Yankees Draft: Drafting Catchers

Along with drafting relievers, the Yanks have made drafting catchers or projectable catchers into a permanent part of their annual ritual.    Or most years.  Between the Draft and IFA the Yanks have gone after so many C's they sometimes take a breather because there isn't always enough work for all of them.   Anyway, if starting pitchers are trade gold, starting catchers are are also gold or really shiny silver.   So the Yanks have been wise to draft them.   During what we'll call their modern draft era, form `05 or `06 till now, the Yanks have picked and signed:

2006:  Brian Baisely, Brock Ungricht and James Lasala.   Of these Baisely looked like a late bloomer for awhile in high A, then got injured or something.  None of them were able to be used or traded.

2007: Austin Romine,  Chase Weems, Lawrence Day.   This is where they tried to bust a big move.   Romine looked like a great pick, and had the bloodlines (which sometimes mean something and sometimes don't).   Weems was another prep catcher who was either a lefty hitter or a switch hitter.   Day was college guy for the the organization.   Weems was actually traded out of Low A.  Romine after looking good splitting time with Jesus Montero in Low A has never turned into the prospect or player we thought he'd be.   That said, he's looking like a major league back up and thus can probably still be traded.  Big disappointment, though, and a very reasonable pick at the time.

2008:  Kyle Higashioka,  Mitch Abeita,  Jeff Nutt.   Higashioka looked like another great pick as he was rumored to not only be able to catch, but to have hit well against the best pitchers in the class.  In fact, he so looked the part, they were willing to trade Weems.    Turns out Higgy could never hit consistently through the minors.  Not sure where he is now, but didn't establish MLB value or trade value.   Abeita and Nutt were for the system.

2009: John Ryan Murphy, Hector Rabago, Jeff Farnham.   Well, Murphy is now looking like the real thing after mostly playing 3b as a prep.   He not only has MLB value to the franchise, but he's got trade value that keeps getting better.   Rabago and Farnham were taken to make sure few balls hit the ump or rolled to the backstop.   But Murphy's the home run of the modern era program so far.

2010: Tyler Austin, Shane Brown, Nick McCoy.   Austin was pretty immediately switched off catcher and developed nice trade value, even though he lacked a rock solid position, before he started getting hurt.   Brown was fodder.   McCoy seemed like he might be a sleeper, but he stayed asleep.

2011: Greg Bird, Bubba Jones.  They immediately made Birb and Jones 1B's.   This is where they took the breather because they had Montero, Romine, Murphy and Sanchez going and needing work, as well as some other IFA guys.

2012: Pete O'Brien, Chris Breen, Dalton Smith.   O'Brien was their first big ticket collegiate C in awhile.   Of course, they are still giving him reps there, but his defensive numbers are awful, so he's destined to play a few positions poorly till he settle in as a DH -- that is if he ever takes his walks. Breen and Smith are two interesting prep bats, I'm not sure if either is still getting reps at C, but they were both sort of reminiscent of Austin and Bird.

2013:  Trent Garrison.  Trent is organizational.  This is another year where they took a breather because of the backlog of IFA catchers and lack of openings in the system.  It also might not have been a year where much quality lined up with there picks.

I think we can rest assured that the Yanks will use up to four of their relatively few picks to go after prep as well as collegiate catchers this year. Though they've only produced one guy who has MLB starter upside so far, the position has given them a bunch of interesting hitters.