I love the idea of Rendon, but the fact that he’s just not releasing the pertinent medical information seems a liiittle sketchy. As a result, I’m starting to feel roughly the same way about him as I do about anybody.

What’s going to be a riot is three years from now when all of the above players have had an opportunity to establish themselves and everyone comes out of the woodwork to grouse about “WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED THIS GUY IT WAS SOOOOO OBVIOUS”

Even more than most drafts, this will be where scouts, cross-checkers, and talent evaluators truly earn their money.

Cole has great stuff, but the command is not so hot.

Rendon, Cole, Bundy, Bauer, Hultzen, Lindor, Starling.

I still think Rendon, being the lone college hitter in the group, is the safest bet even considering his injuries. I think Cole and Bundy have the best stuff, and are pretty comparable, though if I had to choose I go with the college player (as a general rule).

Bauer’s interesting, but I wonder how much his stuff will hold up to big-leaguers. His velocity isn’t what Lincecum’s was, and in terms of unconventional deliveries I still think that Lincecum is the exception rather than the rule. It would be complacent on everyone’s part to think that just because someone throws differently, he’s going to have similar success. That being said, Bauer seems like a smart guy and I wouldn’t be too angry if we chose him.

Hultzen I feel is the safest bet, but not with the upside of anyone else. I echo JY’s thoughts on him here. I shy away from high school players in general, save cant-misses like Harper and J Upton, and I feel too much can go wrong with either Lindor or Starling.

Boy, I would love to be in the D-Backs position. You get to grab two of these players.

As I’ve said elsewhere, they love LH bats and switch hitters, and will take gym rats and such over guys who are talented but lack skills. At the same time, the two drafts we’ve had are quite different from one another, one seemed to emphasize college hitting, the other, prep pitching. I’d say that it would probably be somewhere in between there, a more balanced approach this time out.

Well, since Ackley, but that was forever ago.

Hard slot wouldn’t allow the Yankees/Red Sox to overpay talented players that had excessive demands. It would also likely result in more prep players going to college first to try to help improve their stock.

but could you briefly describe how the drafting and player development process works in cricket (for Australia and for the rest of the best cricket countries, e.g. India, South Africa, England, Pakistan, etc.)? There’s no other major U.S. league where facing many levels of progressively tougher competition is essential to player development like it is in baseball, but cricket is so similar to baseball that it presents an interesting comparison. I know absolutely nothing about cricket, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Lastly, I know there are many international matches, but what is the highest level of club competition in cricket (i.e., is there something like the Champions League in cricket?) and do players tend to play club cricket mostly in their home countries or do they go all over the place like in the Premier League and the big European leagues?