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Yanks Draft Cito Culver

The consensus seems to be this is a WTF? moment, although some people are withholding judgment since teams like the Twins and Braves have been successful in the past with similar type picks, and everyone is in agreement that there is a crapshoot quality to the the whole affair that is the baseball draft. Baseball America, Prospectus and other experts projected Culver to go two to four rounds later. In fact, it was hard to find information from these sources about Cito since he was so far off their radar they hadn't prepared snappy summaries as they had for other expected first rounders.

In any case, it's clear the Yanks are in love with the Rochester native Culver who is an athletic switch-hitting high school shortstop. I'm not sure what to make of all the talk about how the Yanks should have held off on taking him until later since he was projected for later rounds. The Yanks seemed to think it was much too big of a gamble to wait any longer than the first round to snatch him up. Additionally, the first round has been full of surprises, at least according to the experts. If that's the case, consensus projections are probably not useful tools to use to guage when players will be drafted this year.  All it takes is one other team to like Culver a lot as a second round pick for the Yanks to lose out on the guy they wanted the most at that point. Whether they should have wanted him the most, of course, is the issue. And that's an issue with the mysterious art of scouting. How can we, who do not watch these players, judge who will be a good player and who will be bad? The most respected and important scouts in the Yanks system surely talked this guy up. 

So, I leave you with what I think after every draft pick selection: It could be a good pick or it could be a bad one or it could be a meh one.

45 replies on “Yanks Draft Cito Culver”

It’s only important that he performs well in the minor leagues, at which point, they’re going to trade him away anyhow:)
Give him three years to prove his minor league worth, then move him to Florida when that Ramirez contract is coming due.
haha.

The Yankees first round draft picks since they drafted Jeter
Matt Drews,
Brian Buchanan,
Shea Morenz,
Eric Milton,
Tyrell Godwin,
Andrew Brown,
David Walling,
David Parish,
John-Ford Griffin,
Eric Duncan,
Phillip Hughes,
Carl Henry,
Ian Kennedy,
Andrew Brackman,
Gerrit Cole,
Slade Heathcott, and now, Cito Culver.
Every single person on that list has failed to live up to what every “expert” said they were going to (guessing) with the exception of Hughes, who has had a good year to date and a fine year in the bullpen last year. During that time, they’ve done just fine. Too much stock is put into it.
Not every team is going to draft Draft years like the Sox have had the past five years don’t happen very often: years where you draft a core of players that all work out. I don’t expect it to continue to happen for the Sox, and I’m not surprised when other teams don’t get it.
No sense in reading too much into it at this point. I am, however, happy the Red Sox got the talent that they did where they picked. DD says that the first pick has already agreed to terms, and will move back to third base.

Reading the articles on this kid, everyone really seems to be down on him. Not sure why.
Maybe Paul from Waltham could log on, and let us know what the future holds for him based on his high school years.

Meh…who cares who we draft, like Brad said, if they pan out in the least we’ll just trade them for established players. Works for me and the Champs!!!

The umpiring in MLB is fucking pathetic. It’s really getting aggravating at this point…Millwood just struck out ARod without throwing a SINGLE FUCKING STRIKE…

Here we go…implosion time. Hughes doesn’t have it today. Not going to make it much longer as the sorry-ass Orioles carve him up with 2 fucking outs…

Wow, if you are on here and have MLB.tv I beg you to go watch Strasberg pitch, the top of the 7th, holy cow
but hey, our boy Wake only given up 1 run thru 6 ;)

Strasburg pulled after 7 — 14K’s. I am no longer split screening; I believe that was the most innings I watched of a Nationals game ever. I left impressed.
Tim Wakefield is now the Career leader in Innings pitched for the Sox. Congrats Tim!

Yeah that was amazing Clark. 14 strikeouts through 7. He’s living up to the hype.
Also, Wakefield just passed Clemens for most innings pitched by a Sox pitcher. Somewhere Brad is banging his head against the wall.

Chad Gaudin is fucking horrible. Cut his pathetic, sorry fucking ass as soon as this game ends…if it ever does. 12-3…enter Chad Fucking Gaudin and we are looking as 12-7 and know MO IS FUCKING WARMING UP!!! YOU CANNOT HOLD A FUCKING 9 RUN LEAD CHAD??? REALLY YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!!!!

Brad stopped banging his head against the wall and said I told you so.
hahaha. very funny, but as I was watching the game last night with my buddy Randy, we both realized that no matter how well Wakefield pitches, we still don’t like him. If you gave me the option to have him off the team, or throw 5 more quality starts before his natural, and predictable line of implosions, I’d want him off now.

well, aside from the Cano, Hughes, Joba, Cervelli, Gardner, Robertson…not even mentioning the “Core Four” either.
K, you’re missing my point. As of late (not 18 years ago), the drafts have not worked out of the Yankees in any way at all aside from Hughes – you can include Joba if you like (that’s up to you). Cano and Cervelli were both international free agents – not drafts picks. Gardner is a nice player, but that’s not my point – if they had just kept the kid in Detroit, Gardner wouldn’t have a job right now.
The Yankees have always had, and will always have a different philosophy – no matter what they say publicly.
That was my only point: it doesn’t matter how the yankees draft because it’s not the focus or backbone of their organization and never will be.

Part of this, and to their credit, is that it’s hard to draft superstars in the bottom of the every single round. You have to get really lucky in this way. The Yankees and the Sox are ALWAYS good, so drafting is a much harder process. It’s easy to pick the best college player when the team is picking third overall, but when was the last time that happened.

I don’t completely disagree with your point Brad, but to just flippantly say that the Yankees drafts are bad, while the Sox drafts are great seems a little homer-ish to me. I mean, of the great Sox players that won 2 WS, it seems to me the guys leading the way were all brought in for the most part, no? Beckett, Manny, Papi, Damon, Lowell, etc were not draft picks…I mean, if anything the guys the Sox were so high on haven’t really worked out so far, have they? I’ve read a lot of talk about Sox prospects that I haven’t seen do anything for you guys yet aside from Lester, Buckholtz and Bard?

I see your point, K. However, that’s not the point I was making at all. I didn’t say the Yankees draft bad, but more importantly, it doesn’t matter at all if they do or not. You want to fall back into the “bought” or “drafted” arguement, which isn’t what I was doing.
But, as an aside. Every single night, the Red Sox run out: Lester, Bard, Buchholz, Youkilis, Pedroia, Papelbon, Delcarmen, and Ellsbury. Those are all from recent draft classes. The Red Sox have clearly, and undisputably drafted better, but that wasn’t my point at all.
My point was, I don’t really care that much about the draft, because in the end, both teams are going to get what they want hell or high water. If the draft works, that’s great, if it doesn’t: Papi and Texiera.
The Yankees had their years where players from the draft formed their core, and now, the Red Sox have had theirs. It’s not really an argument at all.
And yes, you’re right. kelley, Lars, et all are good prospects, but they’re still where they should be: in the minors. Just like the prospects in the Yankee system: they’re not ready.

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