http://www.nomaas.org/draft/?p=186 http://www.nomaas.org/draft/?p=188 2009 1st round pick: Slade Heathcott June 9th, 2009 So the waiting is over, and the Yankee have selected Slade Heathcott, the dynamic OF prospect out of Texarkana, Texas. This is extra special for me today because I wrote about Slade a couple of months ago and he was the first prospect that I interviewed this year. Outside of that, I’m really pleased with this pick because he’s a 1st round talent, but without the huge pricetag. Remember what I was writing about earlier- just because a player demands a certain level of money, doesn’t mean that he is worth it proportionately. By this I mean, a guy demanding $8 million may be better than the guy demanding $4 million, but it doesn’t mean he’s twice as good. I stand by my original prediction from before the draft that by signing very good players at bonuses around slot on day one, the Yankees can really wield the hammer on days two and three. Heathcott is a great start to that plan, as he’s a premium defender up the middle and a bat that has developed exceedingly fast this season since he stopped pitching. This is the kind of baseball player player the Yankees have not seen at the top of the draft in many, many years. What a great start to the night! 2009 2nd round pick: JR Murphy June 9th, 2009 The selection of JR Murphy fits exactly with the direction I have been talking about the team going. To draft guys who are clearly appropriate talent and have a lot of room to grow, while at the same time will fall into slot and not destroy the budget. We have discussed Heathcott being a recent conversion and having an enormous ceiling, and Murphy, while not quite the athlete Heathcott is, is right in that same category. The scouting reports on him are that he’s an athlete that’s been recently converted to catcher, he’s been getting better throughout the entire season, and now BA says that he was the top catcher in Florida by season’s end. The important thing about Murphy though is that he’s not only a bat-first guy, but Baseball America ranked him as having the 2nd best strikezone judgement of all HS hitters in the draft. Getting, young, bat-first position players into the system was something that we all had hoped to see from the Yankees, and today they landed two of them. The beautiful thing about this is that both project to keep improving because of there athleticism in conjunction with present hitting tools - these are not maxed out guys, but at the same time they aren’t major projects. Murphy is an offensively driven catcher who spent his senior year moving up draft boards, and has all the tools necessary to keep getting better. This is what I like to call an elevator pick - you know it came up some already to stop at the floor you take it, but you get on it anyway because you you have reason to believe it will keep going higher. With Murphy not being a potential multi-million dollar signing, the Yankees have given themselves room to go out and get a lot of really solid signability guys on day two. As of right now the Yankees are“under budget” in all likelihood going into tomorrow (but not under-talent), and I expect them to take at least 5-6 guys who are considered mild signability cases in their 27 picks tomorrow. JR Murphy is going to be a fun prospect to follow because he is a legit hitting prospect, and that is something the organization doesn’t bring in via HS from the draft all that often. I’m now working on a post of potential signability guys for tomorrow, so look out for that… -- You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. -- Yogi Berra --

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