No talk about our two draft picks? I'm very impressed with our first two picks. We got the best raw power and best slider in the draft.
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We were picking 19th and 43rd right? How did we get the "best raw power and best slider in the draft"? Going to play college BB? They had/have signability issues? Seems those talents would be gone before us.
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From STL Today

When he was 3, Nolan Gorman would carry a baseball bat as he walked around the house, and his father figured he should get him started in the game.

When Gorman was 12, he hit 18 home runs over the course of three tournaments that summer in Cooperstown, N.Y. That’s when Gorman knew he had the power.

On Monday, less than a month after he turned 18, he took the next step in that baseball development. The power-hitting third baseman from Phoenix was drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Cardinals with the 19th pick overall.

“It’s just an awesome honor,” said Gorman, who also represents the dawn of a new era: He’s the first player taken in the MLB draft who was born in the year 2000.

The Cardinals had two other picks on the first of the draft’s three days. With their competitive balance pick after the first round, they took Griffin Roberts, a pitcher from Wake Forest who some think could be in the majors by the end of this season, and Luken Baker, a first baseman from Texas Christian whose season was ended by a broken leg.

Gorman, who’s 6-feet-1 and 210 pounds, represents baseball as it’s played in 2018. He’s a powerhouse third baseman who, as Cardinals scouting director Randy Flores said, “hit the ball really, really hard.”

As a senior at Sandra Day O’Connor High in Phoenix, Gorman hit .421 with 10 home runs and 46 walks as teams avoided pitching to him. He had a .640 on-base percentage and an .896 slugging percentage in 32 games. As further proof of what he can do, Gorman took titles at the MLB All-Star Game high school home run derby in Miami and at the Under Armour All-American Game at Wrigley Field. He hit a home run at Petco Park in San Diego at an event there.

Gorman, who has committed to Arizona (but who Flores is optimistic will sign) had been projected to go as high as ninth in some mock drafts.

“We were thrilled the way the board worked out and you can’t believe a guy, lefthanded like that, as young as he is, someone who’s done it at the biggest stages, and done it with power, was available to us,” Flores said. “We were thrilled with that pick.”

Gorman credited his father, Brian, with the early development of his swing and former big-leaguer Damion Easley, an assistant coach on his high school team, with his further development. Gorman plays golf righthanded but swings a bat lefthanded, something he said he just did on his own.

“It’s a natural swing,” Gorman said. “(My dad) doesn’t know a crazy amount of stuff about the game. He did a tremendous amount of homework on the swing and baseball and everything and took bits and pieces here and there from different websites, different books he bought, it just tied in and came together.


“Launch angle hasn’t been a focus for me. I’ve got a pretty natural upward angle in my swing. So we haven’t really worried about launch angle or anything. In offseason work with Damian, he’s not super huge on the launch-angle thing, but he thinks getting in the right position on time to hit the ball and deliver your swing is good enough. It’s pretty much what we focused on all year.”

“On the analytics side,” Flores said, “the older you get and the more you play in front of the various measurements that are available at the college game, the more analytically inclined you might be on a pick. With his youth, and it being high school, you’re also relying on your scouts there. That being said, it doesn’t take someone who’s too smart to see he hit the ball really, really hard, but we also liked his complete approach and his ability to stay on the dirt.”

It was a very good day for Gorman because his good friend Matthew Liberatore, who he’s known since they were 5, was drafted three spots ahead of him. They exchanged texts after each was chosen and each was the first person they replied to.

With their second pick, in the competitive balance round between rounds 1 and 2, the Cardinals took righthanded pitcher Roberts, a junior who could be in the majors very soon. He had 124 strikeouts in 89 1/3 innings for Wake Forest, and has an 89-93 mph fastball and a tight slider. Roberts went from being a walk-on at Wake to an All-ACC reliever to the team’s Friday starter. He was draft eligible last season but chose to come back to improve his stock and did.

“He was one of those guys we thought had a power arsenal,” Flores said. “Our hope and aim is for him to be in the rotation but candidly, we’re all seeing how major-league rosters and bullpens are evolving also. So if he turns into someone we think is going to be able to relieve with that power stuff, we will see what happens in the next couple years of his career.”

With the second-round compensation pick that they got for losing Lance Lynn as a free agent, the Cardinals took Baker, who is well regarded but has had lousy luck. The 6-4, 265 pound junior hurt his arm and needed surgery at the end of his sophomore season, and this season broke his leg on April 17, which may have contributed to him being still available with the 75th pick.

“There are some things you can’t predict,” Flores said. “You round a base and you break a leg. You have a collision and you have an injury to your shoulder. With him fighting through those injuries and still producing the way he has, and handled himself the way he has, we don’t think we have a chance to draft Luken Baker at that slot if it weren’t for those things. I know he’s bummed. I would imagine that’s part of his playing history and his resilience, and the ability to put those types of numbers together with that type of strength, in spite of that, is something we really admire.”

Baker hit .319 this season with nine home runs in 31 games and for his career hit .347.

The draft resumes at noon today with rounds three through seven and then finishes on Wednesday. There is a lot of work still to come.

“We still have 37 more picks,” Flores said late Monday.
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With their second pick, in the competitive balance round between rounds 1 and 2, the Cardinals took righthanded pitcher Roberts, a junior who could be in the majors very soon. He had 124 strikeouts in 89 1/3 innings for Wake Forest, and has an 89-93 mph fastball and a tight slider. Roberts went from being a walk-on at Wake to an All-ACC reliever to the team’s Friday starter. He was draft eligible last season but chose to come back to improve his stock and did.
“He was one of those guys we thought had a power arsenal,” Flores said. “Our hope and aim is for him to be in the rotation but candidly, we’re all seeing how major-league rosters and bullpens are evolving also. So if he turns into someone we think is going to be able to relieve with that power stuff, we will see what happens in the next couple years of his career.”


89-93 is power stuff?
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I bet they think they can get a little more out of his fastball and keep his slider nasty.
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Gorman fell because there are questions regarding his ability to stick at 3b due to his potential to add more size as he matures and because there are real questions about his hit tool making it difficult for him to turn his raw power into game power.

When people talk about the 'best raw power in the draft' they're generally discussing that in scouting terms. 'Raw power' = the ability to flat !@#$ing murder a ball in batting practice. If you want to see a perfect example of the downside with Gorman, look up the draft reports for Josh Vitters. Vitters was a 'raw power' guy with a questionable hit tool and iffy defense. The Cubs took him ahead of a lot of much better players and in the end his hit tool absolutely wrecked him. If you look at it as a math equation you can essentially say [(Raw Power)*(hit tool) = Game Power]. As a modern analogue look at Yoan Moncada vs. Gleybar Torres. Moncada's raw power is unquestionably better than Torres but Torres hit tool is so much more advanced than Moncada's that his game power has been better than Moncada's to this point.

Lindor is what happens when a guy with solid raw power but an exceptional hit tool puts it all together. Paul DeJong is what happens when a guy with plus raw power but an iffy hit tool finds a way to make it work.

As for Roberts, the 89-93 was this season as a starter. Out of the bullpen he's seen as a 95 mph guy with an absolutely murder slider. You can find gifs of it with a 'tracer' tail and I'd imagine the contact rate on that pitch will be abysmal. I don't know how anyone would hit it - just spit on it, hope you've worked the AB long enough to get him to his 3rd pitch and wait for him to hang a fringy changeup. With his command being wobbly (and I saw a lot of strikes that were 'bad strikes' that could've been driven), I can see the risk there. He misses the zone a little more than you'd like and when he's in the zone he's in the middle too often. But shit, at this spot in the draft that's fine - he has serious shit and can absolutely be a back of the bullpen arm.

Baker - meh, likely signability guy who can't play defense anywhere but appears to have an excellent approach. Anytime you can't figure out why the Cardinals took a guy, go see if he excelled in the Cape. Baker did. If they save a bit on his slot and he ends up making it to the show as a more powerful, more polished Luke Voit, that's a good use of that pick. An advance righty bat with power off the bench will always be useful. There is some concern that they will need to go over slot to get Gorman away from his Arizona commit so this may be where they find that money.
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So realistically, what would it take for the Cards to bring Machado on board and what do you make the lineup look like with him here?

If he's adamant on playing SS, do you move Dejong to 3rd? Or maybe 2nd?
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If he's adamant about playing SS, that's fine. He's not been as good over there as I thought he would be but he's fine. DeJong has been better than I thought he'd be but he's still pretty much just fine. The defense would be better with DeJong at SS and Machado at 3b because Machado is an exemplary defensive 3b but it would be more than adequate with Machado at SS and DeJong at 3b.

As for what it would take - I can't even proffer a guess at this point for one reason and one reason alone - Peter !@#$ing Angelos. That guy is such a wild card. I mean if he's being reasonable, something like Hudson, Kelly and one of our half-dozen superfluous outfielders should be more than enough. A guy like JAG would be ideal but if it took Arozarenas that would be steep but doable. Oscar Mercado has made him a bit superfluous especially if Bader has also turned a corner and can keep that kind of defense with solid O.

But good luck expecting Angelos to be reasonable. He's a nut.
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Yeah, it's a weird situation. They pretty much have to trade him at this point, right?

I know they're all in and they're actually good, but would the Nats consider trading Harper?
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Nope.

When you have Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg at the height of their power along with an OF of Eaton, Harper and Soto to go with a good, deep IF and solid relief staff, you don't trade Harper.

Flags fly forever and right now the Nats are at risk of wasting the Harper years. If anything, they should be pushing in rather than selling. If they could get Herrera from KC for a reasonable price, they should look into it. You HAVE to make every effort possible to win at least a pennant if for no other reason than it might improve your ability to keep Harper in Washington.

I mean, it's not as unlikely as the National unloading Trout or the Indians trading Lindor, but it's not much more likely than that. Statistically I guess you'd call it a 'non-zero chance' which is a pretty diplomatic way of saying 'damn near 0% chance...'
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About what I thought, but it's pretty much the same chance he signs back there next year, right?

And FWIW, Scherzer should be in STL right now. That was always a dumb miss if they were even seriously interested.
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Nah, there's a chance he's back in Washington. In fact, I'd put them around 2 after Philly. Philly's such a quiet giant right now; their revenue stream is INSANE. They could throw an otherwordly amount of money at him.

And let's be honest here, Ted Lerner's not going to live through the end of a Bryce Harper contract. The guy's 92 and if he gives Harper a 10 year deal he has to figure that he has him, Scherzer and Strasburg locked in until he's dead. Money's no issue for a billionaire on his way out the door but he'd sure like to hang that flag before he goes.

I'd say the Phillies at 1, Nationals 2, Yankees 3, Cubs 4, Dodgers 5. 'The field' after that lot is pretty distant, IMO. There's a chance of the mystery team popping up (and just assume that the mystery team will be Arte Moreno being batshit insane) but those 5 are pretty clear frontrunners in my eyes.
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Oh, and yeah, losing Scherzer suu*******s. Pretty brutal miss for a kid that grew up a Cardinals fan and wanted to pitch here.

I wonder if Soto's emergence could convince the Nats to get super aggressive and dangle Robles. They could get a damn nice return there. I mean, he probably could've been a centerpiece in a Yelich deal so that's the kind of talent they could seek.

I wonder if the Royals fans would take Robles as the main return in a Perez and Herrera deal. Maybe Robles, Luis Garcia and Raudy Reed for Perez and Herrera?

It would sting in 2019 if they lost Harper and didn't have Robles to put out there with Soto and try to replace his production, but if they lose Harper they need to focus more on finding a new normal and perhaps Perez can help there with Michael Taylor being a flawed but functional starter in center. They could re-allocate the Harper money to retaining Herrera and just try to win in a different way.

But man, it would sure make their biggest weakness look good in a hurry (catcher) and vault that bullpen into the upper tiers of the NL.
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Yeah, but I doubt they move off Robles because of the Harper situation.

I was talking with a royals friend the other day about what it would take to get Herrera to STL as our bullpen is ass.

But I'd prefer to go the Machado route if it was an either or.
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im still pissed about passing on Scherez. He wanted to come here. To come home. We weren’t dying for pitching but you get a chance to land elite talent like that, you make room.
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