Most lopsided draft I can recall

[Frobby]

19 pitchers in the first 24 rounds. I've never seen anything like that. I guess the organization is just hell bent on finding one or two needles in that haystack. And boy is there going to be a lot of filler on the field at Aberdeen and Delmarva next year.

[mcpd]

19 pitchers in the first 24 rounds. I've never seen anything like that. I guess the organization is just hell bent on finding one or two needles in that haystack. And boy is there going to be a lot of filler on the field at Aberdeen and Delmarva next year.

Yeah I was surprised at all the pitching they drafted . Maybe some of them that they said were drafted as pitchers will be position players.

[Otter]

Yeah I was surprised at all the pitching they drafted . Maybe some of them that they said were drafted as pitchers will be position players.

Yeah, it was definitely a little bizarre. And so many college pitchers from non-power conferences in cold-weather areas. I see a lot of pitchers that profile as relievers; I would have preferred more upside picks. Are we going to have enough position players to fill out the GCL roster??

[Can_of_corn]

Yeah, it was definitely a little bizarre. And so many college pitchers from non-power conferences in cold-weather areas. I see a lot of pitchers that profile as relievers; I would have preferred more upside picks. Are we going to have enough position players to fill out the GCL roster??

That is where the stable of young international talent comes into play.

Just kidding, you can always find kids willing to play baseball for a living. Will be easy enough to fill out the rosters with undrafted types.

[bpilktree]

Yeah a lot of pitchers and Northern guys. These guys tend to not be over used as much with not playing as much. I think that may help with some guys with arm wear.

[Rene88]

Keep it coming, more pitchers the better. Put some of the pitchers in the field of you have to (seriously, they might have to).

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[TheOtherRipken]

19 pitchers in the first 24 rounds. I've never seen anything like that. I guess the organization is just hell bent on finding one or two needles in that haystack. And boy is there going to be a lot of filler on the field at Aberdeen and Delmarva next year.

Not suprised since pitching has become too expensive for the Orioles in free agency. I think a part of it is a reaction to the market.

[eb45]

19 pitchers in the first 24 rounds. I've never seen anything like that. I guess the organization is just hell bent on finding one or two needles in that haystack. And boy is there going to be a lot of filler on the field at Aberdeen and Delmarva next year.

Last year was heavy on the high school bats -- even with Mountcastle at Delmarva already, Aberdeen's got Jason Heinrich, Ryan McKenna, Seamus Curran and Jaylen Ferguson as guys who are definitely more than filler.

[panick]

Like someone posted in another thread, Duquette doesn't care what the Orioles' system is like after he's gone.

Since Angelos wants to keep Duquette until his contract is done, the least he can do is take away personnel decisions from Duquette.

[ReclaimTheCrown]

A couple thoughts from me:

- Rajsich talked a lot about taking the best player on the board each time, but it does strain credulity a bit that 19 of the first 24 BPA were all pitchers. I'm fine with whatever approach we take (I'm not exactly an expert on the draft), but seems a little silly to talk about BPA if you've got something you're targeting.

- The heavy pitcher focus seems a bit unorthodox, but I can't really blame them. It certainly does seem to indicate we feel much better about position players throughout (and especially at the low levels of) our system than we do about the pitchers.

- The huge predominance of college arms seems to pretty clearly indicate organizational philosophy, which I can't help but think has been colored by the experiences we've had with Bundy and Harvey. Again, can't necessarily blame them, but just an observation.

- Our top three picks (Sedlock, Akin, and Dietz) all seem pretty intriguing, though I've seen in a few places speculation that each could be better suited for bullpen duty. Obviously the hope is that at least a couple have a good chance at becoming starting prospects, but we'll see.

- I'm intrigued by what I've heard/read about Austin Hays, the third round pick. We could certainly use some legit OF prospects, and given how few position players we selected, we don't have a lot of lottery tickets out of this draft.

- It's certainly disappointing that we didn't end up with as many picks as we could've (the lost pick for Gallardo and the traded pick with Matusz were particularly galling), but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of significant "overslot" type guys that we picked. I think someone mentioned elsewhere that Bakst (the 27th round 3B) and Brecht (the 36th round LHP) are a couple, but doesn't look like too many. Obviously our draft strategy was probably impacted by the modest pool of money we had available.

Regardless, excited to see these guys get into the organization and hopefully begin to show some promise.

[Otter]

A couple thoughts from me:

- Rajsich talked a lot about taking the best player on the board each time, but it does strain credulity a bit that 19 of the first 24 BPA were all pitchers. I'm fine with whatever approach we take (I'm not exactly an expert on the draft), but seems a little silly to talk about BPA if you've got something you're targeting.

- The heavy pitcher focus seems a bit unorthodox, but I can't really blame them. It certainly does seem to indicate we feel much better about position players throughout (and especially at the low levels of) our system than we do about the pitchers.

- The huge predominance of college arms seems to pretty clearly indicate organizational philosophy, which I can't help but think has been colored by the experiences we've had with Bundy and Harvey. Again, can't necessarily blame them, but just an observation.

- Our top three picks (Sedlock, Akin, and Dietz) all seem pretty intriguing, though I've seen in a few places speculation that each could be better suited for bullpen duty. Obviously the hope is that at least a couple have a good chance at becoming starting prospects, but we'll see.

- I'm intrigued by what I've heard/read about Austin Hays, the third round pick. We could certainly use some legit OF prospects, and given how few position players we selected, we don't have a lot of lottery tickets out of this draft.

- It's certainly disappointing that we didn't end up with as many picks as we could've (the lost pick for Gallardo and the traded pick with Matusz were particularly galling), but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of significant "overslot" type guys that we picked. I think someone mentioned elsewhere that Bakst (the 27th round 3B) and Brecht (the 36th round LHP) are a couple, but doesn't look like too many. Obviously our draft strategy was probably impacted by the modest pool of money we had available.

Regardless, excited to see these guys get into the organization and hopefully begin to show some promise.

All good points. And I agree, for all the talk about taking "BPA" it's quite obvious that wasn't the case in this draft with so many college pitchers picked. That being said, I'm very interested to see how our top three picks fare as starters and like you I'm a fan of Hays.

I can't help though being a little depressed thinking if we hadn't signed Gallardo we could have had Benson. And if Duquette hadn't given away our 2nd round pick, we'd have another prospect in the system in addition to the larger pool money which might have allowed us to draft/sign Nolan Jones.

[rudyrooster]

This draft seems to be all about "grow the arms--buy the bats!"

[ReclaimTheCrown]

All good points. And I agree, for all the talk about taking "BPA" it's quite obvious that wasn't the case in this draft with so many college pitchers picked. That being said, I'm very interested to see how our top three picks fare as starters and like you I'm a fan of Hays.

I can't help though being a little depressed thinking if we hadn't signed Gallardo we could have had Benson. And if Duquette hadn't given away our 2nd round pick, we'd have another prospect in the system in addition to the larger pool money which might have allowed us to draft/sign Nolan Jones.

Sure, tough to consider what could've been. I'm holding out hope that Gallardo, with the rest and rehab, can resemble more the pitcher he was last year than what he showed in his first few starts, but we'll see. Given where the big league club is, a healthy, reasonably effective Gallardo could make a lot of difference for us. If not, though, will be tough to consider what could've been out of this year's draft...

[hoosiers]

Pitching is, and always has been, very expensive. In prior years, starting pitching was crazy expensive, but now we are seeing non-bullpen closers start to get $5M-$10M+ per year. So, I have no issue with a focus on pitching prospects in the draft as long as they were graded out appropriately to take where there were picked, and we didn't just take lower ceiling guys who could help in the bullpen quickly during this so-called competitive window. Also, as mentioned above, we took several HS bats last year that should be at Aberdeen this year that have potential. Further, while the mlb results have been mixed, our current minor league coaches have shown an ability to get guys like Givens, Tolliver, Wright, Wilson and others to the majors.

I think we will end up with about seven to 10 guys from this draft that will have at least a minimum prospect status. We seem to have a couple interesting HS kids taken after the 10th round, but IMO we've done a poor job recently freeing up the $ to sign such prospects from our pool. Like others above, I lament our GM's propensity to give up draft picks like gumballs for mediocre free agents and to fix poor relief pitcher decisions, and how that limits our draft haul year after year including this one.

Still, the DJ Stewart pick notwithstanding, I like the prior draft efforts of this scouting team and its ability to find a couple diamonds who appear much better than their draft position - guys like Harvey, Sisco, Mancini, Hader and others - and am eager to see how this new class develops.