Brewers' Second Round Pick - Yovani Gallardo, HS RHP

[yoshii8]

I watched the tape of Yo on MLB and he looks awesome. I like him better than any of our draft picks I've seen. He looks better than Rogers to me, and Rogers looks really good too. Wow, after watching the Brewers picks on tape, I'm very excited about this draft.

[hscoach]

I coached him his junior yr, not his senior year I wasnt ther for the 11 inning game

[hscoach]

has he signed?

[batman]

Here's a nice article about Yo Gallardo and the decision many of our draft picks need to make about going to college or turning pro. Lots of quotes from Tom Grieve, father of Ben and a former cohort of Doug Melvin with the Rangers, who himself was a first round pick way back in the 60s. This is worth a read.

 

"High school seniors weighing pros, cons of college baseball," Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX), Byline Nathan Sanders, 06/09/2004

 

www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sport...907.htm?1c

Quote:

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Between the white lines, a baseball player's path to success is simple and predictable. It's a 360-foot trip around the bases. It's a ball thrown repeatedly to a spot 60 feet, six inches away. It's the same for everyone.

 

But the proper career path is not so clearly marked. There is no chalk line to follow. And for those high school players picked in this week's First-Year Player Draft, the fork in the road is dead ahead.

 

Option 1: Play professional baseball. Sign the contract. Gain valuable on-the-field experience. Chase the dream.

 

Option 2: Go to college. Maybe sign an even bigger contract later on. Enjoy the college-student experience. Chase a degree in case the dream doesn't work out.

 

"It's pretty tough," said Trimble Tech pitcher Yovani Gallardo, a TCU signee who was taken by the Brewers in the second round Monday. "Either way, it's a good opportunity, so it's really tough for me to decide."

 

Tom Grieve knows plenty about Gallardo's conundrum. Grieve was a first-round pick of the Washington Senators in 1966 (he signed with the Senators but also studied at the University of Michigan for two years). His two sons were drafted (Tim, a low-round draft choice, went to TCU; Ben, a first-round pick, signed with Oakland). And he was the Rangers' general manager from 1984-94. In his opinion, the wall between clubs and their draft picks is built with dollar bills.

 

"I'd say 90 percent of the cases -- maybe more -- come down to dollars and cents," Grieve said. "Whoever says it doesn't come down to dollars and cents is just kidding themselves."

 

Grieve said it's usually up to an area scout to determine how much money it will take to get a player to pass on college. Then it's time to pay up.

 

"Based on what you pay for major league players and how important it is to draft and develop players, if you take a kid in the top three rounds, you have to sign them," Grieve said. "If you think you can sign him for 1.2 million and he wants 1.5 and it gets to the final hour and he won't budge, you've got to give it to him, because what's $300,000? Once you get the kid into your organization, you laugh at $300,000.

 

"You can't afford not to sign those players."

 

The Colorado Rockies didn't see it that way. In 2001, they took Mansfield left-handed pitcher Trey Taylor in the second round and then let him get away. The Rockies offered $650,000. Taylor wanted at least $750,000. So Taylor went to Baylor.

 

His first two seasons in Waco were quite forgettable, including what he called a "disaster" of a sophomore year (2-3, 5.53 ERA). Inevitably, the what-ifs circled his mind. But he wouldn't let them win.

 

"I told myself I wasn't going to look back," Taylor said. "I wasn't going to have that attitude where if I had a rough day, 'Oh, gosh, if I had only signed.' I wasn't going to do that to myself. ... I always told myself that I made the right decision with the friends I've made and the fun I've had. It's all been worth it."

 

Taylor rebounded as a junior in 2004, going 6-3 with a 3.16 ERA. His reward: the Chicago Cubs took him in the 20th round Tuesday. Taylor said he hopes to get "fourth-or fifth-round money." Whatever he gets, it probably won't be close to the $650,000 the Rockies offered. But that's OK with Taylor.

 

"I'm a much better pitcher now than I was coming out of high school," said Taylor, who said he has lost 2-3 mph on his fastball since his Mansfield days. "From a scout's standpoint, whether or not I'm still as big a prospect, maybe not. But I'm a much better pitcher, and I've matured."

 

Jacob Wallis went the other route. A 10th-round pick of the Cincinnati Reds in 1998 coming out of Paschal, Wallis signed for "close to six figures." Like many signees, his contract included the stipulation that the Reds would pay for four years of college if/when he decided to go to school.

 

Since then, Wallis has been in and out of three big-league organizations, plus a 2003 stint with the San Angelo Colts of the independent Central Baseball League. He's now the starting catcher for the independent Sioux Falls Canaries. South Dakota isn't exactly The Show, but at least Wallis is still in the game. That's what matters to him.

 

"You can only play baseball for so long, and I wanted to get in it as soon as I could," Wallis said. "I have the rest of my life to work and have a real job, and now I'm doing things that a lot of people would love to do. ... When it's all said and done, I'll go back to school. But I'm not in any hurry."

 

So which one is the right path? Grieve believes it depends on the player. For example, he said a pitcher with raw talent is probably better off in the minors, where it won't matter if his ERA climbs into the stratosphere. On the other hand, a pitcher who has good control but throws in the low 80s should probably go to college to improve his velocity -- and his draft status.

 

As for what position players should do, Grieve cites his son Ben, who had roughly 1,600 professional at-bats by the time he turned 21. Had Ben gone to college, Tom said there's "no way" he would have reached the big leagues as fast as he did.

 

"I think for the most part -- and this is my own opinion -- a position player is better off playing minor league baseball," Tom Grieve said.

 

Opinion. It's all that separates a player from Option 1 or Option 2.

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~Bill