The buzz about this year's draft - no one does "buzz" better than Peter Gammons - is that there aren't so many great players. No doubt in six years this draft class will be just fine, and plenty of the guys taken today will be young stars in the big leagues. A player doesn't need hype to learn and get better and make himself a star. In fact, hype might be another obstacle for some of these young men.
On Gammons' chart, look at the breakdown of the position players on the All-Star team from last year. Twelve first-rounders, sixteen second & later rounders, and eight undrafted Latin players. First-rounders are overrated. Also, that's a lot of undrafted Latin players. If the Bucs are going to win through young players, it's not the first-round pick that matters so much as the rest of the picks and the Latin American system. All the draft coverage will focus on the first round. I'd love to read some analysis of a random middle round - say, the tenth round - to get some inkling of what's going on down there. Surely it's the middle to late rounds that reveal a team's draft strategy and expose the strengths and weaknesses in that team's draft preparation.
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