Crossposted in part at Minor League Ball
I hate prepping for the supplemental rounds. With the first round, there's a good sense of who goes where, and the only real change is when a player drops due to signing bonuses (like Rick Porcello did). But with the supps, the talent is thinner and there's a lot of good-not-great players that make decisions much much harder. It's also a fringy category to me- a lot of players are slated to go late first-round or the supplemental, and you can't exactly strategize without knowing how late they go. It's also hard for me since most of my drafts involve planning later picks based on those earlier picks- like last year when I selected Grant Green and then pushed pretty hard for pitchers in the second and third rounds. I suppose these are quibbles that beat around the point I'm trying to make- signing Jose Valverde and taking away that first-rounder sucks.
Anyways, what I'm going to do is take a few of the players I like that are sitting around picks #40 and #50 in Andy Seiler's last mock draft and in the back half of John Sickles' top 50. This isn't as updated as I want- Seiler should be coming out with supplemental round draft stuff tomorrow, but I've put this thing off long enough. What I'll provide to the community is essentially the rough comment that is on my draft board. I like short comments that give me a good idea of the players skill and yet is short enough that I can make a snap decision while I'm on the clock. If I've got time, I can go dig through scouting reports. Why I'm doing that here is so that you guys can debate the choices in the rest of the diary- I'm encouraging (and really depending) on some solid research and debate from you guys- the more of that I get, the better off we'll be come draft time, and the better prepared you'll be on Draft Day.
Without further stalling delay, here are the 15 guys I'm looking at for our two supplemental picks (#44 and #48)
James Paxton, College LHP: Fastball touches 98, sits in low to mid 90's, good slider, average change, command/arm action may push him to relief. High upside, will probably go early in the supplemental, but we can pray.
Yordy Cabrera: High School SS/3B: Toolsy infielder/corner OF who needs work on pitch selection/contact- has good power and is athletic. He's also got high upside, started the season as a first rounder but Jim Callis of BA seems to think he's slipping. He won't slip past us at #44 but there's probably a bunch of other teams that are thinking the same thing.
Asher Wojciechowski: College RHP: low to mid 90's FB, great slider, average change, iffy command, may have to shift to relief eventually due to that command. I might be nuts, but I'd take Paxton over him, and while he's got room to grow, I'm freaking sick of relievers.
Brandon Workman: College RHP: Fastball in the mid 90's with plus movement, great curve, change has promise, slider is a show-me pitch, okay command. Also a guy who has the potential to go far before our pick (but won't get past it).
Kolbrin Vitek: College 2B: Good hitting ability, good speed and good base-stealing instincts, questions on how much power he'll have, no real defensive home. Methinks he's a tweener right now but he's got potential and he may go higher than our picks.
Reggie Golden: High School OF: Weird swing that was apparently self-taught, good power, above average speed, good tools, short/built like a tank but with decent fielding ability. I kinda like him as a poor man's Cameron Maybin- (insofar as he's a toolshed, not that he'll end up like Maybin).
Todd Cunningham: College OF: Hits for average, limited power potential (probably 15-18 in the bigs), a plus defender in left or adequate in center. Something tells me Mike'll like this guy- high floor and will be available.
Austin Wates: College OF:: Great contact hitter, great speed, good defensively but projects to be a doubles hitter in the majors. They had me at "toolsy" but I'm worried about the lack of power. Still a good pick.
Cam Bedrosian: HS RHP: Good bloodlines, great FB (96), plus slider, improving change, smart guy but kinda small at 6ft. He'll probably end up as a solid #3 starter.
Jedd Gyorko: College 3B: Good swing but gets pull happy, will hit 15 to 18 homers at the next level, slow and has problems on defense, but should stick at 3B- if his arm holds up, which is what I'm worried about.
Any other player suggestions, please post in the comments. Happy speculating!.