MLB draft

I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand a thing about the baseball draft. There are tons of supplemental picks that you get if you lost a free agent and those picks come between the first and second round. Then there are all the rules about signing and sending guys to the minors and then there's the guys you can sign conditionally and send to junior college. I don't have a clue how this works. The only system more confusing to me is hockey.

Anyway, the real interesting thing about yesterday's draft is that Milwaukee had the #7 pick.

And they took a left-fielder.

Of course, we currently have two of those, Geoff Jenkins and Kevin Mench in addition to a large cadre of outfielders.

The Journal-Sentinel article said: "The Milwaukee Brewers saw a power-hitting leftfielder, not a power-hitting first baseman, when they selected Matt LaPorta out of the University of Florida with the seventh pick of the first round of the draft Thursday.
The Brewers raised some eyebrows when they selected LaPorta, who played first base for the Gators, because they already are set at that position for years to come with 23-year-old Prince Fielder.
But Jack Zduriencik, the Brewers' director of amateur scouting, quickly explained that the Brewers view LaPorta as their leftfielder of the future.
Above all else, it was LaPorta's offensive capabilities that caught the Brewers' collective eye.
"We felt that this, in our estimation, was one of the best hitters in the country and one of the best power hitters in the country," Zduriencik said.
The numbers certainly support that belief.
In his senior season at Florida, LaPorta hit .402 with 20 home runs, 52 runs batted in and 55 walks. He's a finalist for the Golden Spikes award given to the nation's top amateur baseball player."

The full article is here.


Apparently someone in the front office is finally realizing the Jenkins is not the future of this team. There is a new draft rule that says your picks have to be signed by August or you lose rights, so this guy should be playing single A ball before the end of the summer.