FanPost

2011 Draft - The Lost Draft

After going through the process of selecting our Top Prospects in AN, something jumped to the eye, at least for me: There is not a single player on our top 15 list from the 2011 Draft. The only one making some noise (very little) was Drew Granier, which start in High A was promising but has faced a wall in Double A that we hope he can climb this year.

That made me go further into that years draft, since is suppose to be the draft staffing our Triple A-Double A affiliates, and only Midland will have some players from that draft class, and none of them the top prospects of the team for this year.

Now, there is an exception, and if we are going to have an exception, let's make it a possible star, and let's remember that our first pick on that draft was Sonny Gray, a keystone of our 2014 rotation, but looking further than Sonny, including the players we traded away, I can see only 3 players with high probabilities to reach the majors, but none of them have being in Triple A (Blake Trainen, Drew Granier and Chris Bostick) and unfortunately, 2 of them might reach the majors for other teams.

Now, graduate 4 players to the Majors is not a disaster of Draft, but as of today there is only 1 graduate, and realistically speaking, probably 1 or 2 more would follow, and not precisely as impact players.

In that draft we only had 1 top 100 pick (Gray at #18), but we had 4 more picks before the 200th pick, none of them had made any impression to be an impact player in the making:

BA Vollmuth (3B, 3rd Rd 105) - Repeated High A in 2013, and actually had a regression, OPSing only .709. Probably going to Double A as a bench player behind Head and Muncy.

Bobby Crocker (OF, 4th Rd, 136) - Going up at a level per year, is an interesting prospect, but his ceiling is a bench OF at best.

Beau Taylor (C, 5th Rd, 166) - Stuck at Double A for 2 seasons, and didn't made a solid argument for a promotion to Sacto, with Maxwell behind him, he might see a lot of bench time in Midland.

Dayton Alexander (OF, 6th Rd, 196) - Very little to show for, he was a bench player in Beloit last year, its seems no more than an organizational filler.

Some of the picks in that draft that still make noise in our organization (or traded to other teams) are:

Blake Trainen - Currently on the Nationals Spring camp, was part of the package sent to Washington to land John Jaso. Posted decent numbers in Double A and might be a good depth pitcher.

Tanner Peters - Had a breakout season last year, and will be tested in Midland this year.

Sean Jamieson - On AZ Spring Camp, was traded to get a few months of Stephen Drew on the 2012 season. With the depth AZ has there is very little chance he will reach the majors with the D-backs.

Chris Bostick - Traded to Texas to get Gentry, he was probably the most intriguing prospect behind Gray, considered a steal, and we already had some value back with Gentry.

After this draft, the A's strategy changed drastically the last 2 years, and I cannot stop thinking that probably the results of this class has something to do with such a drastic change.