Day 1 is over, Day 2 coming up

FIRST DAY SUMMARY

General consensus among the 'experts' is that the Indians did well in the first round with White, solid in the second round with Kipnis. No word on what those experts think of Gardner in the 3rd round but it is not a bad pick, may turn out really good AND, as we learned last year, there is still a lot of silver and a little gold to be mined on the next two days of the draft so, even if they whiff on Gardner, they can easily make it up in the later rounds...IF they will spend. The only 'watchouts' you could even have about the first day are that the Indians are contemplating changing White to a reliever AND may have to pay him way over slot as he is apparently 'advised' by Boras Corporation, two big question marks for me and maybe affecting their ability to draft and, eventually sign, guys in later rounds who fell due to bonus demands or other reasons; AND that the word is that they will turn Kipnis into a secondbaseman which is dangerous (remember Trevor Crowe?). While I like Kipnis at second offensively it also makes you question if drafting Kipnis here means they are still solid behind Cord Phelps AND, given how Crowe crashed and burned in trying to make that change, are they REALLY thinking about going down that path again? I don't know if Phelps has the tools to be a major leaguer at another defensive position and he and Kipnis would be on close to the same development path, with Phelps being 1 or less years ahead at this point. So, solid B to B+ so far with a chance to go up in short order if we get these guys signed and playing ball.

DAY 2

On Wednesday the draft will start noon Eastern time with Round 4. The day will continue until Round 30 is completed. The picks will come hot and heavy tomorrow and we will try to get information about these picks up as fast as possible. You can also follow the draft using MLB's draft tracker that you can get to from the following page:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2009/index.jsp

As a primer for day 2 I like to look at what top prospects are left. Remember last year Zach Putnam (25 on BA's top 200) and T.J. House (#100) were still on the board after the 4th round so there are still some gems out there and I wanted to highlight some of the 23 players BA 's top 100 pre-draft list (and a couple of other guys of note) who are still on the board opening the 4th round. Rankings in parentheses:

Max Stassi (30) - a HS catcher who held his ranking pretty much throughout the spring.
Sam Dyson (38) - a draft-eligible sophomore RHP from South Carolina (think Bryce Stowell last year, but more highly ranked)
Zach Van Rosenburg (41) - a 6'5" HS RHP
Brody Colvin (43) - a 6'4" HS RHP
Jeff Malm (59) - A heralded HS powerhitting firstbaseman from Las Vegas
Brooks Raley (82) - A heralded two-way (LHP/OF) player who is a 6'0" draft-eligible sophomore from Texas A&M
Kendal Volz (92) - A 6'4" RHP from Baylor who started this spring as the #6-ranked college player but who has really pitched badly this spring.
Jason Stoffel (Not in top 100) - A 6'2" closer from Arizona who came into the spring as the 12th ranked college draft prospect. He came in as the head-and-shoulders best college relief pitching prospect in this year's draft but was very uneven this spring.
Ryan Jackson (80) - A SS from Miami who came into the spring as the #13 college draft prospect but who hit under .300 in college, with aluminum bats. Basically, he stopped hitting.
Luke Bailey (96) - A HS catcher who came into the spring as the #7 HS draft prospect.
Madison Younginger (45) - A HS 6'3" RHP who held his draft spot pretty well this spring.

BTW, Baseball America did the same type of summary I did. Here's the link:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=1140

There are many, many others who either were ranked highly by BA or Law or Baseball Prospectus or PG Crosschecker pre-draft or who were ranked highly in the spring but fell due to performance, injury or perceived college commitment. Look for these names and others to pop up in later rounds. Let's hope the Indians pop and sign a number of them as they did last year...but, of course, even more than last year as we LOVE our prospects, know that Cleveland has to build through the draft and international signings, and just want to get excited about the least exciting part of the marathon that is the later rounds of the baseball draft.

Posted in: Alex White,Jason Kipnis,Joe Gardner