Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Yeah, I realized after I read through the thread that you went over all this already; poor form on my part.
Honestly, I'd have preferred Denney to Manaea, if for no other reason than the fact that a pitcher with any injury scares me. All he has to do is come back favoring that hip just a little bit, even imperceptibly, and he ends up thrashing his shoulder on account of it. Additionally, I think he'd have fallen a little further due to the injury concerns combined with signability concerns.
That said, I can't really fault the approach, though I do question if Dozier was really the best they could do there, even if they're basing the pick on signability. He's damn sure not a SS, so I'm guessing they profile him as a 3b.
|
I've see a few things reported today that make the Mannaea pick more easily understood:
1) The Royals are confident the hip issue is genetic, not baseball-related (similar to Alex Gordon). Someone called that out in this thread or the Repository today. I think it was Passan that reported this.
2) The shoulder is clean, and apparently they're willing to shut him down and get the labrum/hip issue surgically repaired before letting him throw again.
Dozier, they seem to just love him. I think he gets a shot at 2B even though he's very non-typical for that position. His size makes it a longer shot, but Zobrist is a great example of a bigger guy succeeding defensively there (Zobrist is 6-3, Dozier listed at 6-4). His positional potential probably breaks down about like Michael Cuddyer (I haven't seen that comp, but I think Dozier fits pretty well - RH power bat, thick/strong guy who can play 3B, RF, potentially 2B)
If they can get Dozier to stick at 2B, his bat plays up as plus to plus-plus for that position. His bat probably is adequate at 3B or RF because he offers RH power at those spots.
I would have rather seen Denney than Reed with that second round pick, but Reed is at least a hard-throwing LHP with good size and some helium (and untapped potential due to low development/coaching so far).
There is a lot of risk in what the Royals did (though clearly they think Manaea is less of a risk than other teams did), but it has a lot of potential payoff.