Major League Baseball’s Rule 4 draft (amateur draft) is unlike any other draft in professional sports. There are 40 rounds of swift decisions and rapid draft announcements. It doesn’t feature roaring crowds of face-painted fans spilling their beer in excitement, although they have tried to make it less stodgy in recent years with top-rated prospects invited to a muted ceremony.
Adding more complexity to the process is the fact that many of the players won’t be offered contracts while international free agents offer a secondary (or primary) pool of prospects to add depth to farm systems.
So, yeah, it’s complicated. But there is a method to the madness for each team and conventional wisdom finds most teams selecting the best player available – albeit, this is a painfully oversimplified summary.
How did the White Sox do?
Depends on who you ask, but director of scouting Nick Hostetler had this to say about the draft as a whole.
“We were really happy with the way the draft played out for us in the sense of what type of players we were able to add,” said Hostetler. “We felt that we had a really good mix of solid good baseball players with the ability to be everyday players as well as guys with high upside.” He named Lency Delgado (SS/4th round), Cabrera Weaver (OF/7th round), Kelvin Moldonado (SS/11th round) and Gabriel Ortiz (C/19th round) as notable players with high cielings while adding that a few pitchers fit this description as well. “It was a nice blend of both,” Hostetler explained about the variety of talent the White Sox grabbed in the draft. “It was something that we set out to do. We wanted to walk out of here today feeling like we had some floor and ceiling with the players in the draft as a whole.”Most agree that the White Sox stole Nick Madrigal from Oregon State University with the fourth pick. Despite his stature, the kid can flat out ball. Steele Walker, an outfielder (like we don’t have enough of those already) from the University of Oklahoma rang in with the second pick while the third pick checked a massive box for the organization. Konnor Pilkington is a left-handed pitcher and the Mississippi Ace. He was considered a possible top-10 pick last summer, but like Alec Hansen in 2016, slipped after hitting a few bumps in the road. I was able to speak to his college skipper on Thursday about his development, makeup, and stuff. In total, the White Sox selected 20 pitchers, five catchers, 10 infielders and five outfielders.
Of the pitchers chosen over the three-day event eight were southpaws and two of them are highly unlikely to sign a contract. All of them are high school players, two of which lean towards favor-drafts than hard scouting decisions. Among those five is Matt Klug whose touching story compelled Hostetler to reach out to his area scout in Georgia to see if the gesture of drafting the youngster was worth the pick. Klug won’t be offered a contract, but he will receive the encouragement of an entire organization that recognized his story and his courage after losing both his parents to illness. Among position players taken on the last day of the draft, Hostetler points out Kelvin Moldonado from Ponce, Puerto Rico and Roman Gonzalez from the University of Miami. Both players are middle infielders and Hostetler pointed out that he loved Moldonado’s actions and room for physical growth. With a loose swing and plus run-tool, Hostetler is very happy with Moldonado. Gonzalez was a name Hostetler mentioned as someone to watch from the later rounds. At 6’2 and 200 pounds, Gonzalez has some serious size and played third base for the Hurricanes. His numbers are not very attractive but it seems there is some serious pop in his swing. Gonzalez still has a lot of holes in his swing having struck out 60 times this season. But he seems to be a very good defensive player with room for growth.
