I know a lot of you aren't keeping track of the draft this year from what I gathered from my last post about it, but a very important pick in the future of the O's will be made later today.  Apparently the Rays are torn between Beckham and Posey, with Alvarez likely dropping to 2 with the Pirates.  I would be inclined to say that the Rays are gonna take the high school shortstop Beckham as he fits that athletic, upside, hybrid player that they usually draft who could be an all around stud.  There is very little doubt in my mind that the Pirates would let Alvarez, 3B from Vandy, drop past their number 2 overall pick as they have been a historically pathetic team, draft wise, as they were unwilling to pull the trigger when it comes to contract negotiations.  The Royals should be left with Posey/Hosmer at 3 and it seems as if guys inside their organization are all over Hosmer instead of Smoak, which somewhat puzzles me. 

If Beckham goes no. 1 overall the O's are left with the worst case scenario in my opinion as Posey, Matsuz, and Smoak will still be on the board.  Posey is a no go as we have Wieters, I just don't like Matsuz as he is not a shutdown guy coming out and college pitchers have a low success rate, so I think that Smoak, power hitting 1B, would be the best option here.  Plus Smoak looks to be kind of almost ready and could be on this clubat the beginning of the 2010 season.  If, however, the Rays take Posey at 1 we have a decent shot at Beckham as the Bucs and Rays may go for the picks listed above.  To me, Beckham would be the best possible scenario becuase he should be able to fix the shortstop problem, only issue is that he would not be ready for quite some time as he is just coming out of prep school.  This should be a big day for the O's as this draft pick will hopefully be the last top 5 for a while, and depending on who is chosen they could be on our contending club around 2010 along with Wieters and some of the other guys in the farm..

Draft will be on ESPN 2 starting at 2 today (June 5).