Let's talk draft strategy

 The baseball draft is less than 2 weeks away and as I am working on my mock draft for the Guardians I thought we could first talk a little draft strategy.  What has worked for the Guardians and what I think they will do this year.  Let's break this down by player types:

High School Pitchers - The Guardians' #1 prospect is a HS pitcher, Daniel Espino., drafted roughly where our first round pick is this year.  Besides Espino, their track record with high school pitchers has been spotty with only Ethan Hankins and Lenny Torres, both held back by injuries, being notable selections.   To balance that out, Triston McKenzie was also a first round pick.

College pitchers - Anyone who follows the Guardians drafts and the trades they make and, in fact, the current rotation, they favor college pitchers.

High school hitters: Tyler Freeman and Nolan Jones are relatively recent HS hitters drafted early in the draft.   Before them came Will Benson who appears to be just coming into his own and recently, Petey Halpin and, most recently, Carson Tucker.  As you can see there is a lot of promise here but nothing that helps the major league team.   Later round HS hitter draft picks have been even less valuable, up to this point.  Plus they did trade for Isaiah Greene who is not producing that well.

Catchers - Except for Bo Naylor and Brian Lavastida, the Guardians have either not put much effort into drafting catchers and have less luck in finding diamonds in the rough.

College hitters - The Guardians have not drafted a lot of college hitters early, although they have found some future MLers in rounds 4-10, were more guys who could play defense and slap the ball around while showing good plate discipline.  In other words, no mpact bats.

So, looking at this year's draft, what does all this mean?

I like them taking college bats early in this draft.  My frst pick in my first mock draft was a 'safe' pick in college right hander Gabriel Hughes and then some college bats.  Without giving away my 2.0, I could see them changing gears and drafting Zach Neto first, giving them possible 3 college bats in their first 3 picks.  The goal is to extend the window of competitiveness and I think college bats are prevalent enough early in this draft that they could go for several and fill in behind that with some college pitchers.   Even though I love HS pitchers in this draft I just don't see the Guardians thinking that far ahead here.   I see them only going for HS pitchers early if the college bats they covet are all gone at the time they want to draft them.