Perspective

In 2007 the Giants took Madison Bumgarner with the 10th overall pick in the June draft. Ben Kaspick posted on his twitter feed some screenshots of reactions (from the McCovey Chronicles blog) by Giants fans at that time:

You gotta love it. Here's more:

The moral of the story is that fans don't know jack! Perhaps it is better to say that I don't know jack and even "experts" are just guessing. The draft is a crap shoot and all you can hope for is that the guys doing the picking have worked hard and done their best. In a few years we'll know the results. Until then I'm happy to have new blood in the system.

Notables from the 2007 draft include #1 David Price, #2 Mike Moustakas, #5 Matt Wieters, #14 Jason Heyward, #27 Rick Porcello, #34 Todd Frazier, and #48 Josh Donaldson. There were 64 picks total if you include the supplemental round, and the Giants had FIVE more after the tenth (Bumgarner) pick. They were Tim Alderson (#22), Wendell Fairley (#29), Nick Noonan (#32), Jackson Williams (#43), and Charlie Culberson (#51). Those look like whiffs until you consider that Alderson was traded for Freddy Sanchez and Culberson was traded for Marco Scutaro.

MLB owners are assholes. Just in case you weren't sure which side of the labor divide I'm on!

--M.C.

Seven

The Giants had seven picks overall, six on the second day of the draft:

#49 Casey Schmitt, RH 3B from San Diego State,
#67 Nick Swiney, LHP from North Carolina State (a teammate of Patrick Bailey),
#68 Jimmy Glowenke, RH SS from Dallas Baptist (a Div II school with Div I baseball)
#85 Kyle Harrison, LHP from De La Salle High School in Concord,
#114 R.J. Dabovich, RHP from Arizona State,
#144 Ryan Murphy, RHP from LeMoyne College (a Div II Jesuit school in NY).

Those are the FNGs along with yesterday's 13th pick, switch-hitting catcher Patrick Bailey from NC State. I suppose we'll get lots of post-draft analysis by all the experts and we'll get to find out whether they did a good job or not! Or we can just wait a few years and see who makes the bigs!!

Welcome aboard, newbies. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Patrick Bailey

The Giants select NC State catcher Patrick Bailey with the 13th pick. If you wonder why the Giants would draft a catcher two years out of three you should take a look at the career arc of catchers! If I were running a ball club I would platoon at catcher. Never let a guy catch more than 100 games in a season, even better max him out at 81. Catching is too important and you can't expect guys to take that much physical abuse. MLB streamed the draft live for free, and the goddamn thing is a hideous spectacle, but I had to tune in--briefly--just to see what the Giants did.

Welcome aboard, Patrick!

--M.C.

No. 13

The Giants have the 13th pick in the draft. According to ESPN:

Day 1 of the draft will be June 10 at 7 p.m. ET and include the first round (37 picks). Rounds 2-5 (123 picks) will begin a 5 p.m. the following day.

There are lots of places to get information about draft prospects and whatnot. I'm not really interested in players until they become Giants, mostly because I have no scouting skills. One guy is as good as the next, until they aren't! I'll let the experts do the picking. I've learned over the years that I'm bad at prognostication.

I also dislike the draft, as you probably know, and think it should be eliminated. There is a good, short piece over at Beyond the Boxscore that sums up my feelings nicely. It is short. Go read it and then argue with me. (hat tip Baseball Musings).

At the same time I hope the Giants can sign some quality players! I hate having to root for a positive outcome for a system that stinks. But as a fan, of course, I hope number thirteen is lucky for the Giants.

I'm still optimistic that the increasingly acrimonious conversation between MLB and MLBPA is just hard bargaining. Both sides are digging in their heels, but I want to believe that is mostly posturing before they agree to compromise. I may be naive, or a bit too hopeful. If both sides want baseball to resume, they have to break the deadlock and find a middle ground. I assume both sides want baseball to resume and that both sides know the game might not recover if they don't settle. I have no idea what they really think, of course. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

--M.C.