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 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.
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.
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:
