In the 3rd Round the Red Sox again stayed close to home, this time not in Massachusetts but in Connecticut and went with Keith Vogel, out of Sacred Heart, not exactly the greatest competition but he did get the job done on the college level. Posting a WHIP of over 1 and 146 Ks in 129 innings. Vogel only has two pitches currently but has some great intangibles with high work ethic and intelligence, if he is able to develop a third pitch he could see a spot in the rotation, otherwise he could be a solid arm in the bullpen, at 22 gives us an experienced arm to partially developed, which will help as the Red Sox just lost a few arms in the bullpen and the recent injury to young phenom Kwa-pyung Yi. Boston has stuck to there philosophy of best player available and look forward to what Vogel is going to be able to do. Joining the other two solid arms taken by the Red Sox the Red Sox pitching farm system is beginning to be filled up with some pretty solid arms. Future is looking good pitching wise for the Red Sox.
Nationals select 6'7" Greg Thompson for the potential of his live arm with a power cutter and a devastating wipeout slider. With his stature, potential stuff, and a non lazy work ethic he could develop into his early 20s as a solid bullpen prospect.
To recap the Cubs' draft picks so far: Bailey was our first selection. A great contact bat who is able to avoid striking out at a high level. Not much power, but enough to make the outfield not play shallow. Can play all over the field defensively, but will probably end up at 2nd or stay at short. Needs to add a bit of weight, as he looks Ethiopian. I have no idea how Vance fell to the 2nd of the second round. He's not going to hit for a high average, but he has a lot of pop in his bat, especially for a middle infielder. A good runner with a decent eye. Not the greatest defender, so a move to 3rd is probable. Also has a VERY wiry frame, like Bailey and will need to add muscle. Vega is a guy who looks like a decent pitcher. Nothing special to him, but has a definite shot at making a ML roster in the future. Has good movement on his pitches to go with average stuff and control.
The Dugout The draft has to be completed by Thursday. As such, I will be simming the completion of the draft tomorrow mid-morning / afternoon (it takes a while as I have to manually sim it hence why I'm doing it tomorrow). I suggest you make a list if you care about how your team drafts during the rest of the draft.
Is it possible for us to just draft on the forums and ditch statslab? Considering that we dont even get to make 22/25 of our picks and it is ten times easier to set up a list in game. Plus if we ditch statslab we won't have the years when 1000's of supposed draft picks end up hitting free agency because statslab is wacked out.
Thats rather unlikely to happen. Its much easier to import the draft from Statslab in game, versus manually having to input 4-5 rounds of the draft. Its easy to set up a list via Statslab and doing so allows us to get through more of the draft quicker than doing the draft via the forums. If people arent taking the time to set lists in Statslab, I doubt they take the time to set a list in game. The one time players hit FA was due to an error that occured when I was on vacation. So long as the draft is completed via Statslab before inputting it into the game, that wont be an issue again. I will say this though, its not 100% known yet whether or not our current Statslab configuration will be compatible with OOTP 15, so you may get your wish regardless.
