Draft Day for the Nats!
Capitol Punishment is all over MLB Draft Day today, and so far the Nats have a couple of picks in the first round: Chris Marrero, another third baseman, and Colton Willems, a right-handed pitcher. The second round brings Sean Black (Righty Pitcher), Stephen Englund (Shortstop) and Stephen King (also a Shortstop).
Okay, I can see taking two pitchers in the first round, but can someone explain to me why we’re drafting another 3B with our first pick? And why we needed two shortstops in the second round? I mean, we’re just one more away from a trifecta of shortstops, which of course translates numerically to 666.
Perfect. How very Slayerific.
Unlike the NBA and NFL, Baseball and hockey have years to develop players (especially if they go to the NCAA’s rather than the minors).
While Zimmerman appears to be a fixture at 3B, you never know what happens in terms of injury, free agency departure, etc, so the rule of thumb is to take the best player available.
This is true, and it’s entirely possible that the Nats are drafting for tradebait, even though I’m not sure that’s a very Kasten thing to do.
Another good explanation is that shortstops are usually more athletically inclined to switch to other positions, whereas it’s not easy to switch from another position to shortstop.
For instance, it’s easy to convert a toolsy shortstop to second or left field, whereas it’s not easy to convert a first baseman to those positions.
Those picks were also good value where they were – even though the Nationals could use more pitching, they could really use more of everything in their system. So I think they were more concerned with drafting for talent rather than positional need.