John Sickels who runs Minor League Ball, one of SB Nation's great baseball websites, hosted a mock draft on Saturday afternoon for the upcoming major league baseball draft. The one round draft ran just as it will on Monday evening, with John being the moderator. Fans of each team has the opportunity to sign up and choose when their team's selection came up. With the fifth overall pick, Trevor Bauer of UCLA was snatched up by Kansas City.
It has now become apparent that many of the Royals fans are jumping aboard the Bauer bandwagon, in addition to members of the media who believe Bauer will come off the board if still around when Kansas City has their pick. For those of you who still aren't all too familiar with Bauer, here is a link to pitching videos of the stud righty. If Tim Lincecum is known as the "The Freak" (or Timmy Tim Jim as in one of my favorite television commercials), I figure it won't be long before Royals fans put their collective brain power together to come up with a solid nickname, should the Royals choose Bauer.
On a related note, it appears the Pirates have decided the other star UCLA pitcher, Gerrit Cole will be the club's first overall selection on Monday evening as reported by Dejan Kovacevic in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Ironically, Bauer has become the trusted source for UCLA as of late, while Cole will likely still be the higher drafted player. It really plays into the stereotype that players like Lincecum (and possibly Bauer) are often passed over by certain teams in the draft because of their unorthodox pitching styles. Seems to work out well for the San Francisco Giants thus far.