Monday night draft analysis

Here's how the first eighteen rounds break down by position:

pos	all	avg per team	Bucs
c	48	1.6	2
1b	28	0.9	0
2b	24	0.8	1
ss	55	1.8	2
3b	25	0.8	2
lf/rf	57	1.9	1
cf	38	1.2	1
rhp	197	6.4	7
lhp	79	2.6	2

All players designated as "lf," "rf," or "of" are lumped together in the lf/rf category. Multi-position players were put into the category of their first listed position.

Looks like the Pirates drafted up the middle. No first basemen, few corner outfielders (one), and two catchers. Also an extra third baseman. Given that first basemen and corner outfielders have been pretty easy to get at a reasonable price on the free agent market, this distribution looks right for the Pirates. The only exception would be the lack of left-handed pitching.

Here's another table.

pos	all	# top 200	%	Bucs first two
c	48	25	52%	11, 442
1b	28	8	29%	none
2b	24	5	21%	412
ss	55	17	31%	52, 382
3b	25	6	24%	82, 352
lf/rf	57	20	35%	172
cf	38	15	39%	262
rhp	197	75	38%	112, 202
lhp	79	28	35%	142, 532

What does this tell us? A ton of catchers were taken in the first two hundred picks. Only six third basemen went in the top two hundred. The draft also had few highly-regarded second basemen.

Read another way, the draft looks like this:

overall	name	pos	by pos
11	Neil Walker	c	1
52	Brian Bixler	ss	5
82	Edward Prasch	3b	2
112	Joseph Bauserman	rhp	44
142	Kyle Bloom	lhp	23
172	Atlee Johnson	rf	10
202	Jason Quarles	rhp	76
232	Eric Ridener	rhp	88
262	Christopher Covington	cf	18
292	Derek Hankins	rhp	107
322	Matthew Guillory	rhp	115
352	Juan Padron	3b	16
382	Brett Grandstrand	ss	35
412	Jermal Lomack	2b	18
442	John Slone	c	41
472	Ryan Herbort	rhp	169
502	Matthew Bishop	rhp	182
532	Cory Luebke	lhp	76

The Bucs took the first catcher, the fifth shortstop, and the second third baseman. Unless the crop of third basemen is really, really weak, or unless there's no good reason to regard Prasch as the second-best third-basemen available in the draft, that third-round pick looks great.

Not much else to say at this point - if you have something to add, please put it into the comments thread.

...6/9 update. FWIW, Steven Goldman at Baseball Prospectus explains that there's never much in the way of draftable second-base talent.