Why was Paul Goldschmidt available in the eighth round in 2009?

Read an interesting sabermetrics-type article on Paul Goldschmidt by Scott Spratt of ESPN the other day. His article was about how Goldschmidt was “Setting the MVP Pace”.

Now for anyone who listens to the show, they know I am the furthest thing from a sabermetrics geek. I’m just not that interested in some of those crazy numbers. I prefer the eye test and your basic average, home runs, runs batted in, doubles and steals numbers. I was intrigued by the facts in the article that Goldschmidt was the 11th first baseman selected in that 2009 draft, the 246th player and the 13th D-back selected.

So I decided to do some homework as to why Goldschmidt wasn’t picked higher, why there were so many players at his position picked ahead of him. I picked the brain of former D-backs skipper and director of Minor League operations A.J. Hinch, who now is in San Diego with the Padres. In a nutshell, he said the report on Goldschmidt at the time they drafted him was that he was a pretty good offensive player with legitimate power, plus make up who was solid defensively. The concerns on Goldy were competition in college (Texas State) and questions as to whether he could hit enough to get to his power.

It was D-backs scout Tom Allison who was big on drafting Goldschmidt and thought he would be a good Major Leaguer. But no one in the organization could have seen this coming.

Goldschmidt is an MVP candidate and a Triple Crown threat. Goldy is second in the National League in home runs with 12, third in runs batted in with 36 and seventh in batting at .323. He has become a player that can carry a team. And his defense, while not at the Keith Hernandez/Don Mattingly level, is awfully good.

Just for fun here are the players Arizona drafted before Goldschmidt that year.

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