Horns247 Board

All signs point to the Astros taking Mark Appel. I personally want them to take Byron Buxton. I'd rather take a chance on the guy with crazy upside than just a good #2 major league starter.

The rangers will just wait at the end of the 1st round and pick the next Mike Olt, we don't need the 1st overall pick to find talent.

Normally I would agree with you. Conventional wisdom says take the best every day player who also happens to be at a position of need. The problem is that a little more then 70% of the high school position players drafted in the first round never make it as every day major leaguers. Drafting Appel is really pretty smart. The Astros don't have a lot of major league talent at pitcher. Appel can come in and play at the majors pretty quickly. In addition he is from Houston and the home town kid angle is a nice one for the P.R. guys. The safe play is to take the pitcher, when the Astros develop more depth in the farm system then they can start reaching a little more for guys like Buxton.

Time to bring in the next wave of prospects. Rangers with 5 in the first 93 The rich keep getting richer. Olt and Profar are dominating AA. And Leonys is back from his injury. They could be September call ups.

As much as I hated that pick hindsight-wise, it's easier to blame management at the time because they thought signability was more important than who was the best pick; 4 other teams passed over Jeter too.

I get that Buxton is really good but he has a couple factors working against him IMO: he played for a 2A school in Georgia so the competition was not what it should be for his caliber & the fact the Astros don't really want to invest 4-5 years in a HS player taken #1 (he's not a for sure Jeter like talent) when someone like Appel can come up after a couple years. I'll still support them if they take Buxton though. The last 2 & only times the Astros had the #1 pick they didn't get much return. Bannister went like 11-12 for them & Nevin played in about 20 games for them before being traded. He was kind of a prima donna if I remember correctly.

My picks in order would be Appel, Buxton, Gausman from LSU, and maybe Carlos Correa since I heard from a friend who has ties to the Astros that Correa blew the Astros away in a workout in Florida.

No doubt Drayton cared more about who he could sign than drafting the best player. However I don't buy the argument "4 other teams passed too". Most pro teams are run by bad owners and GM's................it your job as an organization to find the best players and listen to the scouts spending time with players..............

Baseball has always been a different deal though. Not saying it's right, but just go down the list of teams that have continuously botched drafts for fear of not being able to sign a more talent guy.

The Rangers did it in 2004 taking Thomas Diamond over Jared Weaver.

Jeff yes baseball is different but Jeter was/is different.............watch the ESPN special on Jeter sometime. He was special,not so much baseball skills (they are good) but the intangibles. Leadership and character etc..............

Well, personally, I preferred Appel because he could be a front end starter in a shorter period of time than Correa. That being said, I watched the video ESPN provided and I like him as a player. May not be the next Jeter but he doesn't have to be ( it would be nice though). He moved really well as a SS and has a really nice fluid swing in the vid. Only thing that worries me is the graphic that showed his current skills compared to his ceiling on a scale of 2-8, his current hitting is rated a 3 which a #1 shouldn't have.

Great pick! Wanted him all along. When you have a chance to have that much power in the middle of the field, you don't pass on it. It's gonna be a while before we see him in the show, but I thought he was hands down the most talented player with the most upside in the draft. Buxton isn't Ken Griffey Jr.

Per Parks , project but ceiling is a superstar. Sounds alot like Jordan Akins.

The right pick. Comps fave been Tulo and ARod. Not bad for a 17 year old.