The draft

Lots of things seemed to change quickly from when I did my draft post last night, namely that the Royals decided that Andrew Miller, rated by most as the top prospect in this draft, would be too difficult to sign and may have some delivery flaws. Miller actually ended up falling down to the Tigers at #6, but the chain of events set in place by the Royals taking Luke Hochevar at #1 (that's right, the Royals decided that a guy who held out at #40 last year because Boras is his agent would be more signable than Miller) allowed the Pirates to grab Brad Lincoln out of the University of Houston. Charlie points out that this is the third time since 2002 that the Pirates have passed on the pre-draft "top talent" following BJ Upton in 2002 (Bryan Bullington) and Stephen Drew in 2004 (Neil Walker). I don't think this is quite the same though, because Lincoln has some good stuff and still projects out to be a top of the rotation starter (unlike Bullington). I would've liked to see us take a position player, but there were only two other guys taken in the top 10, Drew Stubbs (toolsy outfielder alert!) and William Rowell, a high school third baseman. Lincoln definitely seems to be a better pick than Reynolds would've been, and I've seen a couple places rate him as the most pro-ready pitcher in the draft. I don't really follow this stuff all that closely, so all I really have to go on is what other people say, but I think this is a good pick.

The next two rounds we'd appear to have gone back to being the same old Pirates, from what I can tell. In the second round we took Mike Felix from Troy University. What I've read about him projects him as a left-handed reliever. John Sickels projected him to the Twins in the FIFTH round, so I'd say this is a huge stretch, especially given the paucity of good position players in the minors. Our third rounder, Shelby Ford didn't show up on anyone's radar anywhere, so again, reach. We seem to have accidentally made a decent pick in the 7th round by taking Pitt's Jim Negrych. I'm almost positive the team intended it as a PR move, but Negrych can actually hit, though he doesn't seem to have a position (hmm... maybe we did take him on purpose, we love to screw with guys like that). These are just kind of gut reactions to these picks, because I don't know a whole lot about any of these guys. I'll try to read up on it and give a better reaction later (though it'll be tough, my ESPN insider subscription ran out today).