On the second day of the 2016 Draft the Dodgers selected eight players between rounds three to ten. Below is a short synopsis on the players taken from rounds four to ten. You can check out my report on 3rd Round pick Dustin May
here.
It should be noted that two of the players below, to go along with the Dodgers #1 pick Gavin Lux, are shortstops. This is not to say that the Dodgers are looking to replace the current officeholder at the position, Corey Seager. Instead, drafting is all about getting the best athletes possible. Per
Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider:
“The theory is that looking throughout the history of the draft and
how athletes develop and age, when they’re athletic enough to play
shortstop, it’s a pretty good recipe — as they age and get older and
their skills develop and their bodies go forward or backwards — they can
usually play other positions,” Gasparino said. “So many players today
who are left fielders or right fielders, third basemen, second basemen,
started out as shortstops. If you can start there, it’s a lot easier to
transition to other places on the field, and gives you more avenues of
versatility that way.”
In other words, this isn’t the NBA. With development such a long,
protracted process in baseball — and almost no such thing as a quick fix
— the overwhelming tendency is to take the player with the greatest
potential, regardless of what the current Major League roster looks
like. If the worst-case scenario is the Dodgers have multiple quality
shortstops, they’ll live with that.
In Jon's story he also shares some quotes from Billy Gasparino about the eight players taken today, and I've included them in the below writeups.
4th Round Pick
D.J. Peters
DJ Peters is a 6' 5" tall outfielder who played this past season at Western Nevada Community College. Peters, a 20-year-old outfielder from Glendora, CA, set records for Western Nevada College in batting average (.419) and home runs (16) this season. The Region 18 Player of the Year posted a .419/.510/.734 slashline and became the first Wildcat to hit above .400 in a season. You can follow him on twitter here:
@8Peters. Per
Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider:
“He’s just an uber-talented outfielder with tons of tools and upside,
and big power. He came to our workout at Dodger Stadium and was
launching balls into the stands and throwing well and running well, just
really a physical freak in some ways.”
Below are more stories and reports worth checking out:
