Thursday, June 05, 2008
THT draft primer
Posted by Alex EisenbergFor loyal THT readers, you may remember the "Breaking Down the 2007 Draft" articles written by Carlos Gomez close to a year ago. In the upcoming weeks, I plan on replicating this series for the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. Of course, there will be a few slight differences.
Instead of solely analyzing a player's mechanics, we will expand our analysis to include evaluations on the kind of stuff a pitcher possesses and other attributes that could affect a player's future.
I also won't be breaking down some of the highest draft picks (specifically, seven of them) because of the number of excellent scouting reports that have already been created on these players. I will link to them below. But first, lets talk about what to expect going forward.
The series will feature profiles of players take within the first 50 picks (again excluding the seven below). In addition, at my own site (Baseball-Intellect) I will be profiling some of the sleeper prospects in the draft as well as breaking down some of the players drafted outside the top-50.
I will also be compiling a list of 10 - 14 players that the readers wll decide. So please send your requests of players that reside outside the top-50 that you want to see profiled to the e-mail below:
draft.request@gmail.com
Disclaimers
To properly evaluate a player, there must be video that accurately reflects a player's stuff, swing, mechanics, etc, so I won't be able to profile players where video is not available to use.
Most of the clips used will come from video provided by the MLB Scouting Bureau. It should be pointed out that my opinions are mostly formed on the small amount of footage the video provides, so there are sample size issues and those issues should be noted.
Now, here are some scouting reports for seven of the top prospects in the draft (listed alphabetically)
Pedro Alvarez
Saber Scouting Report
Gordon Beckham
Baseball-Intellect Report
Dugout Central Scouting Report
Tim Beckham
Baseball Digest Daily Profile
Camden Depot Scouting Report
Aaron Crow
Chris O'Leary Report
Saber Scouting Report
Brian Matusz
Sox Prospects Report
Baseball-Intellect Profile
Buster Posey
College Baseball Prospects Report
Camden Depot Scouting Report
Brewer Fan Scouting Report
College Baseball Blog Report
Justin Smoak
Baseball-Intellect Profile
College Baseball Blog Profile
Expect this series to debut at some point next week. I also remind people to send me requests for players to profile.
Alex breaks down major and minor league players by using sabermetric and video analysis at his website, Baseball-Intellect. To get full access to his entire collection of prospect video and scouting reports, you can sign up as a Premium Member. You can contact him at baseballintellect@gmail.com