All Eyes On Sunday’s Draft

The current A’s polished off one of their nicer wins of the year last night, beating ERA leader Ranger Suarez and the best record Phillies. But as Oakland tries to win — or dare we dream — sweep the Phillies, right now the focus turns to the future with the A’s picking 4th in Sunday’s amateur draft.

I was contemplating an article summarizing the various prospects in play for the #4 pick, but luckily for you the far more knowledgeable Garrett Spain beat me to it. So now you know who they are and how Garrett sees them as far as their desirability of being the A’s selection.

With the draft now about 48 away, here is the Blogfather take on how it looks like things may fall, and what the A’s should do if one of these choices is in front of them.

First off, if you’re drafting at #4, even though you don’t know what surprises may come in picks 1-3 you really only need to have a list that is 4 players deep. One of them is going to fall to #4 for absolute certain.

My “top 4 wish list” is as follows, in this order: 3B/OFer Charlie Condon, 2B Travis Bazzana, 2B/SS JJ Wetherholt, 1B Jac Caglianone. So in “Nico’s World” the A’s are going to select one of those 4 players.

However, mock drafts and pundits have thrown around other names including 2 oft linked to the A’s: OFer Braden Montgomery and Nick Kurtz. Some Blogfathery thoughts...

Most Likely 1-3 Scenarios

#1: Guardians
#2: Reds
#3 Rockies
#4 A’s

The first domino will fall with the Cleveland Guardians’ #1 selection. It’s an unusual situation because the lottery yielded one of the least likely winners of the #1 overall pick. The Guardians are sitting pretty at 57-36 and as a result have the luxury of picking more for need or going under slot to make savvier picks in subsequent rounds.

It seems likely the Guardians will either tap Bazzana as their perceived “BPA” or Wetherholt as a “#1 talent” whose stock fell due to injury and could sign for less. Condon is also a possibility as he is often tagged as the #1 talent, but at least as of now Bazzana and Wetherholt appear to be the best guesses.

Here’s my best — and mostly uninformed — guess as to how each scenario would play out. If the Guardians take Bazzana, I assume the Reds will snatch up Condon. With both off the board I think there’s a great chance the Rockies go for pitching and select Chase Burns.

If the Guardians take Wetherholt, the Reds will take their preferred prospect from Condon and Bazzana and likely the Rockies will take the other (though if the A’s are lucky they stick with a resolve to draft a pitcher and select Burns).

What this would mean is that from my own “big board,” if the Guardians take Bazzana the A’s get Wetherholt and if the Guardians take Wetherholt the A’s get Caglianone. Either scenario leaves me, personally, satisfied, but many pundits are suggesting the A’s might pass on Wetherholt or Caglianone in favor of Montgomery or Kurtz.

Montgomery Would Be A Dumb Pick

I’m hoping A’s scouts, front office folks, and other decision makers stumble upon this column and take heed: Montgomery is the one player linked to the A’s that they absolutely should not select given the other options they are going to have.

Montgomery has some alluring strengths, no doubt, starting with elite bat speed and let’s face it: elite bat speed is why Michael Choice and Austin Beck went from 1st round picks to 1st ballot Hall of Fam— oh wait, they didn’t.

The red flags Montgomery brings are too significant to ignore. It starts with his “swing and miss tendencies” which for me represent one of the biggest flags to weigh with college hitters. If you’re whiffing against what a range of college pitchers can offer, you aren’t going to master big league pitching without an overhaul — meaning that who you are right now isn’t going to cut it.

Montgomery has the highest K rate of any of these prospects at 20%. It has been suggested that as a switch hitter, perhaps he would reduce much of his “swing and miss/K” tendencies if he batted left-handed exclusively. Pablo Sandoval, JT Snow (IIRC), and others gave up batting RH and became mostly switch hitters in name only, LH batters in fact.

Sure in this scenario perhaps Montgomery profiles better as a LH batter, less swing and miss, fewer Ks. But it also means he is probably coming up as a platoon player who has little to no experience batting L on L and is years behind in that development.

Meanwhile, defensively Montgomery is not considered to be a plus CFer. Rather he is considered to be potentially a solid COFer who could potentially play CF. That is roughly the profile of JJ Bleday and Lawrence Butler, neither of whom are going to wow you with their defense even if they develop to be useful.

Finally, while Montgomery is expected to make a full recovery from a “clean break” in his ankle, he has yet to do so and there is no guarantee. All that is assured is that his pro career will get off to a late start due to the recovery time.

The A’s, in mocks and tweets, seem to be linked to Montgomery as much or more than any player and yet in my mind he is the one to stay away from. There’s a reason he is ranked around 8th, not 4th, in most lists and the A’s do not need to “reach” for this pick when there are superior choices in front of them — including Burns, if he is not picked by the Rockies, given the A’s dire need for SP upside in the current farm system.

Kurtz: Solid But No Need To Pick Him

I think Kurtz will hit in the big leagues. But his value is limited by being a 1Bman and in my estimation if the A’s are going to select a 1Bman they have a superior choice available to them in Caglionone. Cags, as he is sometimes called, is reputedly a solid defensive player and while his chase rate has been high he makes it work and still strikes out very little: 8.2% of the time in 2024 when he K’d just 26 times in 316 PAs.

Cags has legit 40 HR power potential — he has been compared to Jim Thome — and in the NCAA tournament his skills were very much on display as he was one of the tournament’s most impressive players.

To me there’s no reason to draft Kurtz because either Cags in still on the board or else one of Condon-Bazzana-Wetherholt is.

In Conclusion

Let’s hope the A’s brass is in synch with this analysis, because if they do in fact select one of Condon, Bazzana, Wetherholt, or Caglionone I think they have a great chance of picking a great player — nothing is certain but it would be hard to argue with any of those picks.

Get ready to gird: the draft is Sunday afternoon and those 20 minutes from pick 1 to pick 4 will be intense. Then we can sit back and just enjoy hearing Rob Manfred get booed loudly every time he shows his ugly, smarmy face.