The Texas Rangers have the 11th overall pick. You can follow on CBS here:
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From the Rangers website:
ARLINGTON -- The Rangers will be looking for the next Tommy Hunter on Thursday.
Texas will have its eye out for a college pitcher who can move quickly through its farm system on Thursday, when it makes the 11th overall pick in the 2008 First-Year Player Draft.
Among the names that have been flung about in that spot are TCU right-hander Andrew Cashner, Tulane right-hander Shooter Hunt and Eastern Kentucky left-hander Christian Friedrich.
The question is if that college pitcher will be the "best available player" when the Rangers make their highest pick since taking pitcher Thomas Diamond with the 10th overall pick in the 2004 Draft. Or it could be one of several first basemen or high school outfielder Aaron Hicks from Long Beach, Calif., or Ethan Martin, a hard-throwing right-handed high school pitcher from Georgia.
"We have a remote idea," Rangers scouting director Ron Hopkins said. "We're lining up our board, and we'll see who's available when we pick. We've got it down to a workable amount of players, and we've been grinding those players."
The Rangers have been emphasizing pitching with their top picks over the past five years. The Rangers have had nine picks in either the first or supplemental rounds over the past five Drafts and have used seven of those selections to take pitchers. Five of those seven were high school pitchers.
Diamond was taken out of the University of New Orleans, and Hunter is from the University of Alabama. He was the last of the Rangers' top five picks last year behind high school pitchers Blake Beavan, Michael Main and Neil Ramirez, as well as University of Tennessee outfielder Julio Borbon.
But Hunter has zipped by all four, and he's already pitching at Double-A Frisco, where he is 2-1 with a 4.66 ERA. Club officials have admitted that in a "perfect world," another college pitcher who can move just as quickly through the system would be preferable. But that doesn't mean it's automatic. Nothing is when it comes to the Draft.
"We're going to take the best player available," Hopkins said, echoing sentiments also expressed by Rangers general manager Jon Daniels.
The wild card in any Draft is "signability." The word isn't in the dictionary. Neither is "toolsy." But both non-words are used in excess when it comes to projecting the Draft. Signability is simply how difficult a player will be to sign. It's usually used in the same sentence with agent Scott Boras, whose clients almost always demand more than "slot money," another Draft-invented phrase that means the recommended signing bonus by Major League Baseball for every spot in the Draft.
Boras' persistence can mean his highly regarded clients drop because of teams who don't want the hassle or aren't willing to meet the demands. Rick Porcello, a high school pitcher out of New Jersey, dropped all the way to the 27th overall pick last year before the Tigers took him, even though he was considered one of the top five picks in the 2007 First-Year Player Draft.
"It's always an issue with some of the guys at the top of the food chain in their abilities," Hopkins said. "We have no clue whether or not some guys are going to fall because of their agent."
The Rangers have passed on some high-profile Boras' clients, most notably Jered Weaver in 2004. But they have taken others, including Mark Teixeira in 2001 and Borbon last year. Borbon was signed at the last moment before the Aug. 15 deadline, when he would have gone back to Tennessee for his senior year.
The two most notable Boras clients are Eric Hosmer, a high school first baseman out of Florida who is considered to be one of several top first-base prospects in the 2008 Draft, and third baseman Pedro Alvarez, a junior at Vanderbilt who had to deal with a hand injury this season. They are the wild cards because of signability.
The Rangers have not had trouble signing their Draft picks lately. They haven't had a first-round or supplemental Draft pick go unsigned since outfielder Tyrell Godwin in 1999. They were also unable to sign Barry Zito in 1998 after drafting him in the third round out of junior college. He went to USC instead and was taken in the first round the following year by the Athletics.
That was Tom Hicks first year as owner. Since then, the Rangers have been aggressive in getting their Draft picks done.
"I don't think Tom Hicks gets enough credit for that," club president Nolan Ryan said. "But he's always been willing to step up."
The Rangers just want to get a good player. They'll settle for another Hunter.
