Welcome to BaseballGB’s live coverage (or archived live coverage, depending on when you are reading this) of the first round of the 2008 Amateur Player draft. The draft starts at 19.00 BST and you can watch it for free at MLB.com. So go and open the video stream in a separate window and then check in here for my commentary on the events as they unfold. Click the continue button to take you to the main draft page.

This is the first event I have blogged about live, so it will be something of a learning exercise. As noted on Tuesday, I will be editing this post every five minutes or so rather than publishing multiple posts or comments. If you are keeping this open in one of your browser tabs/windows, don’t forget to refresh the page every so often and scroll down for the latest entries.

If you are reading this after the event, you can bask in the benefit of hingsight while mocking my unfortunate predictions.

18.52: My first great prediction is that the Rays will take Tim Beckham. Okay, that’s a bit if a cheat considering Tampa Bay have already confirmed today that they are going with the shortstop. Kind of takes the excitement out of it really. It also helps out the Pirates as they can plan with complete certainty who they will pick at number two. Everyone else has to fall into line and adjust to what goes before.

19.00 Nearly there!  As a reminder, the first round consists of thirty picks. These are allotted in reverse order in relation to each team’s success last year. So the Red Sox are number 30 etc. The exception to this is when a team gives up its first round pick as a result of acquiring a Type A free agent. Their pick gets given to the team that the player in question played for last season. Fans of the Braves (thanks to the Glavine signing) and the Angels (thanks to the Hunter signing) have to wait a little longer for their teams to make their first selection. The Mets and the Twins each get an extra first round pick.

19.10 Steve Phillips (former Mets GM) has just provided a guide to scouting reports (the 2-8, or 20-80, system).  If you have a subscription to Baseball Prosectus, check out Kevin Goldstein’s series of articles on this topic.

19.11 Here’s Bud in a fetching grey suit.  It’s a colour that suits him well, particularly his personality.

19.16 Tampa Bay have had five minutes to talk about the weather, with Don Zimmer hitting the phones (ordering some food, no doubt).  We all knew they were taking Beckham, but now the draft is on TV I guess they have to make sure the advert breaks keep the companies happy.  So, with an annoying cow bell in the background, Bud Selig steps up to the podium and tells us all what we already knew.  The Rays crowd cheers, pretending that they know much about their new signing.

19.25  The Pirates are up next and they take Pedro Alvarez, a college third baseman. He’s a Scott Boras client so it’s going to cost them, but Pittsburgh’s draft cheapness has cost them badly in recent years. So a bit of hope for fans of the Pirates to see they are taking a different approach this year.

19.30 MLB.com shows their ‘600′ advert once again.  There’s Mays, Ruth, and Aaron.  Wasn’t there another guy who went past 600 not long ago?  MLB is a bit like 1984: remember kids, Barry Bonds never existed.  He is a non-person.

Anyway, the Royals pick a first baseman called Eric Hosmer.  ESPN tries to do a phone interview with him and all you can hear is a load of screaming.  “If you’ve just made a load of money, make some noise!”.

19.35 Both Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com picked the Orioles to take college pitcher Brian Matusz at number four and they were both right. Technical note for you all, the ‘Draft Tracker’ on MLB.com is a little bit ahead of the video stream, so you can make yourself look clever by predicting the next pick.

19.45  Let’s be honest, the Giants need some young talent. They put their faith in Gerald ‘Buster’ Posey, a catcher who was one of the names mentioned as being a potential number one pick. There were a few rumours that he was looking for a large chunk of cash ($12 million, according to some reports) so it’s no wonder that he says he is “extremely excited” in his interview with ESPN. He doesn’t sound that excited, so maybe he’s had to settle for $10 million instead. It’s a tough life.

In at six it’s the Marlins and they take Kyle Skipworth, another catcher. The Reds are up next. With all the young talent they on have their current roster, you can bet on them making a good decision here.

19.58  The Reds take Yonder Alonso, ruining Jonathan Mayo’s (MLB.com) perfect record from his mock draft earlier today. Keith Law claims Alonso is looking for around $8 million to sign. And that’s for a guy who’s never played an inning of professional sports.

The eighth selection goes to the White Sox and they take Gordon Beckham. Some would say there are already too many rich Beckhams in America. Not me. The more time Posh and Becks spend in L.A., the less time they spend over here. How is he still getting in the England team anyway?

20.02  Back to baseball and the ninth pick sees the Nationals selecting Aaron Crow, a college pitcher. Stone the crows? Something to crow about? You’ll probably see one, if not both, of these headlines in a Washington newspaper tomorrow.

20.09  ESPN has a camera in the A’s draft room. Look out for flying chairs; Billy Beane has something of a reputation.

20.13  The Lone Star state are responsible for picks ten and eleven. The Astros are first and they choose Jason Castro, another catcher who was predicted to go to the Brewers with the sixteenth pick. They will have to re-think their plans if he was the guy they really wanted and by all accounts there isn’t another catcher of this level to turn to. The Rangers take Justin Smoak, a switch-hitting first baseman.

The A’s are up next. Some say they’ll go for Jemile Weeks, some say Aaron Hicks. We’ll find out in a minute or so.

20.18  It’s Weeks, Rickie’s younger brother.

ESPN interviewed his Miami team mate Yonder Alonso just before Oakland’s pick was announced. If he’s really getting $8 million, he should be able to afford a half-decent T-shirt now. And a half-decent haircut.

20.30  The Cards take Brett Wallace with pick number thirteen (unlucky for some – hopefully not for St Louis). Bud Selig announces that the Twins are “on the clock” and follows it by nodding his head in dramatic fashion. Calm down dear, it’s only a draft.

Minnesota takes the guy that the A’s passed on: Aaron Hicks. He’s announced as an outfielder, although most of the reports I’ve read suggest that teams prefer him as a pitcher. Hicks is at the event and gets to have his photo taken with Bud. Lucky lad. Good job they had a Twins cap and jersey to hand, isn’t it?

 20.39 The Dodgers take Ethan Martin with pick number 15. Poor old Bud was struggling with the auto-cue on that one! The Brewers select Brett Lawrie, a catcher/infielder and Bud reverts back to reading the details off a bit of paper.

20.47  Mmmm, squid on a stick. Sounds good, although you can’t beat Delia’s meat pies at Carrow Road. That Yakyu video on MLB.com is well worth watching, by the way. It’s a fascinating, twenty-six minute insight into baseball in Japan and it’s free to view so be sure to give it a look.

With the seventeenth pick, the Blue Jays take a first baseman called David Cooper.

20.55  The Mets have two first round picks. With this one, they take Ike Davis whose dad, Ron, was a Major League pitcher. They have just three picks to listen to before making their next choice.

In the Majors, the Phillies have just beaten the Reds by a score of five to nothing. Cole Hamels pitched a complete game shut-out, giving up just three hits along the way.

With the nineteenth selection, the Cubs take a big power pitcher in Andrew Cashner who figures to be a reliever in the Big Leagues.

21.03  ESPN interviews the Cardinals’ first round pick Brett Wallace and they start questioning him about his bulky lower half of his body. They’re basically saying he’s got a big arse. As Steve Phillips says: “it doesn’t matter what you look like if you can play”. There’s a back-handed compliment if I’ve ever heard one.

It’s another power arm with the twentieth pick as the Mariners take Josh Fields. Keith Law questions why the M’s are taking a reliever with a first round pick considering the Major League team isn’t a contender at the moment. The guy from the MLB Scouting Bureau is more complimentary though.

21.13  The Tigers take a power arm called Ryan Perry and this gives Steve Phillips the chance to add in his two pence worth. Phillips makes the point that the best course of action is to take the best player available, regardless of whether it matches the specific team’s current needs. Personally, I would agree with this. If Fields or Perry are able to whiz through the Minors then they can quickly become valuable trading commodities.

Two more Major League games are in the books. The Cards have beaten the Nationals 5-1 with Tony La Russa using six pitchers in his usual ‘Tinker Man’ way. The Orioles have edged a close one against the Twins, winning 3-2.

The Mets make their second first-round selection, taking shortstop Reese Havens. Selig tells us the Padres are “on the clock”, starts to walk away from the podium, turns back around and pulls a funny face at someone in the audience before bumbling off again. He’s a strange man.

21.29  At twenty-three, the Padres take Allan Dykstra (not related to Lenny). At twenty-four, the Phillies (from their surprisingly messy draft room) take Anthony Hewitt, a high school shortstop. Keith Law says that Hewitt might be five or six years away from making the Majors; he has a lot of talent but is pretty raw.

With Vinny Castilla in the arena, the Rockies (the reigning NL Champions don’t forget, even if it seems easy to overlook that fact at the moment) make their first pick of the 2008 draft. They take Christian Friedrich, a left-handed pitcher who was linked with the A’s prior to the draft.

21.41  The D-Backs have an enviable group of young talent, so you’ve got to have faith in them making some good decisions over the next two days. With the twenty-fifth pick, they take a college reliever from their home patch. Daniel Schlereth moves from the University of Arizona to the Major League baseball team of Arizona.

The Twins make their second pick and select the third guy out of the University of Miami. Carlos Gutierrez has battled through Tommy John surgery (as has Schlereth) and it certainly sounds like this is a surprising move, with no one pegging him as a first-round pick prior to the draft. Maybe Minnesota knows something everyone else doesn’t?

21.47  The Yankees select a right-handed pitcher called Gerrit Cole at number 28. He’s another Boras client and that has probably played a part in him slipping down this far. The Yankees, as always, have money to burn so Boras’s demands won’t be a problem. So long as neither side brings up A-Rod, that is.

21.51  Lonnie Chisenhall becomes the number 29 pick as the Indians take a flyer on a guy who has had his problems off the field. Possibly a high-risk/high-reward selection. One more pick to go in the first round.

22.00  The Red Sox make the final selection of the first round and they take a shortstop called Casey Kelly.

We now have a fifteen minute break before the compensation round and I think that’s my cue to call it a day. It’s been a fun three hours or so. Looking back over the event, my predictions are conspicuous by their absence. I think it’s called self-preservation. Thanks for reading.

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