Draft Notes 5-10-12 – Kyle Zimmer, Luc Giolito, Catchers

There is some concern around the scouting world about USF (24-28) P Kyle Zimmer. He stretched his hamstring last week when he was fielding a bunt and had to be scratched from this past weekend series with Pepperdine. The bigger problem is the failure to heal in time and some scouts fear this could linger. Zimmer shot up the mocks mainly due to his incredible 76.1-85-13 IP-K-BB ratio for a basically bad team. I had him in my top five picks for a few weeks, but it’ hard to wrap your arms around someone with a current injury. Talent wise, I think he’s the best righty in the draft, but I have him behind Mark Appel and Lucas Giolito right now.  

 Speaking of Giolito, his rehab continues and we’re still some time away from any kind of organized session involving velocity. I spoke with five people that do this for a living and asked them, ‘if Giolito was shut down by his advisors today, where would he still be drafted. All agreed he would be a first round pick and four of them had him as a top 10 pick anyway. Two had him top five. We that do this look at people like Anthony Renaudo and Matt Purke for exampled of once number one projected players that fell due to injuries suffered in their last year of school ball. Renaudo currently looks to be, at best, a middle reliever and Purke is far from being able to project. There’s a lot of money being given out in the first five picks and a team would sure like to hand that check to someone with exceptional wings. My guess here is two-fold. If the rehab and scout sessions go well, look for Luc to be picked 5^th or 6^th overall. If they done, it’s off to college (but, that’s just me…).

Remember, every injury is different. Broken bones heal, but arthritis inside your lower back’s spinal column doesn’t. You can’t change Mother Nature and genetic abnormalities. 

The baseball world continues to look for a few, good men catchers before draft day and, frankly the crème at the top is down to one. Florida’s Mike Zunino started off the mock season in the top 15, but quickly rose as high as number one. He’s cooled off a little lately, but I believe he’s safe as one of the top five picks. Past him is questionable. Everybody jumped on the Stryker Trahan train early who, on his best day, played marginal defense. Trahan picked the wrong year to let his bat go dry so anyone that drafts him now does so as a crap shoot.

I’m old school and I was taught that you never draft a high school catcher because you just don’t know if he is going to develop into that position at the major league level. Then I was told not to draft a college junior because he already has three more years squatting behind the plate and his legs will go earlier than when arbitration runs out. Lastly, I was told always sign international players for your catcher needs because it’s still a position that kids like to play in those counties.

The next 50 catchers projected in this draft suffer from one of three problems:

1.     They can hit but not catch

2.     They can catch but not throw

3.     They can throw but not hit