Round 1, Pick 23: James Ramsey, OF
Posted on June 4th, 2012 by Jeff in 2012 MLB Draft, tags: James RamseyJames Ramsey
Senior, Florida State
Height: 6′
Weight: 190lbs
DOB: 12/19/89
Bats: L
Throws: R
Jeff’s Snap Take: With the brand new rules in place with the Major League Baseball’s new Collective Barganing Agreement, each team is held to a certain amount of money for their 1st through 10th round selections. These rules do very little to help the teams at the top get the best players, but if they do anything, they elevate the level of the college seniors who have little leverage and are forced to sign at what the team selecting them offers. And since teams are on a specifically tight budget, these players help balance the budget to allow the team to pick more expensive players with their other picks. If it makes zero sense to you, you are not the only one. With that introduction, I give you the Cardinals 2nd first round pick at number 23 overall, James Ramsey, senior Outfielder, Florida State. More of me and the scouting reports are after the jump.
On the broadcast, MLB Network compared Ramsey to: Skip Schumaker. (Comps are dumb and rarely close, but that one hurts.) And I say this trying to be well though out and not over-reacting to this pick: Ramsey is taken at 23 only because he’s an easy sign as a college senior, he was not the best talent available. He put up good numbers in the Cape Cod League (Cape Cod Alert!) and hits for average in college. He doesn’t project as a CF, but instead a RF without much power (or a 2nd baseman, not sure where anyone is getting that from). Oh well, enough of my rant. Along to the scouting reports.
MLB.com’s Scouting Report:
With the new Draft rules in place this year, many feel college seniors will get drafted early as teams find ways to be economically responsible. Ramsey could be the first such senior to test that theory. While power isn’t a part of the outfielder’s game, Ramsey does make consistent contact, spraying the ball all over the field. The left-handed hitter uses his plus speed well, on the move as he swings a la Ichiro, and not afraid to steal a base. His speed plays well in the outfield, as does his solid arm and outstanding instincts. What his ultimate role is at the big league level remains to be seen, but as a college hitter who’s performed well, Ramsey is one college senior who should come off the board pretty quickly.
Florida State center fielder James Ramsey was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 22nd round last year and turned down a mid-six-figure bonus to return to Tallahassee for his senior year. He hasn’t stop hitting since and might be in position now to go as high as the sandwich round for a team looking for an under-slot, polished college performer.
Ramsey’s carrying tool is his bat and he has a long history of hitting. In 239 plate appearances this spring he’s hitting .380/.520/.674 and last summer in the wood bat Cape Cod League, he hit .313/.448/.571 in 140 plate appearances. There are some tools to back up that performance as Ramsey has a direct, line drive bat path with some strength and bat speed, but most importantly he has an innate ability to square up pitches.
Ramsey’s body is maxed out and he has no better than average raw power, so the question is if he can stick in center field. He doesn’t look like he’ll be able to run with a body similar to a young Nick Swisher, but he’s a 55 runner that gets out of the box quick and will put up 60 run times to first. Ramsey is a grinder that maximizes his tools, so his range is solid but he lacks a second gear that I think will eventually make him an above-average right fielder, where his solid-average arm would play.
Ramsey’s stellar run continued in the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2011. He slugged six homers in regular season play and added another three in the playoffs. He also hit .314 against some of the top competition in the college ranks
Thanks to his incredible torrid start, there’s no way Ramsey will slide past where he was drafted last year(editor note: the 22nd round), and although his ceiling is capped due to limited defensive skills, he’d still be an excellent addition, and one day down the road, maybe a solid fourth outfielder.
And here is a heart-warming video of him and his family:
Entries (RSS)
If we were gunning for a hard sign player we could have taken him @23 and then selected Ramsey later. This was a reach. I’m very disappointed in the selection. No plus tool. Not enough speed for center. Not enough power to start at a corner OF position. I especially don’t get it after we went safe with college pitcher @ 19.
I can understand it if the Cards’ strategy is to amass 2nd-round-quality players. For instance, slot for the 23rd pick is $1.77M. Slot for a second rounder is mid-six-figures. They could probably sign Ramsey for mid-six-figures, then they can throw mid-six-figures at 2 more 2nd-round talent in the 5th-10th rounds. Keep the minors chock full of Jon Jay/Lance Lynn (and yes, Skip Schumaker)-type players, who will get to the majors at the start of their primes and provide the Cards (if they have 10-15 of these guys) 75-80 wins for very little money. Use the tons of money you have left to throw $15-20M at the FA’s, players you traded for, or 2nd-rounders you developed (note that Yadi was a 4th rounder) who are worth 5 WAR. 3 of those guys + your endless procession of second-rounders gets you 90-95 wins.
It usually doesn’t work that way. Your development/signing budgets are separate from your major league roster budget.
??? I’m not sure how that’s relevant. I’m projecting that by the time these 1S/2 round-type guys reach the majors, they’ll be John Jay/Lance Lynn in ability and cost-controlled (minimum wage or near it for 2-3 years, then some more through the arbitration years). That means you’d have to spend only about $30M in payroll to get to 75-80 wins. Add 3 5WAR guys and you’ll have 90-95 wins with a payroll that doesn’t go over $100M.
Ramsey was #1 in park/schedule adjusted OPS. I believe Wong was near the top in that catagory last year as well..
he was number one
this stat makes me feel better
Except Wong was 2 years younger at the time he did it.
I hate this pick. I assumed they’d go with a high upside pick after getting a safe, but low upside pick in Wacha. I really don’t get this or the Piscotty pick (I was worried they’d take him in the first round).
I’d prefer taking the high-upside pick who has signability issues day 2. We now have 1st-round money saved up for some kid in round 5.
Problem is there is no one left who has that kind of talent.
???? Remind again what rounds Allen Craig, Yadier Molina, Matt Adams, David Freese, and some dude with the surname of Pujols were drafted, please.
Oh, and some guy named Jaime Garcia. No way that type of talent is available in the late rounds. Simply impossible.
None of those were signability guys that fell further than expected. The Cardinals have certainly gotten a lot of value out of late round picks in recent years but you don’t need to scrimp in the first round to afford guys like that.
Exactly. Other than perhaps Yadi none of those guys raked in a a large bonus.
Furthermore, none except Yadi were recognized as high-upside until they’d been pros for a while — even Pujols.
The basic problem here is that this draft class just isn’t very good. The Cardinals seem to be taking the old military approach that “quantity has a quality all its own.” Since they have a lot of draft choices, they’re going about this so as to maximize their chances of signing everybody. If they sign five guys with 20% chances of being useful, rather than signing three out of five but they each have a 30% chance, they’ve made a defensible decision.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-passan_10_degrees_late_round_draft_finds_060611:
“Baltimore wanted to sign Garcia after taking him in the 30th round in ’04. Joe Almaraz, then an Orioles scout, told the New York Times the team refused to give him the necessary money because Garcia had not done well on a test the team gave its prospective signees. Turns out, Almaraz said, the test was mistranslated and Garcia had no chance of scoring high.”
This passage suggests to me that it took at least some money to sign Jaime.
Think about it: there’s no reason for a HS player taken in the 22nd round to sign unless he got at least some money.
Oh, and I forgot about Matt Holliday:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/?page_id=160
“drafted 1998 (7-210), $0.8425M signing bonus (largest-ever for 7th-round)”
I don’t disagree that these kinds of things do happen sometimes… of course they do. But the success rates for players drafted in these rounds are minuscule so when you have 5 picks on the first day it’s nice to get an exciting player or two. I hope the cards are saving some of their money for someone they have identified as a Matt Holliday level talent in the 7th round but I think it is just as likely that they they are saving money because they don’t plan on spending anywhere near the 9 mil that they could.
The Cards have drafted pretty well in recent years so they seem to know what they are doing. But I think it is still pretty defensible to be unexcited about their haul. And spouting out a few good players that were drafted late is not really a great argument… should we save some money for the 62nd round in case Mike Piazza 2.0 is available?
I think it’s even more defensible to trust the Cardinals FO to know what they’re doing. I despise people who turn to the draft for excitement because their lives are so meaningless that they have to vicariously live through some 19 year-old instead of focusing on what really matters, which is maximizing Cardinals wins.
Some HS stud might set some fans’ hearts aflutter, but if there’s only a 50% chance that he signs, it’s really not a good pick.
Since you have such a rich, overflowing meaningful life why you do you feel the need to call the lives of others “meaningless” and “despise” them for accurately pointing out that the Cardinals punted the 23rd pick in the draft for someone whose plus tool is “makeup” and is almost 23 years old?
I hope Ramsey does well but let’s be real. Most of us can see what this pick was about and it wasn’t talent.
Love the Ramsay pick. Just what we needed. He went higher than Rasmus and will turn out better.
I disagree. It wasn’t about _your_ definition of talent (which seems to be what the sheep’s definition of talent is). To me, all the character stuff is definitely a plus, but he also produces (was among the very best hitters in college and in a wooden bat league).
Also, so many of the “tools” that are traditionally looked for (at least in position players) seem to me less relevant to actually winning in baseball than some other factors.
To me, the biggest “tools” for a position player are–
1. A good batting eye (Ramsey seems to have this, given his high OBP).
2. A quick bat (more knowledgable people will will be able to tell, but I doubt it’s slow given how well he’s done).
3. And yes, character. Character, drive, the eagerness to learn and battle and adjust, after all, is the difference between Colby Rasmus and an All-Star.
Just because the sheep values Ramsey lower than the Cardinals FO doesn’t actually make him less valuable; the Cards have done pretty well vs. their peers the past 5 years in drafting talent, after all.
Finally, signing Ramsey below-slot means the Cards can sign above slot elsewhere. You think the Cards could sign our 2nd round pick with slot money? So no, to me, that’s not “punting”. That’s “managing the draft smartly”.
Yikes… following the minors is a fun hobby for a lot of people on here and many find it more fun when their are toolsy, high-upside players to get excited about. I don’t understand why that is so bad… it is certainly possible to have that perspective and *gasp* disagree with the team in drafting philosophy and still lead meaningful lives. You’re being pretty inflammatory and ridiculous with your language here. Why come post on here if you’re just trying to piss off most of the readers?
Also I don’t understand why people are “sheep” if they listen to draft experts but not if they unthinkingly trust the team no matter what. It’s fine that you like the Cards picks this year but how bout you just say you like them and leave off at insulting the others here.
And for everyone player that does come out of the later rounds, there are hundreds who don’t crack their teams’ AA affiliate. Your point? The draft is a crapshoot as it is, saying that because a handful of players beat the odds doesn’t mean all of them will. Generally the earlier they’re picked the better the odds get that they’ll make it to the big leagues.
I was responding to this statement:
“Problem is there is no one left who has that kind of talent.”
The draft is indeed like a portfolio of raffle tickets, and it should be all about maximizing your chances of getting winning ones, not about “excitability”.
Day 2 signability guys almost by defination won’t be as good as those we could have had today.
I’d like the spend the extra 2 on Alford or Virant. That’s about it.
I am confused. Why do players lose all upside by going to college?
Def see the point. Just gain polish. Get older. Less growth. Less room to fill out, gain power, etc. But the point you’re making is a good one.
You see what happened with Freese and Craig. They went to college and won a World Series.
If this was a fish, we’d throw it back.
Good lord…
No we wouldn’t. At least I wouldn’t. Read here to see why the Cardinals drafting philosophy works:
http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2012/1/26/2735951/astros-and-cardinals-draft-distributions
Remember that the draft is to build winning Cardinals teams in the future, not to allow you to dream and live vicariously through some 19 year-old kid.
Speak for yourself, Dick.
Mature. Are you sixteen years old?
Your sarcasm warranted that.
The drafting philosophy shouldn’t consist of taking 4th and 5th OFs in the first round. If someone projects as a starting CF in the bigs and ends up as a 4th or 5th OF, that’s one thing. But to take guys whose ceilings are backup OFs in the first round is a mistake and if it’s part of the organization’s philosophy, it’s one that needs to change by next June.
You’re assuming that you, me, or some dudes on the internet can accurately peg the ceilings of these guys when they are drafted.
I mean, what were the ceilings of Jaime Garcia, Allen Craig, and Yadi when they were drafted? Given their track record, I trust the Cardinals FO more when it comes to evaluating ceilings.
Had the Cardinals taken a few more high upside, tough sign players in the supplemental round I wouldn’t have as much an issue with this pick.
They can still do that in the later rounds. Tough-to-sign guys tend to drop pretty far.
Name the remaining ones in this draft please
I don’t know the pool of prospects nearly as well as the Cardinals front office (and I reckon you don’t, either).
So you cannot do it and thereby proved my point.
If you had been paying attention, you would have also noticed the draft rules changed this year which almost precludes tough-to-sign guys being bought out in later rounds as was done previously. You also may have noticed the dreaded “Signability” tag not being thrown around this year for that very fact.
OK, here’s a list of signability picks put together by this guy:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1185272-2012-mlb-draft-10-biggest-prep-signability-risks-in-the-2012-class
6 of his top 10 aren’t taken yet.
Also, I don’t get your reasoning. The Cards have $9.1M to spend on 14 picks in the first 10 rounds. If they use $5M to to sign 12 of them (including all 5 of their 1 and 1S picks), why can’t they spend mid-first-round money ($2M) to sign the other 2 even if they take them in rounds 2-5?
Also, the rules are such that it isn’t smart to use the supplemental round picks on signability kids, as, if you don’t sign them, the money associated with that pick goes away. The maximizing strategy is to use the supplemental round picks on guys you know you can sign for below slot and them use the bonus pool money saved up on Day 2 picks later on.
Not true. The money doesn’t go away, you just can’t use it in this draft and your allotted budget decreases. You still get the picks next year and the allottd money goes into the total you can spend next year.
That isn’t any different than any of the non-supplemental picks. You lose the money regardless of whether it was originally a supplemental pick or if it was a regular pick before.
Two of those ten are going to college to play football(Winston, Alford) so saying they are legitimate possibilities today is silly. Also, Hinojosa tried to enroll early to Texas already. He isn’t signing either. Carson Kelly would be be a nice get. Doubt it happens.
Carson Kelly happened! Might be tough to sign, though.
There are a number of ones on the board, Ty Buttrey, Hunter Virant, Duane Underwood, etc. My problem is that if you don’t draft players early, the success rate goes down.
???? If the Cards offered mid-first-round money ($2M) to a kid, why would it matter if they took him in the 1st or 3rd or 7th rounds?
Mccullers is still on the board, IIRC.
Crap – Astros took him at 41. That’s a nice pickup if they can sign him.
Best talents on the board and those who will cost the most money to draft are Virant, Alford (Who said to not draft him, will 2mil change his mind?) and James Wineston.
Astros drafted high ceiling guys. Kudos to them.
Yeah. Kudos for being so sucky you get the first overall pick to draft a high upside guy.
Anyone after the 10th round can’t get over 100k if they do that money goes towards our 9.2 allotted amount which I doubt we spend all.
Indeed, which means we could pick signability guys after the 10th round given the relatively large stash of cash we should have available.
Could the Cardinals not sign him, get compensation for this pick next year, and then sign him as a free agent because he was a senior?
I doubt if the Cardinals drafted Ramsey and then completely lowballed him he would want to sign for the Cardinals again.
Virant and Underwood are the only guys I really would like for us to go overslot on to get them to sign. Underwood has tons of talent but also while he can hit 95 some sometimes he only sits mid 80′s. He’s very inconsistent.
Underwood has some Taijuan Walker in him. Good frame, smooth mechanics, and an electric fastball.
If the Cardinals offer more than 250k for Ramsey and Wisdom they made a series strategic mistake. Ramsey has the same profile as Shane Robinson without the plus speed. Wisdom just hit .258 in college against Division 2 players. Let him go back his Sr. year and see how little he gets next year. I’m all for the Cardinals “doing the right thing” but the right thing is this case is to use the advantages you have here. I personall ydon’t care if any of these gusy but Wacha sign. That’s 4 comp picks next year in a better draft.
you would think people would learn the lesson of not making extreme and dismissive snap judgments on draftees based on whatever information they can scrounge up on the internet, but they apparently don’t.
“Wong is just a guy at the least important position in baseball IMO. He’s got a hit tool and thats it. He’s a baseball rat you usually don’t take baseball rats with stud pitchers available, you take baseball rats in the 2-4th rounds. We could have got Christian Lopes or Phillip Evans at 79 if we wanted 2b depth.”
http://www.futureredbirds.net/2011/06/06/round-1-pick-22-kolten-wong/
go ahead and be disappointed. say you don’t like the pick. but this is much more an art than a science. approaching these picks with a little humility might go a long way. i’m not saying that wisdom or ramsey is the bee’s knees, but apparently the club sees something. it might just be that the scouts for the fourth best minor league program in baseball have an idea of what they’re doing.
there’s a vast difference between saying that you don’t understand the pick or see why he was taken and saying that the draft was a disaster or a joke. to hear it from the same people who made pretty much the same declaration last year, for pretty much the same reasons (high floor college hitter picks) gets very old.
And I said I do understand the pick, as part of a strategy which they didn’t employ. They may employ that strategy tomorrow I hope though. Did you hear the analyst when the pick was made. That shows it was out of left field and they didn’t really know how to react. Notice how everyone thought we were taking McCullers at 36 with the money we will have saved on Ramsey. Again even loving the guy so much we could have drafted him lower most likely. Most saw him as a day 2 guy and if we missed him so be it. Another guy with a chance to “contribute” but at some point you have to draft to try to get a start not just a contributor.
well you’re just going off what everybody else says. everybody says he was a day 2 guy. the analyst said he didn’t get it. everybody thought we were taking somebody else. none of these things is actually your opinion, but you espouse other people’s opinions in the most dogmatic way.
possibly, the club thought he was their best bet.
last year, in cape cod, ramsey hit .313 in 112 ABs, slugging .541, with 28 walks (WOW), 5 doubles, 3 triples, and 6 HR. the year before, in cape cod, kolten wong hit .345 and slugged .450. ramsey had the best adjusted wOBA in the whole of division I this spring.
there’s something there. and maybe the club knows something more than the talking heads on ESPN.
I’ve watched Ramsey at least 6 times this year. I like him he seems clutch. But he wasn’t highly ranked and thus would have been available later. You know who else was great in the cape. Cox and Wallace. A college senior who won’t be drafted before the 3rd round shouldn’t be taken at 23rd even if you think he’s the best player. Have you use your picks more strategically.
As I’ve said other places, best bet to contribute is different than best bet to make a major impact.
Less likely to get a star in the later rounds and more likely to get those contributors.
I can’t say how good Ramsey will be or wont be but you dont wait on a guy you want because you think he will fall to you in a later round. You have no idea how other teams rank him, only how talking heads rank him which in the end means squat. Ramsey would seem like a good bet to go early (late first/supplemental) by another team trying to save money in any case.
Ramsay was the highest rated senior in this draft. On talent, he was round 2. The Cards were smart to save $1MM by moving him up.
clutch isn’t a thing
There were also well over 600 players picked before him last year. A large part of that may be due to signability. However, when his best tool is “Makeup” you haven’t drafted the 23rd best player in the country.
Tom:
All we have to go on is “whatever information we can scrounge up on the internet”. There’s no lesson to learn from Wong – people didn’t like the pick and he turned out ok, that doesn’t mean that they should never admit to disliking a pick again. Some people will like every pick, some people will hate every pick – one of those groups will turn out wrong every time, but if you are suggesting that people shouldn’t take any negative positions on picks on draft night, that’s going to severely limit the discussion here (which seems like an odd position to take from an author of the blog). Some people do seem to take the discussion too seriously (Richard and Duryea, for example), but for the most part I think there is decent civil discussion about these things.
Also, for every Wong example where people hated the pick and were proven wrong (which isn’t a done deal, mind you), there is a Pete Kozma, where the hate of the pick has mostly proved to be right.
So, anyway, the idea that we should just trust the Cardinals because they know what they are doing better than we do is probably true, but doesn’t make for a very fun discussion, which is the point of these posts, I assume.
i’m not saying people shouldn’t discuss picks or even say they don’t like them. i was annoyed by the continuing hyperbole about the draft where numerous posters stated and restated – especially in the live chat – that this was the worst draft ever, ad nauseam. if you don’t like the pick, then fine. state your reasons for not liking the pick.
i’m also trying to cut short last year’s scenario wherein certain posters essentially spammed the board for a week afterwards declaring how terrible the wong draft was.
I admited being wrong on the Wong pick. I wasn’t against him as a player more than the very idea that we passed on 2 premiere lefties and a premiere righty for a safe pick. The fact this team seems to be very gunshy on drafting high ceilings that they have to develop themselves is very worrisome. They will draft an occassional high ceililng guy but it’s often not hte premiere ones and later in the draft where I guess they worry the investment moneywise is much less.
not sure how you can think that a club with shelby miller, tyrell jenkins, and carlos martinez as top prospects netting huge signing bonuses is gun shy about spending money on prospects they have to develop themselves.
the club favors college hitters and pitchers. they have less frequent bust rates. that’s just a different philosophy, and it’s reasonably well supported by the data as well as the actual results for the farm thus far.
as noted by many people, this draft was a weak one overall. it may be that the club felt that this year’s high-profile high school prospects were simply not very good, and that a conservative approach would be better this year.
This draft was a weak college draft strong on interesting HS talent. Yet we went with the weakest part of the draft. The college hitters. Your right they worry too much about bust rate rather than look for upside. That is my complaint with the strategy.
So the conservative approach is better when you only have 1 pick in the first 80 but it’s also the best when you have 5 picks in the first 60? When is it right to draft for upside like the Blue Jays did this year?
Sounds like a moneyball approach to me. Everyone looking HS while we are picking off the cream of the college crop.
Is Ramsey really cream of any crop?
Yet we still managed to have one of the strongest systems around even while drafting late in the rounds every year. Cards must be idiots!
Ramsey was drafted way ahead of his draft ranking and that’s because we knew we could sign him cheap. Last time we did that we came up with Pete Kozma. How’s that worked out for us?! Wisdom and Bean both could have been had in later rounds. Safe picks to ensure we could sign them. We had a chance for a grand slam in this draft with the extra picks, instead, we’ve reached base on an error. This is the year of the average tool draft. Nothing high end or special. Just okay players. Nothing to see here folks, please go back to your homes.
Looks like you didn’t read the “crawfishboxes” article I posted above. There’s value to signing the vast majority of your picks. Remember that the draft is selecting a portfolio of raffle tickets. The more raffle tickets, the better your chances of winning a prize.
But it’s not really a portfolio if the assets aren’t diversified.
These aren’t stocks. These are raffle tickets. 2-4 WAR a season is 2-4 WAR a season. If you have a competent GM, he’ll be able to get value from his farm system (by trade or other means).
My guess is the success/failure of this pick depends on the aspect no one is talking about – his defense. If he can play a major league average or + CF defense, this could be a great pick. If not, it is hard to project it being a strong pick.
Yes, I hope he can play CF.
This kid has all the intangibles to make it in the big league. He’s not a headcase. Team leader. He’s the only Seminole to wear a C on his jersey in 30+ years. He CAN play infield, did all thru HS. THis one will suprise you. Good job cardinals!
While I don’t like the pick from a philosophical standpoint, I sincerely hope you are right.
If the Birds felt *sure* that Ramsey wouldn’t be there at #36, then I love the pick.
Where does the nonsense come from, that “power won’t be a part of his game?” His power got better and better throughout college — was borderline elite this year, in fact — and was terrific with the wood bats in the Cape League.
Piscotty has no power. Ramsey does. In spades.
I think the question is does he have enough power to be a corner outfielder. 15 home runs for a CF is great. 15 homeruns for a LF is not as valuable.
Wonder if Ramsey’s goofy batting style will work in Pro Ball.
I am just tired of hearing the word “upside”. The idea that anyone knows for certain the upside of these players is just laughable. Then there is the convenient black & white idea that HS = upside, college = safe. So, so bogus. Turns out some college players do have a nice upside (Craig, Jay, Freese, Adams, Lynn).
Do people continuing the myth that college players have no upside ever actually watch our big league club play?
If your talking about this particular pick upside is about development of physical tools. i.e. Ramsey is maxed out on his tools while someone like Lewis Brinson is pretty much a blank slate in terms of what he can be physically. Brinson could be Matt Kemp, he could be Dexter Fowler or he could be nothing. Ramsey is already is what he is going to be.
the conventional wisdom on ramsey completely depends on the belief that he’s a RF longterm, not a CF, which is a difficult matter to assess. where did that conventional wisdom come from? how many times did those scouts declaring him a tweener see him? just assuming that the consensus of a bunch of scouts on the internet is correct (and superior to the sentiments of the cardinals’ scouts) is not a basis for starkly declaring that we know everything about ramsey or that he lacks upside.
You also make assumption that the Cardinals are drafting purely best player on the board when at this point it’s obviously not true. If so it would be pretty coincidential that so many of the best players on the boards are college 3rd baseman and short stops. I believe Wisdom and Ramsey are both predraft deals.
I’m ready to wait-and-see. My initial reaction was colored in large part because I had never seen him high in a mock draft. There’s a strong chance that at least one other team was on him, and could have grabbed him before the 36th pick. Maybe that wouldn’t have disappointed us tertiary evaluators. If the guys who know how to evaluate talent directly see Allen Craig-level ability, let’s sit back and see what he can do in pro ball. I know part of me fears another Pete Kozma, but that’s trumped by watching the Cards win the world series last year based in large part on late selections they developed.
“Ramsay is already is what he is going to be.”
You say that with absolutely certainty, but it’s not a fact. Even college players can increase their tools. These aren’t 27-year-olds.
Hear, hear!
If Andrew ran the Cards farm system, he would have released Allen Craig.
What a moronic statement. As you so adroitly pointed out above, Allen Craig wasn’t picked #23 overall.
Yea pretty dumb thing tosay. There’s a difference between taking great stats with power in the 8th round and taking a small guy with great stats and less power at 23. With Stykyer Trahan and Richie Shaffer on the board still.
We could have taken Stryker, but we chose not to select him. Absorb it.
Ramsay is a sure thing, a hitter for average. He has enough speed to learn to play CF. His daddy will not be begging for a trade, so he can have more fun. Ramsay is the anti-Colby, somebody who will fit into a team.
“There’s a difference between taking great stats with power in the 8th round and taking a small guy with great stats and less power at 23.”
This proves to me that you have no idea what you are talking about and are just following the sheep herd. Baseball Cube has the college numbers for both guys; the college numbers are actually not that different except that Ramsey has a .576 SLG (vs. .482 for Craig) and .460 OBP (vs. .385 for Craig) due to Ramsey having 15 triples and about twice the walks of Craig. Ramsey has slightly more homers and a higher ISO. Note that Craig played college ball when the aluminum bat really made balls jump as well.
Also, 6’0′ is small?
Craig was and is a bigger stronger guy that Ramsey. Despite the bats being better than before they still are aluminum AB’s. I do like his Ichiro type swing. Interesting to watch.
The thing now is you can’t claim this is 1990 when the only people that sees these guys are team scouts. Now all of the baseball magazines and pundits have scouts and there is a industry of people scouting who aren’t just team guys. The consensus comes from guys scouting who see just as much of these guys as any team scout. I’ve seem Ramsey about 6 times in the last month during the ACC tourney and earlier than that. It doesn’t take many times seeing a guy to tell what his physical potential is. Tom wondering if you would rather have Ramsey or say Tyler Naquin?
i would rather have ramsey and trey williams than just tyler naquin. we’ll see if that’s where the club goes and how it uses its money.
OK, so what was Allen Craig’s “physical potential”? Yadi Molina’s?
Please don’t kill each other. I’m still very wiped out from the draft. I don’t want to referee.
Thanks.
Well, I’m beginning to love this draft. I think Ramsey is an asset in his own right. But, if his selection… and the other college picks…. lead to making financial room for the HS picks this draft will have been brilliant. It’s still too soon to know how this all plays out. So much speculation on what it might take to sign each player. But, I’m betting that the Cards worked it out with some of the overreach college boys. I just hope they have a ballpark demand for the HS kids.
Ya this could be interesting. I’m a little pessimistic because the Cards haven’t been able to lure most of the late round high-upside picks that they have taken in recent years (e.g. Russel, Wisloon). Hopefully the new draft system changes this dynamic a bit.