2010 Draft Outlook. In February.

Andy Seiler's 2010 draft preview has some gold in it. (Captip to TPack for the link).

The first, and most obvious, trend is that Heck heavily favors workout arms. Lyles, Bushue, and Hyatt are all known for being picked higher than the industry consensus due to strong workouts for Houston, and Lyles’ 2009 campaign proved that his draft slot was more deserving than some thought. I see nothing wrong in this system, as Heck obviously has a specific set of standards he’s looking for in arms during workouts, and the yield shouldn’t be much different from any other set of standards that other teams employ. The other trend that sticks out so far is that Heck and the scouting department likes prep bats from Georgia. They’ve selected three in the top ten picks combined from 2008 and 2009, and they usually get picked in the second to third round range. They also heavily favor prep players in the early rounds, with the exception of Castro, and then they fill in with athletic college bats and solid college arms in the rounds directly following. These trends will likely continue for 2010...

...The first pick should carry a tag of somewhere near $2.3 million, the second $1.5 million, the third $950,000, and the fourth $650,000. That’s already $5.4 million before we’ve even gotten to the third round. In other words, don’t expect overslot signings in the late rounds this year, as the budget won’t be stretched enough to accommodate such spending...

...I really like LeVon Washington for their first slot, and that’s who I had slotted in there in my latest mock draft. Other names that I find interesting there are Austin Wilson, Yordy Cabrera (as a third baseman or outfielder), and perhaps one of the top prep arms such as Dylan Covey, Karsten Whitson, and A.J. Cole. I think they’ll go young either way, and it will likely be a very signable name.

This is gold. There's no way of knowing who the Astros will take in the draft, as Keith Law was the only one to predict the Astros would take Jiovanni Mier (in his final mock draft). But it's good to at least have some benchmarks for what we could expect. And what we can expect is another solid draft.