It’s been a while since the Pirates have taken a college position player in the first round (Tony Sanchez in 2009), but tonight they’ve picked Arizona’s Kevin Newman with the 19th overall pick. The most basic take on Newman is that he can hit. According to MLB.com’s basic scouting report he’s the only player in history to win two Cape Cod League batting titles. The concern about him, as Jim Callis says, is that he doesn’t have many other plus tools. There are questions about his defense, and most of his offensive prowess comes from his ability to make contact and not from his power.
It’s pretty easy to see how this pick fits in with the Pirates recent philosophy as it relates to position players. Tim Williams and I were actually just discussing on Twitter the other day the way that they’ve drafted players like JaCoby Jones with good hit tools and then found places for them in the field (Jones was an outfielder in college that the Pirates have moved to shortstop). Tim mentions this philosophy a little bit more with his article on the pick, as well as pointing out that while Newman’s consensus rating was down at the bottom of the first round, he was actually Keith Law’s #2 player in the draft.
Obviously, as I mentioned earlier today, it’s hard to really form an opinion on a pick like this in such a short period of time, but this seems like it fits in line with the way the Pirates draft pretty solidly. You’re unlikely to have a franchise player fall to you at #19, but the Pirates got a solidly rated prospect that’s very good at one thing. They’ll figure the rest of it out once he gets into the system and they can watch him play.
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