NL West6 of 6<\/p>\n
Arizona Diamondbacks: Put Pitching First This Time<\/p>\n
Mike Hazen doesn’t tend to favor college or high school talent with early picks, but his recent draft history does show a tendency toward up-the-middle-position players. At least so far, the results haven’t been great.<\/p>\n
Between that and the reality that Arizona is short on impact arms both in the majors and in the minors, it may be time for a new script. There could be some good ones for the Snakes at No. 15, perhaps even including Gio Rojas.<\/p>\n
Colorado Rockies: Resist the Urge to Prioritize Pitching<\/p>\n
This is Paul DePodesta’s first draft with the Rockies, and he’s set up well to succeed. In addition to the No. 10 pick, he also holds picks at No. 37 and No. 38. Those are three good chances to add to a system that’s already trending up.<\/p>\n
But since Coors Field is still there, DePodesta shouldn’t waste his time trying to find a franchise pitcher with any of those picks. It’s been too long since the Rockies were an offensive powerhouse, and that’s what DePodesta must focus on building.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Dodgers: Aim for the Highest Upside Possible<\/p>\n
The Dodgers have the lowest first pick of any team in the league, and they won’t pick again until No. 132. They also have the smallest bonus pool of any team. Between these things, it’s hard to imagine them winning the draft.<\/p>\n
And yet, the Dodgers have been pretty good at digging up gems under Andrew Friedman. They should be considered a threat to do so again, especially if they use that No. 40 pick on a flawed, yet toolsy player they can work with.<\/p>\n
San Diego Padres: Might As Well Stick with Prep Players<\/p>\n
A.J. Preller just plain likes his high school players. He last used a first-round pick on a college guy back in 2016, when he couldn’t (but perhaps should have) resist Cal Quantrill when he was coming out of Stanford.<\/p>\n
And you know what? It works. Preller has drafted guys like Jackson Merrill, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore and Ryan Weathers, plus others (i.e., Robert Hassell III) that he’s been able to hype as trade chips. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.<\/p>\n
San Francisco Giants: Don’t Get Cute at No. 4<\/p>\n
The Giants have the fourth-largest bonus pool of any team, and their No. 4 pick is followed by picks at No. 29 (thanks, Austin Hedges) and No. 55. So if they want to divide and conquer, they can.<\/p>\n
Once again, though, that strategy hits different when one of the picks is in the top five. That No. 4 pick is indeed the club’s highest since it chose Joey Bart at No. 2 in 2018, so Buster Posey is better off aiming for the best player possible. It won’t be Roch Cholowsky of Grady Emerson, but it could be Vahn Lackey or Jackson Flora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NL West6 of 6 Arizona Diamondbacks: Put Pitching First This Time Mike Hazen doesn’t tend to favor college…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-790569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}