davell

Mayo just released the first 10 picks in his mock and has us with Almora, who is growing on me quite a bit, the more we find out about him.

I asked him on Twitter on May 4th and he said he was about to start throwing. On the 6th he tweeted to Tarlandus Mitchell that he had a little setback and had to get another MRI on his elbow. On May 8th, he said he's healthy and ready to get after it.

Barnes is a toolbox type. He'd be a solid get in the supplemental area. Naquin may be the best pure hitter in the draft. I doubt he's available to us. Farmer throws hard, has lots of projection, not a lot of results if I remember right. Great guy to get in rounds 3 to 5, I guess. Stafford is a senior and he's hurt. To me, he's a guy I'd love to get, because he has zero leverage and top 200ish talent. Winston is a football guy if I remember, probably a really tough sign.

Our slot values, pick by pick for the top 10 rounds are as follows: 6-3.250000, 43-1196000, 56-911700, 67-769600, 101-471900, 134-343200, 164-257000, 194-192500, 224-148600, 254-138600, 284-129600, 314-125000. Looking over these numbers, it's going to be very interesting to see what we do. The total is 7933900. Basically leaves us a tad under 400k we can spend over our total, with close to a 300k monetary fine to do so. Looking over the round by round slots, I hope we target a college senior at 101 and 134. Chris Rusin types, that sign for 50k or so. It'd give us over 700k, plus the penalty money to over slot elsewhere. Maybe not even inside the top 10 rounds either. I have a feeling anyone considered a tough sign falls outside that area, because you can't take a chance early and lose that slots value. Afterwards though, I'd like to see us load up on the tough signs and figure we'll wind up with one or two. Either one guy at a tad over a mill or a pair for half that.

I think it's stupid he wasn't suspended. But it's all about business. And whether we like it or not, the Heat is good for the NBA's business. People are going to tune in to see them lose. If the ECF is Indiana/Philly, NO ONE outside of those two markets is going to give a [expletive]. Ratings drive this crap, whether we like it or not.

I just don't get where this unique risk is...worked mostly in relief before this year...struck out 46 in 41 innings in Summer ball last year (more K's than IP this year, fastball has hit 94 this year as well)...only worked 6 innings as a freshman but struck out 8...Sounds like they've just had him working on his body in that Vanderbilt pitching program to me giving him less starts in college than the other two. Vanderbilt is a far more loaded program than the other two as far as pitching has gone as well, so that's part of the explanation. I'm hoping he or Wood are around at 43, but this draft's suckage probably means neither makes it. Like I said, I'm cautious, because of the lack of resume. And I fully acknowledge how loaded Vandy is normally too, so I'm holding it against him, when there's even a reason as to why he's not pitched a ton. He did start off slowly and his command was way off, but he's righted the ship there obviously. I do tend to agree that neither him or Wood is there for us to choose from anyway, but this draft is a total crapshoot. I think this year, much more than most, is going to see lots of picks that don't particularly match up. Because there's just not a huge separation in talent, maybe even between 15 and 100 or so this year. Personally, I hope we get a bigtime SP at 6(although I admit I'm really thinking we take Correa or Almora at this moment), then take HS pitching and 2 bats by the time we're thru the 3rd round. I think this draft IS set up for the HS pitching part at least, especially if we take them in the supplemental. Bats will be scarce, I hope we find a way to get one in the 2nd or 3rd and again, I think I'm preferring High School, to College again here. Just not many College players interest me this year.

To me, Selman is risky because of his lack of results. Yes, he's put it together in the last month or so. Personally, I like seeing more of a resume than that from a college junior. But that's just me. And I clearly question myself on that thinking, because if I think he may be gone before we pick in the 40's, I acknowledge others may see things differently., especially since he's still not even cracking BA's top 100 yet. I figure he's the 3rd college lefty off the board, behind Heaney and Wood.

I just think paying for pitching is risky enough, so throwing 100+ mill at a guy who may break down mentally in a major market, doesn't appeal to me. I'd take Hamels, paying him 40-50 mill more in the process, before I'd take Greinke. If I'm the Cubs, that is. If I'm Tampa Bay, I might sign Greinke over Hamels straight up.

He's a little too risky for me THAT early. Has he figured it out? His last month or so, it seems like it's possible for sure. At any rate, it's come at the best time for him obviously. Even though I said he's too risky for me, my honest guess is he's gone before we get around to our 1st supplemental pick.

Same here. But with the lack of bats available, I don't guess anything surprises me. Plus, he doesn't fit the model of 28ish types heading towards their prime seasons. Upton really fits great in every way for us honestly.

Jack Moored, a writer at Fangraphs, said he thinks Swisher will leave, but also thinks he'll get 4/70 or 5/85 on the open market. I like Swisher a lot, but no. Just no. Not to mention, if we have LaHair, Rizzo, Stewart, and Brett all in the lineup, I think we probably need a righty. Upton is sounding really good to me right now honestly, especially since he can conceivably help LaHair out too with his range.

In this scenario, I could see KC taking Zimmer, which would drop Zunino to us.

The Angels have team options on both Santana and Haren actually. Wouldn't surprise me to see them trade one or the other. No to Carmona.

Thanks for posting that Jersey. I'd be OK with Almora there. Think I'd take Correa personally, but see both sides.

Where was he hit? Yeah, I thought it got him for sure. Glad it didn't.

Oh [expletive].

We really should start the LaHair in LF experiment. Whether it means DFA'ing Soriano or not. You know they've got to trying everything they can to move him at least.

Greinke? Social anxiety issues could rear up in a large market. He's not high on my list for this reason as well.

Maholm is what he is, a 4/5 guy. Hopefully, he can give us 6 somehow.

MacDougal's worth taking a small risk on.

I felt better about it from his comments afterward. This is his first time as a manager, he's a rookie too. All in all, I think he's been excellent, with a few hiccups obviously. I think we'll all wind up liking the end result though. It is cool to at least care enough about this team to where we even question some things though. I didn't know if we'd even be in THAT place this season. Jersey saying just let him hit though, is where I'm at too. Hopefully, Sveum begins to think the same way.

I wonder if his control comes back soon, no clue as to why it seemingly left him in his drive from EXST to Peoria.

C Castillo .5 Clevenger .5 1B Rizzo .5 2B Barney .5 Cardenas .5 SS Castro 5(arb guess) 3B Stewart 3.5(arb guess) Mather .8 (arb guess) LF LaHair .5 Soriano 19 CF B Jackson .5 Campana .5 RF DeJesus 4.25 Total of 36.55 mill spent. I'm figuring Soto is traded before next offseason personally. And while it's not set in stone that Rizzo and Brett are here to stay, my guess is they will be, or at the very least Rizzo is. Look at how left handed that lineup is though? Is it possible to have TOO many lefties in an order? I'm asking because I don't know that I've seen a lineup that as of now looks like 6 of the 8 spots are filled by left handed hitters. Yeah, I certainly think we could find a guy to platoon with LaHair and even Brett, which would help matters there anyway. But, that lineup doesn't look all that shabby and there is TONS of cash available to upgrade it. SP Garza 13(guess of 1st extension year) Shark 5.5 (arb guess if he continues on this path) Maholm 6.5 Wood .5 I think we'll move Dempster, if he lets us, because I think we'll want to get younger and better in the rotation. Not sure if Volstad has a spot moving forward, if he does, my guess is it's in the pen. Still, that's 25.5 mill spent on the rotation, bringing our payroll up to 62.05. Again, there is TONS of money we can spend. Closer-????? Dolis .5 Russell 1.2(arb guess) Marmol 9.8 Bowden .5 Volstad 3.5(arb guess) That's 15.5 mill spent on the pen, taking us to 77.55 total. Yes, we have 600K a year going towards Concepcion and hopefully Soler adds more money to this total as well. Still, we could be looking at having 40 million or so to use, fill out the roster, and STILL keep the payroll around 120 million or so. Maybe more, depsnding on whether or not guys like MaHolm and Volstad are still around. Personally, I don't see us spending money at the C spot. But, you could sign a stopgap like Russell Martin or spend big on Miguel Montero, if he makes it to FA. The 2 Infield spots we could spend on would be 2B and 3B obviously, but there's nothing out there to spend on thru FA anyway. I guess it's conceivable to trade for a player, but I don't necessarily think we'll be all that bad at either spot with what we have currently. This leaves the OF, where we could go in a different direction completely from what I've got penciled in here. LaHair COULD be gone obviously, Brett could be dealt, or not ready. About the safest guy we've got is DeJesus, who's pretty damn solid for us. But even he could be traded between now and next season. At any rate, if we add a big bat, it's almost definitely coming from the OF. Hamilton, Upton, Ethier, Cabrera, and Swisher are the biggest options thru FA. Again, no clue what could be out there via trade by then. Looking at the rotation, it's possible to could keep Dempster and lose Maholm. It's also possible Volstad survives into next season as a starter and Wood isn't in the rotation. At any rate, there's definitely room to add a bigtime addition, maybe even a back end guy as well, depending on how we play things. The biggest guy is Hamels, followed by Greinke, then Sanchez, Edwin, Kuroda, Colby Lewis, Marcum, McCarthy, and Peavy. Some of which would fall into the back end, some of which would represent at least a mid rotation upgrade, maybe more. Trade is also a possibility here, just again, no clue who's going to be out there. I don't think this group is going to spend heavily on the bullpen, if anything, I think they'll sign a couple more guys to low end deals and hope to get another Camp type performance or two, mixed in with guys who we can bring up between now and then. We've got Vitters, Valbuena, Sappelt, Beliveau, and Maine in AAA, who all will be getting a look at next year's team as well. In Tennessee, we'll have Lake, Watkins, McNutt, Cabrera, and maybe Rhoderick getting looks at some point in 2013 too. So, it's likely another bench spot and maybe a bullpen spot or two, could come out of this group. The bottom line though, is with the emergence of Shark and LaHair, it's easy to see us possibly shifting gears and making big moves next offseason. Yes, it's possible with regression, this could change somewhat, but I think the FO has to be very happy with how we're set up moving forward. It's cool to know we're not all that far away at all, looking at it this way. Yes, there's some questions, but we'll hopefully have them all answered soon, because I think we'll find out by the break, which direction most of this scenario is heading for us. But, if we have a lousy record this year, it gives us more money to spend next year on IFA, and a better draft position as well. Coupled with the early spots we have for this year. The system could get revamped quickly, making it easier for us to make a big trade, or to start being able to count on having good, young cheap guys filtering in, year by year. All in all, it's pointing up for us, and it looks like it's definitely possible to get this thing turned around much quicker than when we looked at this squad heading into the season.

I'm hoping the Dodgers get Hamilton, because it'd certainly decrease their chances at Hamels. My gut tells me Hamilton stays put though.

I would too.