JP Riccardi's Draft Profile Part 1: 2002 Draft

This was JP's first draft after trades netting Eric Hinske and Luke Prokopec(story for another day). The draft is going to be televised on June 7th and we have quite a number picks in the top 100. Let's take a lot what he's done recently.

Here's are his first 5 picks:
Russ Adams SS 1st round #14
David Bush P 2nd Round #55
Justin Maureau P 3rd Round #86
Adam Peterson P 4th Round #116
Chad Pleiness P 5th Round #146
Others who still have a chance at the show(up for argument):
Jordan De Jong 18th Rd. #536 2.66 ERA 20.1 IP in AAA
Russ Savickas maybe?? Please post if there is anyone.

Clearly when evaluating where we stand right now shortstop is still an issue and the same for pitching and this class looks to give nothing. It did eventually net us Jeremy Accardo via Shea Hillenbrand who we used Adam Peterson to get.

The best pick of this draft for our Jays was Dave Bush who had two pretty good seasons for us and was part of the deal that netted us Lyle Overbay. Which I think we lost out a bit but minimally.

There have been some knocks on JP for the draft pick of Russ Adams. He was the 5th of 6 shortstops drafted (we own the 6th in Sergio Santos). He had great success in the minors but was taken ahead of two highschool pitchers in Scott Kazmir (15th) and Cole Hamels (17th) but they were high schoolers and JP was still anti-high school.

I think drafting Nick Swisher would have been a better idea who was taken 16th and he was in college. There was lots of promise on this team. We had Hinske at 3rd, Hudson at 2nd, Felipe Lopez at SS, Delgado still a Jay at 1st and Phelps as 1B/DH and Kevin Cash at catcher. In those days those boys were highly regarded. We had Jose Cruz Jr. and Raul Mondesi on the way out and wouldn't Swisher look nice in a Jays uni?

The drafting of Russ Adams seemed to make Felipe Lopez expendable (to JP anyway) though they are about the same age and Lopez was much closer to the Major Leagues and we promptly got nothing out of shipping off Lopez.

Justin Maureau and Chad Pleiness were complete busts both topping out in Dunedin. Some pitchers we could of had instead include Rich Hill, Josh Johnson (HS) and Hayden Penn (HS).

I'd give JP a Grade of D as we didn't have the greatest of all slots drafting in the middle of the round and while we wish we could have done a lot better but some other teams did worse. Missing out on Kazmir and Hamels since he's against high schoolers is a tough bullet to bite. What do you guys think? Poll included.