Dodgers Draft Zach Lee And Raise Questions

So, I was watching the first round of the MLB draft on MLB Network earlier today, and the Dodgers were on the clock.

Now despite the fact that I know almost absolutely nothing about the kids being drafted except the most basic of information (I've heard good things about #1 pick Bruce Howard ... he's going to be the next Steve Strasman) I still get pumped for the draft.

Horrible, insane looking Strasburg picture courtesy of Yahoo! Sports.

So even though I had to sit through Bud Selig pronounce Los Angeles as "Los Angeleees" several times, I patiently awaited the announcement of the Dodger pick.

The time came, and Bud Selig stepped to the podium in all his wrinkly glory and proclaimed the Dodgers had selected Zach Lee with the 28th pick.

And almost immediately there was some negativity. The Twitter-sphere was confused. The MLB Network guys already started talking about signability issues. And then, oddly enough, in the space where the MLB Network guys had been showing scouting footage of other players all day, they began showing clips of Zach Lee playing high school football.

And that was it. They showed some grainy footage of Lee completing a pass in some football game then went immediately to an interview with an unrelated old guy.

It was all very ... different.

I mean, seriously. Google Image search "Zachary Lee baseball" and you get mostly football pictures.

Response continued to pour in, most of it confused or unfavorable.

Jim Callis chimed in with: "WOW. LAD was about the last team I would have expected to take Zack Lee. Can they really sign him?"

Joe Sheehan felt that the Dodgers were "blatantly pushing [their] pick into 2011."

The more I read about, the more it started to seem like the biggest question was not whether Lee would be signed or not, but rather: is the best analogy for what the Dodgers did in the first round a punt or a fold?

I mean, this kid seems all ready to go play two sports as LSU next year. Some reports say he was asking for at least $5 million before considering not fulfilling his commitment to LSU (although others have said it's all a ploy to get more money at the bargaining table).

Basically, a big part of the picture being painted here is something like this: Lee is going to need a lot of money to sign. A lot. (Lest you forget that Matt Kemp is only making $4 million this year.) The rest of the picture is two words: Frank McCourt. As a whole, the picture looks pretty bleak.

But I started giving it some thought.

First I read the article on Dodgers.com. Logan White was optimistic, saying:

"People can think what they want, he was the best talent available and I want to sign him, absolutely ... I didn't take Zach to not sign him. You'll see as the summer goes along we'll make every effort to sign him, and I want to sign him. I know it won't be easy, but hopefully we'll get it done."

Now sure, this is probably just a PR job, and White said almost the exact same thing after the Dodgers picked a similarly unsignable Luke Hochevar in 2005:

"We took him with the intention of signing him. I talked to Scott a couple days ago. I feel he's signable. He wants to play. As long as the family thinks we're fair, I think the kid will sign."

I and my 5.35 career ERA demand 40 million dollars!

Still, despite all the evidence mounting against actually getting this signing done, I kept thinking about it and finally I came to this peace:

What's the worst that could happen?

Well, I mean other than spending millions of dollars on Lee to have him be a total bust.

There's really two scenarios to what happens here:

1. McCourt shells out the money, the Dodgers sign a good young pitcher.

2. The Dodgers don't sign him, he goes to college, and the Dodgers get another high pick in next years draft, which is expected to have a higher quality of amateur talent than this year's draft.

The key to all this is the fact that Lee is a quality prospect and as such, I think I can appreciate this technique. White didn't draft a more mediocre prospect who might sign for less. White went for broke.

I guess, ultimately, there's two ways to look at this: either the Dodgers punted/folded a first round pick in an act of cheapness/insanity or ... or the Dodgers made a shrewd pick at number 28 that's a possible win-win.

Of course, I might just be trying to talk some sense into a first day of the draft that didn't seem to have much.