For the first time since 1985, the San Francisco Giants have a top two pick in the upcoming MLB Draft. That year, they selected six-time All-Star first baseman Will Clark. Other top 10 picks in recent years include Tim Lincecum (10th overall in 2006), Madison Bumgarner (10th overall in 2007), and Buster Posey (5th overall in 2008).
San Francisco is hoping to strike gold once again in 2018, and Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly broke down both the club’s philosophy, and which type of player would be an ideal fit heading into this year’s draft.
“When I talked to John Barr (VP of Scouting and International Operations) in spring training, he basically said that there’s about dozen guys that they are kind’ve locked in on, and they were sort’ve waiting for them to sort themselves out and see how they would shake out,” Baggarly began. “I really feel that they are not going to draft for immediate need. They are going to draft the best player they can get. Now having said that, if there is a fairly polished college pitcher who really separates himself, I think that would be the ideal fit, because they are going to need some big time rotation pieces, that’ll be pretty affordable on the major league payroll, and getting a college kid who you could forecast to move quickly would really be something that could help them.”
Baggarly also explained how the draft affected the club’s behavior in free agency.
“But they also see a lot of depth in this draft, and that’s why they didn’t want to sign the Lorenzo Cains or the Greg Hollands or the guys that would cost those compensatory draft picks, because they really feel like in the second and third round they could get some guys that could be impact guys too. Maybe this isn’t the draft that has a Bryce Harper No. 1, but it is a draft that could have quite a bit of talent in Round 2 or 3 that will be far beyond what it normally is. So that’s where they are sort’ve excited, but no question this is a huge opportunity to really kind’ve re-stock the system a bit.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Baggarly on the draft, start from 7:42.