MLB Draft notebook

The first and sandwich round of the MLB Draft are in the books and here a couple of quick thoughts on what happened.

• Welcome to Major League Baseball in 2011, its all about pitching and that showed with the top four players selected all being pitching, including three college pitchers that are going to move fast through each of their systems.
• I guess Gerrit Cole choice to turn down the Yankees after they selected him in the first round in 2008 turned out well for him. Cole was the number one overall pick in the draft. 
• At the start of the season Anthony Rendon was the number player on most people's board after a season that featured injuries Rendon dropped to the Nationals at six. It was a dream for the Nats front office. 
• MLB Network coverage of the draft is getting better each year they do it, love seeing Gammons on the show. He has always loved the drafted.
•  People are going to kill the Giants for taking St. John's SS Joe Panik, but they usually do some weird things in the draft and more times that not they turn out well.
• Both Massachusetts high school pitcher Tyler Beede and Texas high school outfielder Josh Bell sent letters out saying that they were not signing and attending college, it worked out well for Beede who was drafted by Toronto in the first round, while Bell slid out of the first round.
• The draft needs to get more players at the draft, it would make it g

OTWT Mock MLB Draft

The Scouting Staff of OTWT has been locked away in the its bunker for the last couple of days, going over the top prospects in the upcoming baseball draft and coming up with its annual mock draft. Last year, we did it and it did not turn out that well. So here goes.

1 Pittsburgh Pirates: Gerrit Cole, RHP, UCLA

2 Seattle Mariners: Danny Hultzen, LHP, UVa

3 Arizona Diamondbacks: Anthony Rendon, 3B, Rice

4 Baltimore Orioles: Sonny Gray, RHP, Vanderbilt

5 Kansas City Royals: Tyler Jungmann, RHP, Texas

6 Washington Nationals: Alex Meyers, RHP, Kentucky

7 Arizona Diamondbacks: Dylan Bundy, RHP, Owasso (Oklahoma) HS

8 Cleveland Indians: Jed Bradley, LHP, Georgia Tech

9 Chicago Cubs: Bubba Sterling, OF, Gardner-Edgerton (Oklahoma) HS

10 San Diego Padres: Trevor Bauer, RHP, UCLA

11 Houston Astros: Francisco Lindor, SS, Montverde Academy (Fla)

12 Milwaukee Brewers: Taylor Guerrieri, RHP, Spring Valley HS (SC)

13 New York Mets: George Springer, OF, UConn

14: Florida Marlins: Archie Bradley, RHP, Broken Arrow HS (Okalahoma)

15 Milwaukee Brewers: Larry Green, OF, Berrien County HS (Georgia)

16 Los Angeles Dodgers: Tyler Anderson, LHP, Oregon

17 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Brandon Nimmo, OF, East HS (Wyo)

18 Oakland Athletics: Mikie Mahtook, OF, LSU

19 Boston Red Sox: Matt Barnes, RHP, UConn

20 Colorado Rockies: Kolten Wong, 2B, Hawaii

21 Toronto Blue Jays: Josh Bell, OF, Dallas Jesuit HS (TX)

22 St. Louis Cardinals: Javier Baez, SS, Arlington Country Day HS (Fla)

23 Washington Nationals: CJ Cron, 1B, Utah

The front pages sum it up

The front pages of the today's Winnipeg Free Press and the Atlanta Journal Constitution sum up the plight of the Atlanta Thrashers franchise. In Winnipeg, news of the franchise coming to the Canadian city was the whole front page. While in Atlanta, the story of the franchise leaving was a front page story below the fold and seemed unimportant. That sums up the whole situation in a nut shell, no one in Atlanta cares about hockey.

Winnipeg Free Press

AJC