A Long, Dull, 2012 MLB Draft Mission Statement

One thing is for certain, I’m a better writer right now than what I was only two years ago today. Yeah, isn’t that a sad thought? I feel bad for anyone that continues to visit this site with hope. But seriously, there are a lot of things that I’ve seen and been able to adapt over the last year and I think that has helped me. I think it’s made my writing … more readable? Eh,ugh… maybe. People have suggested I do certain little things (like reading about grammar—always an important thing) and because of that mentorship I’ve grown and I feel like the content here at the site has too.

This does have a point. See, as I’ve grown I’ve learned to refine things that I do, my posts for instance. Looking ahead to the 2012 draft there are things I plan on doing a little bit different. I did a few blog posts called “Remember Me:” where I would do a “small” profile on a prospect. Someone that I really enjoyed on some level either reading about or what I heard from one of my (few) contacts.

I think this year I would like to do more of them. The basis being that it was more of a “hey this guy is interesting” and less of hey maybe the Mariners should draft this guy. Because in all honesty I can have my opinion on how the Mariners should draft in 2012. But I realize two things:

It would be A) a less educated opinion and one based upon the information I have, vs. the slew of information they have. Considering that to draft an individual they have to becoming willing to invest (most likely) upwards of approximately 8 million dollars in that specific young person. They most likely know what brand of tooth paste they prefer. (Note to self: Find out what type of tooth paste Mark Appel prefers…)   

And then B) things change so quickly with these prospects. Take for instance three “possible” 1-1 and 1-2 draftees, Matt Purke, Anthony Rendon and Anthony Ranaudo. All of them potentially #1 overall candidate and all ended up dropping due to injury/health concerns. Concerns that took place all within the last 3 months prior to the draft.

The draft order is even fickle at this point. Who knows where the top free agents are going and who will have type B compensation (it seems like I’ve lost the point here but I haven’t… trust me). It’s all chaos and anarchy and craziness.

So this year while talking draft prospects instead of saying this guy is someone the Mariners should target and I’m going to rephrase is to I like this guy, he should be an interesting one to follow. Because, isn’t that what we do at these blogs. We follow baseball. We can talk about what a team should do and we can even take a few pure shots in the dart but in the end all that happens is that some unexpected happens and we have to adjust accordingly to it.

Who saw Danny Hultzen, who saw Bradley Miller, who saw Taijuan Walker (besides me), ect. Nobody did and the reality is we just have to learn about them and take the time to discover why the front office feels so good about them. Then with that data, after taking time to digest the data, we can decide whether or not that front office made a good decision.

My job as a blogger, with an interest in the MLB Draft is to present to you as much data and information as I possibly can gathered from innumerable sources. 99% of the time it’s probably information you could have found on your own or even stuff you already knew yourself. But it’s in an effort to educate ourselves about possible prospects so that we can make educated arguments and give educated feedback through the media to the organization as fans.

It’s a simple enough process but I think I lose my place in it all too often. Believing I have a bigger role than I do.  I really don’t. I’m a little microscopic bug and I have a small medium in which to deliver my opinion and information. This year for the draft I’m going to try giving my opinion less and give more fact based analysis. I know it’s not ground breaking but it’s just something I started thinking about.

Maybe this was a waste for you to read. But it worked out well in my head and while I have some really strange J.D. moments in my head (such as the one today when I had a soda, even though I had abstaining from soda, and I had this day dream about the soda going down into my stomach and it was like “I’m so yummy” and my stomach was like “But, now I feel fat” and my tongue looked down my throat and was all “but wasn’t it worth the taste?” and my stomach smiled because it was in fact worth the taste) for the most part they all work out.

The point of this weird and convoluted post is that this is a mission statement for my 2012 draft coverage. Coverage is kicked off with this post. I know I haven’t really done much draft speak, chat, talk(?) since the middle of August, but we’re going to start that back up. I’ll go over some of the “experts” picks for 2012 and we’ll talk about them link video from different sites and talk about what excites us and what doesn’t. We’ll talk about pro’s and con’s for college and high school players and positions. And if you have an idea for something just throw it out. I know everyone doesn’t have the time to research stuff like I do but we’ll do our best.

This weekend I plan on updating the spreadsheets and putting them up on the site to share with all. I have some velocity numbers as well as some pitch tracking data that I can add to our pitching prospect sheet.  I know things have been a bit slow but trust me we’re all really busy on the inside.