If you want, you’ll be able to find plenty of thoughts about Tyler Beede joining the Giants elsewhere, but the general thought is this: He’s got a lot of natural talent, maybe more than any other pitcher in the draft at that point, but control is a major issue. However, him getting drafted by the Giants is a perfect situation for him, considering the Giants’ track record with pitchers.
What I was interested in seeing about who the Giants drafted, though, was this: Was he overdrafted? The last two years, the Giants picked guys who were ranked much lower than their draft position in Joe Panik and Christian Arroyo. It’s too early to complain too much about those picks, but with the Giants in their highest draft position since the bad years of the late 2000’s, I thought it’d be important to get a guy whose talent was worthy of the spot.
The verdict: Yeah, they got a good value.
In ESPN’s final mock draft, Beede went #15 (the Giants drafted #14). Some earlier drafts talked about him as a borderline Top 10 before a couple of bad performances late caused his stock to slip. Pretty much everyone agrees he has talent and he’s in a good spot. That’s good to know.
This reminds me a bit of the Giants drafting Chris Stratton in 2012, their last first round pitching pick: high talent but with some rough edges. Stratton currently has a 4.80 ERA in San Jose, though. While his control has improved, he’s giving up too many hits (especially homers), and while he has some good starts, he can’t string them together. That’s a worry, but Stratton will forever have the asterisk of getting hit in the head in BP when he was in Salem-Keizer, and that he’s never really come under control. So it’s hard to compare there.
The second round pick was a catcher who was a bit more debatable for draft value, but not by much. Aramis Garcia was one of the best-hitting college catchers in the draft, and sounds a bit like Susac in being a line-drive hitter with solid defense that could be improved. Sure, the Giants still have Buster, but catchers aren’t a bad thing to have lined up, either for when Buster moves away from catching, or to trade. After all, a catcher was the centerpiece used to pick up Hunter Pence. And the Giants haven’t regretted losing Tommy Joseph yet…
Good first day of the draft.
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