Donovan Tate.
The era of fugality is over.
It looks like the Padres are finally thinking about on the field results instead of their pocketbooks.
San Diego selected Georgia two-sport prep phenom Donovan Tate with the third overall pick Tuesday.
Tate hit .525 with 10 home runs this year and is widely regarded as the best position player in this year’s draft coming out of Cartersville High.
"We are excited to have the player who we feel has the biggest upside in the draft," Padres' vice president of scouting and player development Grady Fuson told the Union-Tribune.
"Donavan is an incredible athlete with all the tools to play this game at the highest level."
Personally, I’m excited that the Padres didn’t waste this pick and went with a guy with signability, but mediocre talent.
Bottom line from this draft, Jeff Moorad, CEO of the Padres, made the statement that the team will no longer draft the Matt Bush types.
Signability was only a minor consideration with the Padres' pick.
Signing Tate may be a problem, however. The two-sport star has already signed a two-sport national letter of intent to play football and baseball at North Carolina.
The infamous Scott Boras will also be representing Tate in any negotiations.
If the Padres are willing to shell out the reported $6 million figure for Tate’s signature, then it will be up to the development staff to polish this raw talent into a major league star.
But at the very least, the pick shows that San Diego is committed to improving the talent on the field and that purse strings won’t hinder it from doing so.
Other draft news on Examiner.com:
- Oakland A's Examiner Scott Sabatini is live-blogging the draft.
- Colorado Rockies Examiner on MLB Draft 101, and Strasburg draft tid-bits and Rockies draft history.
- College Baseball Examiner has lots of good info on some of the players in the draft.
- Fantasy Baseball Examiner has his thoughts on the impact the players will make on their new clubs.
- Sports Examiner discusses the comissioner's appeal to teams to be frugal.
- Rays Examiner talks about new draft territory selecting at No. 30.
Comments
Nice article on our new #1 draft pick, "Donovan the Great Tate". This guy will be a stud who will back up Adrian Gonzalez at the plate. Go San Diego Padres!
Congratulation on getting a great kid, and a great ballplayer...I know hime very well, and he is as good a person off the field, as he is a player on the field!!! Thanks to the Padres for picking Donavan Tate...
Donovan Tate... Tate Donovan... hahaha.
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