Draft Day

Well, it's finally draft day. I'm always giddy with anticipation, and today I'm more optimistic than I have been in a while. Two main reasons; first, our last two first-round selections, Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce, have done everything you could hope they would thus far in their young careers. Bailey, in particular, is making a lot of heads turn. Second, the Reds look to have really bolstered their scouting department with this year's hire of Chris Buckley. Here's a quick write-up on Buckley from BP last week:

Scouting Director: Chris Buckley. Buckley learned under Wilken, spending 17 years in the Toronto organization before joining the Reds this year. He was the assistant scouting director in Toronto from 1999-2000, assumed scouting director responsibilities in 2001 when Wilken moved up, and then joined Wilken as an assistant GM in 2004. In the three drafts he conducted, all three of the first-round picks reached the majors, and two of three second-rounders have.

The Enquirer and Post have featured articles on Buckley recently as well, which are nicely summarized by jmcclain19 over at Red Reporter. He looks to be an outstanding addition to our front office. Kudos to Krivsky for the hire.

As to what the Reds will do, that's anyone's guess. The Reds are clearly interested in the top college-level arms (Miller, Morrow, Lincecum, etc), but it's entirely possible those guys will have been taken. Some of the hitters that are available who reportedly are of interest to the Reds include Drew Stubbs and Billy Rowell.

I, unfortunately, have some family things going on today so I won't be able to follow the draft as closely as I'd like. But I will have some commentary and, hopefully, statistics on some of the Reds early selections later on (maybe today?).