Review of Draft Picks 1-10

With the draft getting underway and everybody getting into the spirit of it, I thought I'd review the Top 10 picks under the prism of Commissioner John's original predictions in December.

First off, John was amazingly accurate in his predictions. Only one of his projected top 10 (Rasmus #9) fell outof the top 10. Here's the list with the actual pick followed by John's predicted pick in parenthesis:

1. COL: Matt Wieters (Wieters): No brain surgery. Nearly a unanimous number 1 in the SOM realm.
2. OLD: Tommy Hanson (Hanson): John pegs this one. There was some rumbling that Pete might go with Andrus, but he takes the top rookie pitcher in the draft.
3. ABE: Andrus, McCutchen, Beckham (Andrus, McCutchen, Carpenter): John nearly gets all three here. It looked to me like ABE was setting up his lineup for the future so I thought Beckham would go here. Jeremy said he had Carpenter lined up several times and just could not click the button. Not taking Carpenter here seems to indicate that ABE is setting itself up for a long, successful future, especially with Beckham reportedly moving to 2B this season.
4. See #3.
5. See #4.
6. NAP via SAN: Chris Carpenter (Rick Porcello): In the first of the draft day trades, SAN waves the opportunity to take the best SP card in the draft in front of the rest of the league. All wanna-be contenders, it's time to step up! The surprise taker is dispersal team and hyper-active trader Napa ponying up the #10 pick plus two high picks next season for the right to pair Carpenter with Lincecum. That's the best duo of SPs on any team (passing Haren and Josh Johnson of London), and makes Napa a threat right away. San Antonio seems to be aiming for a younger arm by sliding to 10, and we can infer that SAN does not consider itself a top contender.
7. NAS: Porcello (David Price): With Porcello still on the board, Nassau grabs him in hopes he'll be in the rotation for 10+ years. Good solid pick here.
8. HAL: Brett Anderson (Beckham): Halifax grabs arguably the next best rookie SP with innings here. Also a hopeful cornerpiece for years to come.
9. LON: Price (Colby Rasmus): London cannot ignore the potential of David Price here, and probably with good reason. London is setting up a potentially great pitching staff here for the foreseeable future. This begins the slide of Colby Rasmus.
10. SAN via NAP: Alcides Escobar (B. Anderson): I think San Antonio got surprised here. I think John was aiming for one of the 3 rookie pitchers but they all got taken right in front of him. The consolation prize is nothing to sneeze at. Hot prospect Alcides Escobar could man the SS position for a decade, and SAN is going to need a SS real soon with M. Tejada slated to move to 3B in Baltimore.

So, you can see that our wise commish nearly nailed the top 10. Well done, John!

Biggest Winner: Aberdeen establishes its up the middle core for the long-term with Andrus, Beckham, and McCutchen. I guess it's a no-brainer to choose the team with three top 10 picks as the winner, but he used those picks extremely well in my judgment. Runner-up: Napa who throws itself into immediate contention.

Biggest Loser: Reluctantly, I choose San Antonio. There were no real losers here, San Antonio was chosen solely because I don't think they drafted for the position they were aiming for. However, Escobar could end up being a better addition than a semi-unpredictable young pitcher, plus they gather two high picks to continue building in the future.

Review of picks 11-20 coming soon.