2025 Guardians Amateur Draft - Part 16 - The Night Before The Day Before The First Night of The Draft - Final Thoughts

 OK, it's Friday.  The draft starts in 2 days.  Lots of rumors and movement all through draft.

So here are my random thoughts as we get ready for the chaos of the draft.

• Nothing has changed from my initial thoughts.  My priorities in this draft are:
• College power hitters
• College power pitchers
• High school catchers (2 in rounds 11-20)
• Injured college pitchers
• High school pitcher flyers in rounds 10-20 (2 total)
• College relievers
• The premise behind the above is that the major driving force behind the picks for this draft is that we do things only to make the ML team stronger between now and 2018 where we will have a big inflection point in this organization as Dolan sells, Ramirez and Clase contracts expire (maybe Kwan's, too) and a lot of our young pitchers will be approaching free agency.  We need to do whatever we can to win now and through 2028.
• In rounds 1-10 we should not be drafting a single HS player,  except in Round 10 where we could draft a HS pitcher flyer if we have gotten the players we wanted in rounds 1-9.  ESPN, in their last mock, had us drafting HS players on 3 of their first 4 picks with the only college player being Cade Obermueller at #70.  Scary and, IMO, detrimental to this organization if it were to happen.
• Remind yourself of the following about the Guardians
• They are really good at the last 10 rounds of the draft
• They, have, in recent years, done strange things (2021 college pitcher draft, 2023 slap hitter draft)
• Finally, and this is the toughest one, keep repeating "Teams lke who they like". Once a pick is made the horse is out of that barn and, as fans, even fans who follow the draft closely, we have to just move in.  The more you know, the more frustrated you can feel.  So just assume everything is going to work out
• A new wrinkle has sprung up in the draft this year that might impact the Guardians.
• Josh Naylor is supposedly being shopped by the Diamondbacks at the deadline, likely for a prospect who may very well be better than anyone we would get using the draft pick we got in this trade.
• Bryan Baker, a mediocre reliever, was just traded by Baltimore for the #37 pick in the draft, setting a very low price for the value of these competitive balance picks.  Remember, Naylor got Cleveland Slade Cecconi and the #66 pick in the draft.
• So, the Guardians, anticipating that Naylor might bring a great prospect back in a trade, might try to hit a HR with the #66 pick and risk striking out big, If this happens it will throw salt in the wound of a trade I didn't think Cleveland got enough from. I worry the Guardians might double down on the issues with this trade.  I just hope they put all that out of their mind and draft a good, solid prospect with that pick and avoid some brass ring grab of selecting a high risk guy.
• Andrew Fischer, my pick in my Mock 1 and 2 drafts is getting some helium and may be gone before the Guardians draft at #27.  As you will see when I do my mock 3.0 draft, there are plenty of good players in the first 5 rounds of the draft who will likely be available at the slots the Guardians draft at.
• Players who are draft-eligible are starting to pull out of the draft, including some guys who attended the draft combine.  I had thought if you attended the combine you were very interested in going pro but it looks like that might not be universally true.  I will be watching those announcements to see if they impact my mock drafts.
• Finally, as you will see tomorrow, I am taking a much different approach to my mock 3.0. For the first 10 rounds I am giving 3-6 players who I would consider drafting at each slot.  As I said, there are lots of quality players available as this draft is solid with the kinds of players I am looking for: college power hitters, college pitchers who are tall and are the opposite of soft tossers and high school catchers. There will be plenty of good players who I want to target in rounds 11-20, too, including HS catchers, college power hitters, high school pitching flyers and college pitchers with beig arms.  

Look forward to providing my Mock 3.0 for Day 1 of the draft (rounds 1-3) tomorrow night sometime. Then on Sunday night I will provide my Mock 3.0 for Day 2 which will include a "big board" of players I want to target in rounds 11-20.   On Day 2 I will also be doing a live blog and, after round 10 , I will expand my big board to include players not selected in rounds 1-10.

The fun starts on Sunday. Let's hope we have lots of positive things to talk about after Sunday and Monday!  Go Guardians!