January 06, 2006
You Can Never Have Too Many Shortstops
The Arizona Diamondbacks reached an agreement with their #1 pick today. Justin Upton sets the bonus record for a drafted player:
Justin Upton, the 18-year-old shortstop who was the top pick in the 2005 major league amateur draft, agreed to a minor league contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks that includes a $6.1 million signing bonus payable over five years.
Justin is the younger brother of B.J. Upton. Both received tremendous paydays without ever stepping onto a major league field. This is the second big shortstop prospect the Diamondbacks drafted recently:
Upton follows another top young shortstop, Stephen Drew, who is expected to play for Triple-A Tucson in his second season in the Arizona organization.
No one is ever stuck at shortstop. Given that the position is at the high skill end of the defensive spectrum, you can always leave the better fielder at short and move the better hitter to another position. A team has a lot more options with too many shortstops than they have with too many first basemen.
Posted by David Pinto at
06:37 PM
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especially in this case: all of their "good" shortstops are prospects, and no prospect is ever a 100% sure thing. when u have the top pick, u get the best player. if they're all shortstops, u shoot first and ask questions later.
This sounds like the philosophy of the Dodgers lately.
Have they figured out what they're going to do with the best fielding SS in baseball (Izturis) now that they have Furcal and Garciaparra, and Kent won't move, and Mueller's installed at 3rd? Garciaparra at 1st just sounds wrong to me.
noma is headed to the outfield as soon as izturis is back. and kent ends up on 1st.
