Quote:
Originally Posted by BAS
He has been inconsistent, but has shown some real flashes of brilliance. It is still too early to call this one a terrible pick. Obviously, we could have gotten some better players, but we could have also gotten a lot worse among even the highly regarded picks in that draft.
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It would have been tough to do worse. Andrew Miller, the consensus #1, was traded for Cabrera. That would have sucked. Of course, the Royals wouldn't have been smart enough or willing enough to make this deal, but I'd still rather have a promising LHP, even though he's had his own struggles this season.
The other option for the Baird crew was Lincecum. Apparently he was the second rated prospect on their board, and that also would have sucked.
In short, Hochevar's BB to SO ratio has been consistently poor, and this doesn't bode well in projecting top-of-the-rotation guys. We'll see if he's able to turn this around, but he's past the point of when we should be hoping that he "develops." It's time for him to perform, and he is what we thought he would be, a back-of-the-rotation guy. Not the goal of the #1 overall pick.
In hindsight, my approach would generally be never to select a pitcher #1 overall. Always go with the top position player, unless the pitch is a once-in-a-generation type player.
In Hoch's year, this philosophy would have netted Longoria. Oops.
Under Moore, the only draft I've been happy with has been the Hosmer draft, and, as Rany and others argued at the time, it probably would have been far wiser to select Smoak with our first rounder.