Reds March/April 2024 Thread

[CJD]

(04-17-2024, 02:01 PM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: Shoulda kept Greene a SS when he was drafted. Remember all the two-way hype surrounding him? When Ohtani came to the league and that was the talking-trend for awhile? From what I understand, he was super rangy with a quality bat. Now he's an overpaid bullpen arm with one (depending on the day) quality pitch MLB tier players can tee off on. He's Travis Wood.

Our 1-2s are pitching like 4-5s and our 4-5s are pitching like 1-2s, so for now I'll take it. Toss in a hopefully finally healthy Lodolo, who has the highest upside and true #1 stuff, and I think we can weather the storm for the time being.

Drafting high school 2 way players is tricky because there's actually a ton of 18 year olds that are the best player in their town, so they obviously get played all over the place. It doesn't necessarily mean they will stick at that position in MLB, especially since so much of scouting high school players is projection anyway. Hunter Greene was an 18 year old was drafted at No. 2 overall because he could throw a ball 100 mph. He had no refinement as a pitcher nor did he have any particularly good secondary pitches. I generally dislike drafting high school players high for that reason, as they require so much projection.

Our best draft picks in recent history have been drafted out of college, where they're much closer to a finished product. Rhett Lowder, Matt McLain, Nick Lodolo, Michael Lorenzen, Jonathan India, Yasmani Grandal (Granted, we traded him, but he had a nice long MLB career), Brad Boxberger (same situation as Grandal), Mike Leake, Todd Frazier among them.

Joey Votto, Tyler Stephenson, Hunter Greene, Jesse Winker, Robert Stephenson, Devin Mesoraco, Jay Bruce, Homer Bailey, and Jay Allen were all high picks out of high school. The highs are definitely higher (Joey Votto, Jay Bruce), but the lows are definitely lower, especially after long, drawn out anticipation phases (Tyler Stephenson, Devin Mesoraco, arguably Homer Bailey, and now perhaps Hunter Greene).