S18 Draft Review by holer

Texas Wildcats

Needs: 1B, CF, SP
With the arrival of Rich Lewis, Texas is set behind the plate for many years to come. Overall, this is a very young team, and although the pickings at the ML level are currently slim, there is a lot of quality talent making it's way up through the system. With the skill positions in the infield well covered with prospects, the highest priority for carseneau is to find that heavy hitting bat to man the 1B position, and galvanize the batting order. In the outfield, at age 30, Jimmie Estrada is the senior statesman on this squad. He also has good enough fielding ability to man 2B if need be. There is also some good talent here on the way up, but carseneau is in desperate need of a capable CF. The two players who have manned that position this year, Gerald Lui and Gary Lo Duca, have made a combined 15 errors and 11 poor plays so far. Currently, carseneau is employing a band-aid rotation until some of the prospects arrive. He still needs another couple of SP prospects to complete a solid future rotation. He has a pretty full stable of young talent in the bullpen as well, so no extra help is needed there.

Draft Expectation: Low
Texas has the 6th overall pick, but that represents their only chance for a quality ML prospect. The next pick they have is in the 4th round, and is 127th overall. Altogether, they have 3 picks in the first 5 rounds.

Draft Preparation:
Being near the bottom of the league in player payroll allows Texas much versatility with their finances. Interestingly, they chose to provide the smallest budget to their advance scouting department, while funding all the other departments quite generously. The effect of this is that carseneau will be able to find plenty of prospects, but may have a somewhat skewed idea of what their actual talents are.

Prospects

Round 1 Pick 6 SS Eddie Wooten
While Wooten has some very nice numbers, he also has two glaring weaknesses that really stand out. First, he loses a lot of his effectiveness at the plate against righthanded pitching, and secondly, he has a poor makeup rating. This means he will struggle to reach his full potential, and then he will struggle to maintain that potential as he ages. He was otherwise a very nice selection and will help this team both offensively and defensively.
ML Projection: 25-35 HR/.290-.310 BA/10 SB

Round 4 Pick 127 RP Scott Dorsey
Considering he was a 4th round pick, Dorsey was actually a pretty nice find. He should be able to find work somewhere in the ML as a long relief specialist, and while not flashy, his numbers are good enough to eat some important middle innings.
ML Projection: 70-90 IP/5-8 W/.265-.285 OAV/3.75-4.50 ERA

Round 5 Pick 159 SP Mike Daley
Daley will be an effective minor league pitcher, but that will mark the extent of his career.

Hidden Gems: RP Billy Green?

Overall Grade: A-
Considering carseneau did not expect much from this draft, he came away with more than he could have. Even though he selected players that did not fill his most pressing needs at CF and starting pitching, he did get that solid bat for the middle of the batting order in Wooten.