Quite interesting, Seager was the draft's 18th pick and Wacha was the 19th. the question is simple... did we drafted the right guy??? it has worked out well for Kershaw/Lincecum, but there are multiple example of teams taking the wrong kid one spot earlier... recent examples: 2011 - Chris Reed 16/ Sonny Grey 18 (oak) 2008 - Ethan Martin 15/ Brett Lawrie 16 (Tor)
19 year old vs a 22 year old who played college. 1 guy who could be playing everyday and the other once every 5 days. 1 guys who is still in AA and potentially AAA by the end of 2014 and the other obviously in the WS. Bottom line both too early to compare and too small a sample http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/41964/how-18-teams-passed-on-michael-wacha Update: Xander Bogaerts starting at 3rd is a 21 year old undrafted FA. Baseball has so many players drafted and undrafted it's nearly impossible to be perfect on every one of your picks.
give it a couple years... minimum and it's not like we were the only team that passed on him... seager + 80 players were selected ahead of wackoff
Too early to tell. Baseball prospects are difficult to figure out. There are so many that were drafted early that will never make it to the show. And then there are guys you never would have guessed that make it big.
Hindsight is 20/20. Logan White primarily drafts high school pitchers when selecting pitchers high, this year and 2011 (for financial reasons) being the exceptions. Knowing that he doesn't like to select college pitchers high, using history as an indicator, I wouldn't be surprised if Wacha wasn't very high on his board at the time of the pick.
I guess the ghosts ate up Wacha Wacha Wacha!!!! 2 pitch pitchers will eventually get figured out but again small sample both positively and negatively.
You just can't look at it this way. You basically have to wait until their careers are over, or at least several years in.
Seriously Wacha did great but in a small sample size. No one had a book on his tendencies yet. I tend to believe that certain talented rookies do very well due to lack of scouting. Mlb teams are very smart and by next year they will know more about wacha. I think the kid is very very talented, he's in the same mold as Carpenter and Wainwright tall and lanky throws from a high arm slot which puts a seriously steep angle on the pitch. That's hard to hit. I like the Seager pick over Wacha even today. Seager plays a premium position whereas with a pitcher especially a R'Hander there's more room for error. I'd rather take a risk and miss on the next longoria or Machado than the next Brien Taylor or Todd Van Poppel. That being said great pitchers are hard to find but a great 3B is an even bigger rarity.
Also remember that player development is important. You need to be able to mold that player so they can be successful in the future. The Cards do well with their players because they have a great organization from top to bottom that helps these players reach their potential. Baseball is just much more difficult to predict. Like many have said, you need to see how Wacha does throughout his career and see if Seager lives up to the hype.
This. It is way too early to compare a kid who has yet to reach the majors to a kid who hasn't played enough to even earn a full year of service time.
people, I know this is small sample, I just wonder based on what we've seen so far... for example: had we drafted Wacha, maybe he takes over as the 5th starter, then we dont have to send out Nolasco for game 4, Wacha dominates... he could have been the difference between what the Dodgers achieved and reaching the WS... but we've also seen the Seager has the potential to stop the revolving door 3B has been for us since Beltre left, and some scouts have tagged him with All-Star potential...
Spot reserved for 2023 when Seager wins us 8 world series titles while leading the MLB in every statistical category
