Brian Parker on Bickford pick

[theblujay]

http://gregorchisholm.mlblogs.com

 

"Here’s a transcript of tonight’s conference call with the Blue Jays director of amateur scouting Brian Parker after he selected 17-year-old right-hander Phil Bickford with the 10th overall pick of the 2013 First-Year Player Draft:

 

Why Bickford…

“He has one of the best fastballs in the Draft. He’s an athletic kid and I think we’re all very excited to get this guy going. I think one thing we do well here is develop high school pitching and I think this is a guy that we’re really looking forward to getting going with our coaching staff and all of our player development guys and getting him into our system.”

 

On whether Bickford will be a tough sign…

“We’re going to get into signability with him in the next couple of days when we wrap up the Draft. We’re confident we’re going to get something with him but we’re going to work on him with that once we’re done with these next three days.”

 

On whether there were other players being considered when the Blue Jays went on the clock…

“We lined up our board and when it came to our 10th pick he was our top guy. We thought he would be there and this is one of the guys we targeted. When our pick rolled around this was the top guy so we were very excited he was still sitting there.”

 

On what the Blue Jays liked about Bickford…

“This guy has outstanding fastball command. He has a big arm, we’ve seen him up to 97 this spring, sits 93-94. One of the things we like, and of the things we work on in this organization, is fastball effectiveness, fastball command and the ability to throw strikes and get people out with his fastball. We feel he had one of the best fastballs, college or high school, in the Draft.

 

“We’ve seen a good changeup from this kid … He’s just one of those guys that’s everything we’re looking for. He’s tall, he’s athletic, he’s young with a good arm. It’s a high ceiling arm that is just the type of guy we’re looking for.”

 

On Parker’s first Draft day after taking over for preview director of amateur scouting Andrew Tinnish…

“It was an exciting time. It was kind of a long day waiting to get to our pick, we picked 10th. With everything going on, we had our board lined up and we were waiting to see who was there when we picked. Once it became obvious who would be there when we picked I think we were very excited as a group and as a staff, that this is the guy we targeted and we would be able to get him.”

 

On what they know about Bickford’s personality…

“I talked to him briefly this spring when I was out seeing him. This is a good kid, we’ve done our homework on him. He’s a good young kid that loves being on the field. His team won his championship out there last week and we had a couple of guys out watching him. It’s just an exciting arm with a lot of potential and somebody that we think can really jump into our system and get going quickly.

 

“No. 1 he’s a competitor, he’s all about baseball. We know he loves being on the field, loves competing and all he wants to do is win. Those are attributes we are big fans of and in addition to his tools and his on-field ability it’s kind of a separator for us when we start digging into the kid himself.”

 

On whether he’s polished for a high school pitcher or is a bit of a project…

“He’s kind of both. We think the fastball is a very polished pitch, a very effective pitch he can use to get outs right now in pro ball. We think his secondary stuff is developing, we think his changeup is his better pitch right now but we think he has a chance to have a pretty good changeup and breaking ball. I think there are some development opportunities on that side of it.

 

“When he signs, he’ll go down to Florida and be down in Dunedin with our guys. Once he gets going and once he gets stretched out with Dane Johnson and our Minor League pitching guys they’ll start putting him on a plan to where he goes from there.”

 

On whether there are concerns about signability issues…

“We looked into it, we’ve checked into this kid’s background, we’ve looked into him and we’re confident we can get this guy signed.”

 

On whether not having multiple early picks in this year’s Draft allowed the Blue Jays to narrow the field and make it easier to pinpoint who they wanted…

“That really didn’t have anything to do with it. More to do with it was that we picked 10th overall. We could narrow the group down from there. We focused on a group of guys, one of the things was we made sure to scout all of the top guys. We weren’t quite sure coming into today who was going to be there when we picked so we wanted to be ready to go in a couple of different directions depending on who was there. That had more to do with than the lack of extra picks this year.”

 

Does the fact that he has a commitment to Cal State Fullerton present any problems…

“No not really because almost every high school kid out there has a college commitment and that’s kind of the territory we have when we take high school guys. That’s involved with every high school kid that we take.”

 

On the Blue Jays’ continued trend of drafting tall, athletic pitchers…

“I think it’s something we look for. I think athleticism is something we focus on with pitchers, especially high school kids. Those are the types of frames and athletes that we’re looking to get into our rotation and hopefully lead our rotation one day. It says something about our Minor League staff and our player development guys that that’s something we do well. I think it’s an advantage that the Blue Jays organization has and if that’s an advantage that we have we’re going to try and get as many of those guys as we can.”

 

Does his delivery need a lot of work….

“I don’t think so. It’s an athletic delivery and those are the types of things that we look for. As long as they’ve got some athleticism and some on-field ability those are the types of things we normal player development they can develop into the type of guy we’re looking for.”"

[crrr]

It's funny because the comments in this interview can probably be copied to every single high school pitcher...

[deepz]

"I talked to him briefly this spring when I was out seeing him"

 

Maybe it should've been more than just briefly.

[Boxcar]

I think one thing we do well here is develop high school pitching

 

Yeah, nobody even needs to ask for evidence. I mean, Look at all those successful high school pitchers that brought back tons of value. Like Syndergaard or Nicolino, who were both throw ins for old, declining players. Great value!!

[G-Snarls]

Kind of generic replies from Parker but thanks for posting

[Olerud363]

Yeah, nobody even needs to ask for evidence. I mean, Look at all those successful high school pitchers that brought back tons of value. Like Syndergaard or Nicolino, who were both throw ins for old, declining players. Great value!!

 

What a comment... the one thing we do well?? Man. That kindof is ackknowleding "we don't develop position players at all."

 

So the one thing we do well is get three guys to put up lights out numbers in low a Lansing, in 100 innings consisting of a lot of 3 or 4 inning starts.

 

Then we flip two of those in trades for old junk ballers.

 

Then it turns out the two we flipped are excelling for other organizations at a+... while they guy we kept still looks good but isn't holding up quite as good as the other two.... and the next round of teenage pitchers are kindof injured and/or underperforming at Lansing this year.

 

That's what we do good??

[Olerud363]

What we did once. A long time ago is take one tall high school pitcher and develop a border line hall of famer... a guy who actually would of been a no doubt hall of famer if he held up in his late 30s a bit better.

 

We did this a long time ago. We actually developed another guy almost as good but gave up on him because of injury. And a third guy who we thought was going to be real good but has been on the disabled list for about 5 years straight... and we can't give up on him because we keep getting reminded of the other guy we gave up on.

 

We ended having to trade the real good guy because our organization was such a mess so now when you really think about it, all we have to show for developing all these high school pitchers is one almost 40 year old shitballer.

 

20 years of doing "good" at developing athletic high school pitchers and all we got to show for it is a almost 40 year old shitballer. That's what we do good. Boys and girls your Toronto Blue Jays.

[KSaw]

I preferred D.J. Peterson and Hunter Renfroe and if I was going for a pitcher I really preferred Braden Shipley and Chris Anderson.

[GD]

I preferred D.J. Peterson and Hunter Renfroe and if I was going for a pitcher I really preferred Braden Shipley and Chris Anderson.

 

I dunno about Anderson, but those first 3 would have been nice. Especially Peterson or Shipley.

[blackjays21]

I have a feeling were not gonna sign this guy. He will go off to college and we get an early pick in the next years draft.

 

Which will come in handy when our Blue Jays make the playoffs this year!

[KingKat]

I have a feeling were not gonna sign this guy. He will go off to college and we get an early pick in the next years draft.

 

Which will come in handy when our Blue Jays make the playoffs this year!

 

No one from the organization would ever come out and say this but you have to wonder if that factored into it. I'm not saying that they don't genuinely like him. You can't draft a guy just to get a pick next year or you could get badly burned if the player changes his mind. No doubt the Jays felt that in a shallow draft, Bickford was worth a top 10 pick but part of the upside of the pick is that you could get the pick back in a deeper year. If this didn't factor into the selection than it certainly should have.

[Angrioter]

I have a feeling were not gonna sign this guy. He will go off to college and we get an early pick in the next years draft.

 

Which will come in handy when our Blue Jays make the playoffs this year!

 

No one from the organization would ever come out and say this but you have to wonder if that factored into it. I'm not saying that they don't genuinely like him. You can't draft a guy just to get a pick next year or you could get badly burned if the player changes his mind. No doubt the Jays felt that in a shallow draft, Bickford was worth a top 10 pick but part of the upside of the pick is that you could get the pick back in a deeper year. If this didn't factor into the selection than it certainly should have.

 

 

No Bickford = no Brentz/Tewes or Tellez

[HERPDERP]

I wonder if Gareth Morgan will be able to fall to us next year. Last year people were saying he'd be a consensus top 5.

[KingKat]

No Bickford = no Brentz/Tewes or Tellez

 

Are you implying that without Bickford, they won't have money to sign other guys? That would only be true if they expected to save a little money by signing him under slot. It's commonly believed that Bickford wants considerably more than slot so not signing would actually save money not cost money. They need the money they saved from other picks to get him. Otherwise they will probably give that extra money to some late draftee with a college commitment. Those guys are basically Bickford insurance conditional on Bickford not being signed rather than the other way around.

[Angrioter]

That's considering Bickford would even sign below slot.

 

Yeah. 2.5 M

[Deadpool]

I'm perfectly fine with him not signing and getting the extra pick/cash for next year (in the purportedly better draft).

[Laika]

[bickford] seems like a second round talent in a strong draft.

 

pretty much

[DuckDuckGose]

Splitting hairs here but he's more of a mid-to-late first in a deep draft. He's quite possibly the best pitching prospect ever drafted by the Jays. Definitely would be a good guy to have in the system if the price is right. Have to agree that having a top 10 pick and larger bonus pool in a deeper draft could be worthwhile though.

[Deadpool]

He's quite possibly the best pitching prospect ever drafted by the Jays.

 

This guy says "hi":

http://www.thegrumpyowl.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/hallday-draft.jpg

[DuckDuckGose]

It doesn't really matter if he is or isn't better than any one guy. The fact remains that at the time of the draft Bickford is as good a prospect as any other pitcher in Blue Jays history. Very exciting player to add to a system.

[Deadpool]

This guy "sets fire to your life".... and then flays you:

http://www.hollywoodmemorabilia.com/files/cache/roy-halladay-autographed-8x10-photo-toronto-blue-jays-dunedin-blue-jays-minor-league-picture_ff52567dfe8581da3f568cd5a47660f7.jpg

 

You know that's the same guy, right? Yes, the babyface with the braces is Doc...

[DuckDuckGose]

You know that's the same guy, right? Yes, the babyface with the braces is Doc...

 

It's Dustin McGowan