2009 O's Draft- Best in years?

[capanson]

I've only followed the draft on here for the past two years, but it seems to me like we pulled a real coup with both the quality and quantity of prospects this year. The number of young pitchers with upside is astounding- Hobgood, Coffey, Tolliver, Henry, and Cowan off the top of my head. And, in the last few days here, several impact position prospects too- Givens(!), Ohlman, and Hoppy. The number of overslot signings is ridiculous; perhaps MLB will completely overhaul its system and tactics in the near future. But I'm excited about the signings and impressed by our ability to spread our budget around to so many good players.

From what I can tell, this is our best draft in over a decade, if not longer; but then again, I don't have a great knowledge of past drafts, just an idea of the general consensus about them. Obviously, it could be said that to rate a draft, you must wait a few years, but I think it's a better analysis to look at the draft now- did the choices make sense in light of the information we have at this time? Thoughts?

[Duke2010]

On paper, Jordan has brought in a great class. I think we've added 12 or 13 really solid prospects, and it's really going to add a lot to our lower levels. As far as this being his best class, I think we're going to have to wait 3-6 years to truly know what impact this will have on our organization. I was very excited when we drafted Wieters/Arrieta and Matusz/Avery/Hoes, but as whole I'm most excited about this year's crop.

[PBR Street Gang]

I'm leaning towards your conclusion. Since I've been following for 5 years we haven't signed as many top quality HS players like this year.

It should be fun watching them move up the classes together. Talk about camaraderie. This should be great and hopefully a model of how other ML teams build their franchises for years to come. We'll know in about 3 years what we truly have.

Exciting times.

[LookinUp]

It's obviously too early to grade but AM has done what a lot of us have been hoping he'd do...a large number of high quality prospects.

[PHRESH]

When it's all said and done, which prospect from this year's draft do you think will have the best career?

[Elon Os Fan]

When it's all said and done, which prospect from this year's draft do you think will have the best career?

Wirsh

pizzarolls

[McNulty]

Ask the Trea on draft day this question. He'd say exactly the opposite.

[BaltimoreFan]

Yeah, I'm very, very happy that the O's were able to bring in all of these players are showed that they're fully committed.

[crawdad]

Well, almost to a T, this is a very high risk, high upside draft. It could wind up being an amazingly rich full influx of talent or it could be nothing or something in the middle.

What I would take from this is that Jordan was given the ability to make his calls. He got what he wanted. That says a lot.

Now, I would have done things differently, but Jordan has the resources and the experience . . . so I'd defer to him.

We ran a ten round draft concurrently as the Orioles on draft day:

1 Wheeler (guessing around $3.3M)

2 Glaesmann (SIGNED $930K)

3 Dominguez (SIGNED $411K)

4 Dickerson (SIGNED $150K)

5 Krol (SIGNED $975K)

6 Colvin (SIGNED $900K)

7 Younginer (SIGNED $975K)

8 Volz (SIGNED $550)

9 Berry (SIGNED $418K)

10 Dyson (not expected to sign)

Of course such a scenario means no Ohlman or Coffey as we exhausted that on Colvin and Younginer. I think this draft has a lot more upside. Guess we will find out.

EDIT: Had Krol's number wrong . . . so knock off Hoppy and Webb as well from this shadow draft.

[hoosiers]

Well, almost to a T, this is a very high risk, high upside draft. It could wind up being an amazingly rich full influx of talent or it could be nothing or something in the middle.

What I would take from this is that Jordan was given the ability to make his calls. He got what he wanted. That says a lot.

I agree with this. This appears to be JJ's draft - lots of high upside kids that will involve several high $ failures. IMO, this is significantly different than something like the 2007 draft and all the college guys taken. Hopefully, and there is confidence that, JJ will hit enough to justify the selections and $. Nice to see the FO increase the draft spend in this fashion.

[QBsILLEST1]

I believe that we added the most high ceiling prospects since I have been following the team's draft. Im excited to follow the pitcher's development(Hobgood, Henry, Tolliver, Wirsch, Cowan, Martin, Berry, and Coffey) as well as the position players(Webb, Townsend, Givens, Hoppy, Ohlman). Of the pitchers we signed, nearly all of them have a full repetoire of atleast 3 pitches, I believe the only exception is Coffey who apparently needs to come up with a 3rd pitch. So I love the fact that we are shooting for kids that are fairly polished in that sense. Wirsch has already proven to better than advertised IMO. He has shown excellent command and excellent K numbers in the GCL. Cowan also has dominated in his stint with Aberdeen. His mid 3 ERA may not suggest dominance, but aside from 1 bad outing, his season's ERA would be in the mid 1's with more than a K per IP. Hobgood's last start was his best of his pro career and was dominant there, hopefully he can get on a roll and continue to pitch well so we can see him in Delmarva next year to start out....

As I said, I love this draft, and it is the epitome of high risk/high reward, but I dont mind taking the chance....