Pirates Will Take Cole

According to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the Pittsburgh Pirates plan to take Gerrit Cole #1 overall in the Rule-4 Major League Draft this coming Monday.

This definitely cleans up the first four picks almost certainly. The Mariners will almost certainly take Anthony Rendon, the Diamondbacks will go with Danny Hultzen and the Orioles most likely take Dylan Bundy. That leaves the Royals with either Trevor Bauer or local prep star Derek ‘Bubba’ Starling, though there is some rumor that they could be interested in a few different college arms and Florida prep star Francisco Lindor.

The most important thing to take away from this is the Mariners get their guy. Anthony Rendon has some risk we all know that but the Mariners need an impact bat within their minor league system and a fully healthy Rendon is just that. Now, will he ever be fully healthy? Who knows, there is a rumor that the Mariners saw the secret medical records and were fine with everything in it but that rumor has been unsubstantiated by anyone that is usually close with the Mariners (Stone, Drayer, Churchill, ect..) so I’m hesitant to buy into it.

I’m not yet 100% ready to buy into the fact that the Mariners will without a doubt draft Rendon. Just because of the situation with the medical records. However, I think he leads the way. If they don’t see the medical records by the end of this weekend things could change substantially. But, for now I’m pretty certain this is their guy.