Yanks’ first pick, #28 overall

With their first round pick, the Yanks selected Gerrit Cole, RHP, Orange Lutheran HS

Scouting Report: Big fastball, 96-97 consistently and touching triple digits, and there’s some projection left. His two seamer comes in a little slower, at 93-94. Sharp breaking ball that’s somewhere between a slider and curve, but it needs improvement. Decent changeup that fades. Not the prettiest delivery, but he’s got time to work on it. Here’s his scouting video, and another clip from ESPN:

My Take: I love the pick. He was the best player on the board, and the Boras factor certainly helped. Best high school righty to come out of SoCal since Phil Hughes said Baseball America. All of the concern about his makeup didn’t pop up until people found out he signed with Boras, so I’m going to reserve judgment on that until I learn more.

Outlook: Signing the kid will probably go right down to the August 15th deadline, so he might not get more than a handful of innings in the Rookie level GCL, if any at all.

The site’s a bit overloaded right now, apparently day games and draft broadcasts don’t mix well. Please be patient if the site loads slow, don’t hit refresh over and over, it only makes it worse. Use this thread until the Yanks pick again.