According to this story on MLB.com, the Pirates will draft UCLA pitcher Gerrit Cole with the first pick in baseball’s amateur draft, which begins at 4 p.m. (PDT) today.
If that’s what the Pirates do, it leaves the Mariners staring directly down the barrel of Anthony Rendon’s big bat with the second overall pick. Rendon is the heavy-hitting third baseman from Rice who’s considered the plum position player in the draft pool, even though he has dealt with a broken ankle and shoulder problems in the past year.
A lot of pre-draft reports have projected Rendon as a sure .300 major league hitter with All-Star potential in the field at third base. Oh, how the Mariners could use that. They’re not exactly over-flowing in the minor league system with big league-quality third basemen _ yes, there’s Alex Liddi, but there are a lot of people who believe he’ll wind up on the other corner of the infield.
So Rendon could be a really nice pickup. Except there’s the matter of his health — a broken ankle last July and shoulder problems this spring that limited him mostly to DH duty for Rice.
Rendon batted .327/.520/.523/.1.043 with six home runs and 37 RBI this year with Rice, whose season ended Sunday with its NCAA regional tournament loss to Cal. Those numbers are a significant drop, especially on the power side, from the .394/.530/.801/.1.331 of last year, when he hit 26 home runs and had 85 RBI.
The Mariners are keeping their thoughts to themselves on Rendon. But others in the scouting world have wondered if his diminished power is the result of the less-potent aluminum bat the NCAA went to this year and not necessarily because of the injuries. If that’s the case, how might Rendon perform with a wood bat? That might be enough to cause a team picking second to look elsewhere – say, to left-handed pitcher Danny Hultzen of Virginia.
However, if Rendon really is the big bopping, nice-fielding third baseman that a lot of scouts say he is, I have a hard time seeing the Mariners picking anyone else. We’ll learn what the Mariners are thinking shortly after 4 o’clock today when they make their pick.
Until then, who do you think the Mariners should take? We’ve put up this poll at Heraldnet.com, so cast your vote and check the results to see what others think.
We’ll be back later this afternoon with the outcome of the Mariners’ selection, comments from GM Jack Zduriencik and scouting director Tom McNamara, and hopefully a few words from the player they select.
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