ESPN's Jim Caple has a post on Mark Appel, and the possibility of Houston taking a hometown boy at 1-1.
Appel:
"...It would be a cherry on top of a dream come true. I've always dreamed of playing pro baseball and playing for the Astros would be pretty unbelievable."
Click the link for more.
And/Or you can click this link, which takes you to McTaggart's article on the prep going into next week's 1-1 pick, the first by Jeff Luhnow, who was hired - in part - based on his draft success with the Cardinals. Jim Crane:
"That was one of the reasons we hired Jeff, was his expertise in this area and needing that expertise to consistently have the Minor League system built up, so we can be competitive year in and year out."
Is Crane going to pull a Drayton and nickel-and-dime the draft? Nope, says Crane:
"We want to build for the future, so we've allocated the maximum amount of money to pay what the slot amount is."
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
