2018 1st round pick (11) Grayson Rodriguez - RHP - Central Heights HS TX

[markpolis]

23 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

Huh?  What does one scouting report from who knows where have to do with anything whatsoever?  On second thought, don't answer, because this is stupid.  

The comparisons between Hobgood and Rodriguez are valid and legitimate. You saying they are "clownish" and "lazy" are what is stupid.

First scouting report was from MLB.com in 2009 and the 2nd scouting report was from Bleacher Report with quotes from our very own scouting director in 2009 Joe Jordan.

 

[Bradysburns]

1 hour ago, weams said:

He also struck out almost two an inning this season. 

That's great. From the scouting report, this kid sounds like a right handed CC Sabbathia - haha! I'm actually pretty excited to see him pitch. He's hurling it up there 97 mph... and he's a first-year player. We shall see. I just hope our development program brings out Grayson's talents in a way that promotes long-term success. He seems to have the raw materials. 

[hoosiers]

27 minutes ago, Bradysburns said:

That's great. From the scouting report, this kid sounds like a right handed CC Sabbathia - haha! I'm actually pretty excited to see him pitch. He's hurling it up there 97 mph... and he's a first-year player. We shall see. I just hope our development program brings out Grayson's talents in a way that promotes long-term success. He seems to have the raw materials. 

I think the last line is the most important.  We picked up an uber talented HS RHP at 11.  Choosing among all those arms (Winn, Liberatore, etc), we picked up one of them and have to hope our scouting department picked the right one.  I like that GRod was not a super high velo guy last year or this one, but is somewhat of a late bloomer.  If GRod stays healthy and adds some muscle and more conditioning, the sky is the limit and I think that's what you hope for at 1-11.

You know, you just have to trust the scouting department.  This group has missed on a few guys, but they get the benefit of the doubt with David Hess in the majors, Mancini, Hays entering the year as a top 25 guy, DJ Stewart on the MLB doorstep, Curran, Mullins, McKenna, Baumann, etc.  I think they have out-drafted our draft position repeatedly.  

It also seems that I need to remind folks that our 2001 draft featured six picks on the Baseball America Top 100 list - Chris Smith, Bass, Fontenot, Rommie Crouthers, Lewis, and Jim Johnson.  Smith was hurt by a team trainer, Bass was old for a HSer and struck out a ton and never advanced far - only Jim Johnson made it to MLB.  The results for this draft won't be known for a few years, but you can't get too caught up in the rankings.

Finally, it seems silly to say that GRod should be compared to Hobgood.  They have nothing in common and are two entirely different people regardless of whether they ultimately will share the same fate.

We added a top arm to the system tonight and I think we should be quite pleased.

[Luke-OH]

4 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Keith Law had Rodriguez #10. 

I think people are a little too swayed by the tv coverage. The mlb draft is too much of a crapshoot for them to cover it well. They are trying though. Our guy wasn’t there. Therefore they didn’t talk about him a lot. I’m sure if he was there they would’ve interviewed him and then talked more about him. 

I see a guy in Rodriguez with a real simple/easy delivery. Liberatore had to rely on quick pitching and gimmicks to get outs in HS. Who wants that with your #1 pick?

Rodriguez quick pitches too. Liberatore is rumored to have been bought down by the Rays. Basically the Rays say if you make it to our pick, this is what we’ll give you, so then his advisor tells teams that he wants that amount and if no one is willing to pay it, the player slides.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Ruzious said:

They are clownish, lazy, and stupid.  And the scouting reports are not even similar to Rodriquez'.  And this remains a stupid conversation

I don’t think your name-calling really advances the discussion.  

That said, having read Steve Melewski’s write-up this morning, I feel a little more confident about the pick.    It still strikes me as something of a gamble, but I certainly expect our scouting staff to go with the guy they believe in, rather than just following some consensus list.    I just hope they made a good call.    

[Luke-OH]

11 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think your name-calling really advances the discussion.  

That said, having read Steve Melewski’s write-up this morning, I feel a little more confident about the pick.    It still strikes me as something of a gamble, but I certainly expect our scouting staff to go with the guy they believe in, rather than just following some consensus list.    I just hope they made a good call.    

It seems like every level of evaluator was in to see him and their impression was that he was more advanced and more polished than the industry consensus. He also held his pop up stuff deep into his season.

Those are some of the questions that led many to have him as a 20-30ish ranked guy (me included) instead of a top 15 type. 

[DirtyBird]

4 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

It seems like every level of evaluator was in to see him and their impression was that he was more advanced and more polished than the industry consensus. He also held his pop up stuff deep into his season.

Those are some of the questions that led many to have him as a 20-30ish ranked guy (me included) instead of a top 15 type. 

Seems like with a pool so wide and deep, with so few sure things, the industry rankings are dominated by groupthink.

[Luke-OH]

8 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

Seems like with a pool so wide and deep, with so few sure things, the industry rankings are dominated by groupthink.

Yes and while I tried to think for myself on my personal preference list (and I did produce a unique list, very different from the rest), my data was extremely limited with whatever video I could find. 

[weams]

11. Baltimore Orioles - Grayson Rodriguez, RHP

Really, some of these grades should have capsules in which the players don’t make the majors. Most of these grades should have capsules in which the players don’t make the majors. Them’s the odds, right? But I don’t want some poor kid googling himself the day after the draft to see what people are saying, only to miss some internet hack’s dumb joke. 

So instead, I’m going to lay off for a bit. This Orioles pick will win 217 games, and in 20 years, when someone does a redraft of the 2018 draft, Rodriguez will be the first-overall pick. What a career this kid will have. 

It would be much easier to assume that the Orioles would draft a player who would get swallowed up by a sinkhole that swall the earth, but that’s what we know about the 2018 Orioles. 

Maybe this is the player who turns it around for the franchise. 

Grade — A+

 

 

[markpolis]

38 minutes ago, weams said:

11. Baltimore Orioles - Grayson Rodriguez, RHP

Really, some of these grades should have capsules in which the players don’t make the majors. Most of these grades should have capsules in which the players don’t make the majors. Them’s the odds, right? But I don’t want some poor kid googling himself the day after the draft to see what people are saying, only to miss some internet hack’s dumb joke. 

So instead, I’m going to lay off for a bit. This Orioles pick will win 217 games, and in 20 years, when someone does a redraft of the 2018 draft, Rodriguez will be the first-overall pick. What a career this kid will have. 

It would be much easier to assume that the Orioles would draft a player who would get swallowed up by a sinkhole that swall the earth, but that’s what we know about the 2018 Orioles. 

Maybe this is the player who turns it around for the franchise. 

Grade — A+

 

 

You do realize this report was made in jest? Here is the entire article. Clearly the guy isn't serious.

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/5/17411486/mlb-draft-2018-grades

[markpolis]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think your name-calling really advances the discussion.  

That said, having read Steve Melewski’s write-up this morning, I feel a little more confident about the pick.    It still strikes me as something of a gamble, but I certainly expect our scouting staff to go with the guy they believe in, rather than just following some consensus list.    I just hope they made a good call.    

I also hope the scouting department made the right choice. I don't believe the Rodriguez selection is as big of a reach as Hobgood, but the comments I hear from Rajsich on this pick are eerily similar to the comments Joe Jordan made regarding Hobgood in 2009. Did they even bother to do their due diligence on Singer, Liberatore or Winn?

I find it quite troubling to hear from Grenier he didn't even speak to anyone from the Orioles prior to the draft other than a brief conversation with an area scout.  Did they bother to talk to Xavier Edwards? The player (HS SS) taken immediately after Grenier and being compared to Ozzie Smith and Jimmy Rollins. I didn't hear any of those comparisons being made with Gernier. I wonder how many other teams would have chosen Grenier over Edwards? I'm guessing not many, if any.

[Three Run Homer]

The reason that I thought of Hobgood when I read about Rodriguez is that both are big HS right handers who rose quickly in the rankings right before the draft because of a surge in fastball velocity.  

With hindsight, it's reasonable to suspect that Hobgood's velocity surge was either driven by performance-enhancing drugs or by putting unsustainable max effort into his pitches, in an attempt to impress the scouts to get a bigger signing bonus.  The O's experience with Hobgood makes me suspicious of HS pitchers with sudden surges in fastball velocity in their senior year.  Hopefully Rodriguez' surge is due to something sustainable like better mechanics, rather than something unsustainable.  

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Three Run Homer said:

The reason that I thought of Hobgood when I read about Rodriguez is that both are big HS right handers who rose quickly in the rankings right before the draft because of a surge in fastball velocity.  

With hindsight, it's reasonable to suspect that Hobgood's velocity surge was either driven by performance-enhancing drugs or by putting unsustainable max effort into his pitches, in an attempt to impress the scouts to get a bigger signing bonus.  The O's experience with Hobgood makes me suspicious of HS pitchers with sudden surges in fastball velocity in their senior year.  Hopefully Rodriguez' surge is due to something sustainable like better mechanics, rather than something unsustainable.  

They were also "bad body" guys prior to their senior year.

[glenn__davis]

While I wasn't a big fan of Joe Jordan's drafts while he was here, I thought at the time (and still do think) that the rationale behind the Hobgood pick was defensible.  He thought that there wasn't much difference between Hobgood and some of the higher rated guys, so he tried to save some money there to spend later in the draft, which is exactly what he did.  Unfortunately none of those guys really worked out either.  And if you look at a lot of names we passed over for Hobgood that people were screaming about - Wheeler, Minor, Matzek - none of those guys amounted to much.

That Mike Trout guy ended up being pretty good though.

This is almost entirely speculation on my part, but I just don't think Hobgood had the mindset needed.  It was pretty well documented that he'd had some tough times with the loss of his father, and he never did seem to arrive in great shape here, and was hurt most of the time.  It's not fair since I don't know him, but I question how much drive he really had here.  It ended up being a bad pick, as many folks here projected it would be, but I think Jordan's philosophy here was sensible.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

While I wasn't a big fan of Joe Jordan's drafts while he was here, I thought at the time (and still do think) that the rationale behind the Hobgood pick was defensible.  He thought that there wasn't much difference between Hobgood and some of the higher rated guys, so he tried to save some money there to spend later in the draft, which is exactly what he did.  Unfortunately none of those guys really worked out either.  And if you look at a lot of names we passed over for Hobgood that people were screaming about - Wheeler, Minor, Matzek - none of those guys amounted to much.

That Mike Trout guy ended up being pretty good though.

This is almost entirely speculation on my part, but I just don't think Hobgood had the mindset needed.  It was pretty well documented that he'd had some tough times with the loss of his father, and he never did seem to arrive in great shape here, and was hurt most of the time.  It's not fair since I don't know him, but I question how much drive he really had here.  It ended up being a bad pick, as many folks here projected it would be, but I think Jordan's philosophy here was sensible.

The Hobgood pick would look a lot better if Ohlman or Coffey had panned out.

FWIW Ohlman did make it up for a cup of coffee last year with the Jays.