As I forced my wife to watch the full night of the draft I was on twitter watching the picks come thru. For most of the draft it went as a lot of people expected. There were rumors floating around that the Yankees were looking at prep catchers or could be going after a high school pitcher from southern California,I was liking both of those possibilities. But with the 40th pick the Royals took my favorite backstop who the Yankees might have gotten in Chase Vallot. While that stung I thought the Yankees would have gone with the offensive minded catcher Jakson Reetz.
Then then the pick comes in and they take Jacob Lindgren. I thought what. So I check the internet and find out information him and the more I read the more I’m upset. Why were they picking a reliever with their first pick? Then the Royals picked the prep pitcher I really liked with the 56th pick. I thought of the previous drafts and I never had seen Oppenheimer go with a college reliever that high except with Scott Bittle who most thought was only drafted that high to save money for the first pick they had Gerritt Cole.
I decided to wait to write this article so I could have some distance from my first initial reaction. Thinking about the pick for most of the day I believe I have no idea what the Yankees were doing. Then I started to read some of the commentary that people who are actually paid to do draft stuff said about it and it eased my fears slightly. Lindgren was not an over draft. He was regarded as a top 50 to 60 pick in the draft because he could get left handed MLB players out right now and will probably be with the Yankees mid 2015. The Yankees will have 6 years at worst a guy who can dominate left handed hitters and could be a late inning force.
There is diffidently a good amount of value they will probably get from him. I have to wonder if Glen Perkins is a ceiling comp for Lindgren as he is one of the top left handed pitchers in baseball. Perkins has produced WARs 1.7, 1.1, 1.7 and is on pace for 2.0. I believe if Lindgren can produce that this will go down as a good pick. Only time will tell if the Yankees made a mistake drafting for need instead of best player available.
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