and grabbed Tennessee high school pitcher Justus Sheffield.
The lefty tosser is 6'2 and is reported to have a four pitch mix and is reasonably polished for a high schooler,but has a commitment to Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt is suddenly becoming a home for pitching prospects and it is unknown how strong Sheffield's commitment is what it will take for the Indians to get him to agree on a contract..
One thing to remember is that Sheffield's brother plays for Vanderbilt,so that might take even more dollars to buy him away....

Back later with a look at the Pirates first rounder and their pick that they obtained from Florida for Bryan Morris.....

Giants select Tyler Beede

Been a tough night at the road office,so look for a quick series of posts on the Giants,Indians and Pirates first round selections in last night's MLB draft.
I haven't been as up on this years amateur crop as in the past as I let my Baseball America subscription lapse,so much of my thoughts might be rehashed from other sites..

The Giants picked first of the three in the 14th slot and we will start with them.
Tyler Beede was a first round pick for the Blue Jays a few years back,but decided to head to Vanderbilt instead.
The 21 year old Commodore comes from a program that produced David Price and Sonny Gray,both of which have remained healthy thus far as a pro,which is more than I can say for many college programs.
Physically,Beede has the look that the Giants prefer in the pitchers that they draft-tall,filled out and guys that throw "downhill".
The 6'4 Massachusetts native throws in the mid-90's and has impressive breaking stuff when under control.
I added that caveat mainly because the issue with Beede is his command,which often can go awry.
Throwing strikes has been a question with Beede and the main reason that he was available to the Giants at 14.
Arm-wise,Tyler Beede appears to rank with the best in this draft.
It'll be up to the Giants to refine his tools to make him the best pro in the draft.

Back later with the Pirates first rounder and the Indians two first rounders.....

On the signing front

We return to the signing front with some stops on the circuit.

We start in Hagerstown at the world's most decrepit ballpark with the Hickory Crawdads (Rangers) and Lexington Legends (Royals) hitting the Hub City.

The Crawdads featured two interesting pitching prospects in first rounder Collin Wiles and Yohander Mendez along with another first rounder in shortstop Travis Demeritte and super toolsy outfielder Jairo Beras.
Three players with potential returned to Hickory for a repeat season in Lewis Brinson,Ronald Guzman and Nomar Mazara.
All signed their various cards,but the best catch for me was former big leaguer Bobby Rose,who signed two of my favorite cards in 1990 Score and 1992 Fleer Ultra along with his Yokohama Bay Stars card from his days in Japan.
Thanks to Bill Cover for his help with Rose,who was a two per....

The Legends were a less than inspiring bunch after a strong prospect squad last season,pitchers Cody Reed and Luke Farrell (Thanks to Kendall Morris for his Prism card) along with outfielder Alfredo Escalera and catch Cody Johnson were the best of the bunch,but the coaching staff featured two former major leaguers in former Pirate Abraham Nunez and former Brave Glenn Hubbard.
Nunez was excellent all three days,but I did not have any advanced scouting on Hubbard.
I would be told later that Hubbard was a less than earnest signer,but on day one,he signed all four cards that I had (of five),after skipping the middle game,I returned for the final games and watched Hubbard sign multiples for Kendall and his daughter Molly,who had missed the other games,but told me no for one card.
I suppose Hubbard is a once a series signer,which is his option.....

In between,some thanks to Bill Cover for getting Christian Lopes while he was in Florida for his son's diving meet and former Padre and Indian Bob Owchinko arrived through the mail...

Next up was a rainy and crazy Saturday in Altoona for the Akron Rubber Ducks.
Between a scheduled doubleheader,a rain delay and even more rain,it looked like a bad night on the horizon (I would have a bad one in Altoona down the road) for the Quackers.
The main reason for doing Akron was getting another one of my seemingly endless pile of Francisco Lindor's finished and Lindor did do his first Bowman card.
I just never seem to drop the pile of the Indians future prospect down any!
Lindor does seem to be much more happy and easier to deal in AA than he was in High A,he'll joke around and talk to you,but it's still one unless you really get happy Lindor for a two spot.
Lindor was an extra on this night as the player I really wanted was former Cub Bryan LaHair,who had a few strong months with the Cubs a while back,and was returning from Japan.
I really wanted LaHair on two of his Japanese cards and I was able to those done as well as reliever Kyle Crockett on his Mahoning Valley and New York/Penn top prospect cards.
Crockett would shortly skip Columbus and go straight to the Indians for a brief time before returning to the minors in Columbus.
Former Brave and Royal Kyle Davies is attempting a comeback with Cleveland and was so nice in signing his 2011 heritage card that he thanked me for asking him!

Thanks to Derreck Chupak for getting me a signed Bowman of Mookie Betts,who set the Eastern League on fire before being promoted to AAA Pawtucket earlier this week....

The final stop on this signing front featured the Richmond Flying Squirrels for a morning game in Harrisburg.
The game saw Clayton Blackburn throw five perfect innings before fielding miscues and a few bad breaks saw Harrisburg drive Blackburn from the game and hand him a loss.
Consequently,Blackburn was in an less than wonderful mood after the game and signed just one card.
Kyle Crick was the other super addition as he signed his 2013 Top 100 card (Yes!) among others as Hank helped me out on this day by getting me two more and almost catching me up on the Giants top prospect.
I also got Ty Blach on his California League All-Star card to wrap up the day...

Still plenty down the road from the signing front,but with luck,I'll be back later today with a cleaning of the inbox....

Pirates ship Morris to Marlins

The Pittsburgh Pirates made the first move after a disappointing start to 2014 as the Pirates traded reliever Bryan Morris to the Miami (still feels weird typing that) Marlins for the Marlins competitive balance pick (#37) in the upcoming baseball draft.

Before I get to Morris,yes,I know that there is supposed to be no trading of draft picks in baseball,but those special competitive balance picks can be traded.
I'd like to see all the picks be dealt,but that is a post for another day.

The 27 year old Morris was 4-0 this season with an ERA of 3.80 in 23 innings of work,but the Pirate had been used less of late as Clint Hurdle had problems finding uses for Morris with an array of command issues of late.
If the Pirates truly thought Morris was as good as he was going to be-which was not bad,but not a future bullpen stalwart at the end,then this is a nice deal because it will get them an excellent prospect in return at the 37th spot.
However,I think there just might be more to this-sometimes teams make a smaller deal to grease the skids for a later and larger deal.
Just saying that there is a power hitting gentleman waiting to be dealt in Miami....

The deal also shows (along with the Ike Davis trade that for some reason I never wrote about) that even with a new contract,Neal Huntington must be feeling a little bit pressure from somewhere to change things up.
Not that means win now mode because trading a big leaguer for a draft pick is the opposite of that,just that Huntington is trying to shake up a team that I thought would take a step back this year before a potential leap next season.
You do not change the culture of losing in one short season folks,no matter how successful that season was....

This also closes the book on the first big trade of the Neal Huntington era in Pittsburgh with Morris leaving to Miami.
The Jason Bay trade with the Dodgers and Red Sox could certainly not be called a success for Pittsburgh as other than the small contribution from Morris,the assets obtained were disappointing.
Brandon Moss has become a nice hitter,but it was in Oakland,not Pittsburgh that Moss's bat offered any value.
Craig Hansen was disappointing before having his career essentially finished by injury and the less said about the Andy LaRoche era at third base the better.
Often times the sweeping changes that a new management team makes aren't always the best (think this at your job sometimes) and it's the later moves that work out once you get a handle on things.
Check this out for our thoughts at the time on the Jason Bay trade.

Back later tonight,I hope!

Jamie Romak hits the big time.

Driving to work tonight, I was listening to the end of the Pirates-Dodgers game from Los Angeles and heard a name that I haven't heard in a while.
Jamie Romak was getting ready to enter the game for the final inning of a 12-2 blowout, but hearing that name made me think.

Jamie Romak has been in the minors for years and I had thought that he was long back into the real world and yet, after all those years, was in the big leagues.
Romak was a name that came up often in the early year or two of this blog (Do a blog search using his name) when the Pirates farm system was pretty weak and when we covered the prospects even closer than we do now.
Romak was considered the Pirates' top power prospect at one time after being obtained from Atlanta in 2007 with Adam LaRoche for Mike Gonzalez and Brent Lillibridge in a system that screamed for power with the awful Dave Littlefield/Ed Creech drafts.

The Pirates never seemed to handle the Canadian correctly and despite posting decent power numbers, was repeating levels in each of his three years as a Pirate and was allowed to leave via minor league free agency.
Romak then moved to Kansas City where he played in Frederick as a member of Wilmington and appeared to be headed to hired gun status, where teams would sign an established High A/AA bat to fill in a spot that needs something on the level along with a veteran attitude to help younger and usually immature players.

I often talked hockey with Jamie in his stops in Hagerstown and Frederick and found him to be an engaging guy-the type of guy that you would wish would make it, but the odds were against him.
I lost track of Romak after that and figured he was on the independent circuit, but began to post solid power numbers in Triple-A with a 22 homer season in Memphis last season and was signed by the Dodgers before this season.
Romak ripped 13 homers in just under two months in AAA Albuquerque, so with his versatility (LF, RF,1b, and 3b) made him a good choice for a team that needed a callup due to injury issues.

My friends on the autograph circuit often talk about how we wish Sean Nicol would make it to the big time even if just for a while because he is just the type of person that you would love to see succeed and Jamie Romak was that type of person, albeit a little less outgoing.
I think of the guys that I hang around with only Bill Cover and Mike Oravec still graphing from when Romak was playing on the local circuit, so he isn't quite as known as a similar player would be currently.

Minor league baseball is a long road to the show and one not filled with glamour.
Unless you think playing in towns like Hagerstown, eating sandwiches, long bus rides, and sleeping multiple people to a room is glamorous, that is.
And for as much as guys like me like to say we'd play for free, we probably wouldn't-at least at this stage of our lives anyway with families to support for what is essentially peanuts compared to the big league game, so the trek that career minor leaguers like Romak make truly is more of a survival test than that of a romantic quest.

I'm not sure how long Jamie Romak will stay around the big leagues, but I'm happy for him that he got to the majors and I hope he manages to get a hit sometime (currently 0 for 2), but for all the Jamie Romak's that made it, think about all that paid a similar price and came up short.
Give them a thought once in a while for paying the same cost with zero rewards...

Froch KO's Groves,Boxing challenge

George Groves was well ahead of my card after seven rounds in his rematch vs Carl Froch,but you could feel things turning to the point that it felt like just a matter of time before Froch made his move.
Froch did just that with a one punch knockout of Groves in round 8 to retain his IBF Super Middleweight title.
No controversy on this one and the KO helped R.L.Malpica increase his lead over me in the boxing challenge to 44-40.
R.L earned two points for the Froch KO win and he would earn four more on the day from Evgeny Gradovich (2 pts for his unanimous decision),Nonito Donaire (1 pt for a win) and Nicholas Walters (1 pt for a win).
I scored just three on the day from Gradovich and Donaire...

Groves used his awkward style to throw Froch off,but the fight had a different vibe than the first bout.
In the first fight,Groves controlled the action and you felt like he was frustrating Froch.
In this return bout,Froch may have been outpointed on my card,but he was calmer and more patient and it seemed like was just waiting for the mistake from Groves.
He found it in round 8.

I have another post in mind for tonight,if I have time...