White Sox draft Carson Fullmer with No. 8 pick
/Collin is out so let's figure out what's going on with this draft business. According to, well, Major League Baseball, the White Sox have selected Vanderbilt right-hander Carson Fulmer with the eighth pick of the first round.
Personally, my optimism for this pick has been skyrocketing ever since I realized this is not the 35-year-old quarterback with multiple ACL tears. In a draft light on top-shelf talent, and better stocked in college pitching than anything else, the Sox got the college pitcher they've widely been attached to and projected by many respectable prognosticators to be the pick, should he fall this low. That sounds suitable enough. Conventional wisdom brought us "Wow, Courtney Hawkins is great value here" and "Tim Anderson is kind of a reach," so we'll see. In the draft, and even more so in pitching prospects, you do the right thing and die, you jump off a cliff and cruise to safety on a resting cloud, and you try not to take a lesson from either experience.
Fulmer, 21, lacks ideal size (six-feet tall), has more stuff in his three-pitch mix than command, and a somewhat unique delivery. For all these reasons, the battle for the Sox development team is to make him a starter, rather than merely a lively and valuable reliever. Surely they look upon this task with great relish. The Sox could use a right-handed starter in their system, they could use someone closer to the majors than Tyler Danish and with more upside than Chris Beck, and they could use someone who could be flipped for major league value soon because jeepers, that offense.
Fulmer could represent all three, so he is welcome.
You don't draft a guy in the top ten out of a pile of college arms without feeling uniquely positive about him and willing to throw out a flowing quote about his character, and well, here's a doozy.
“‘If I had one guy to say he’s an absolute 80+ makeup guy, it’s him,” said White Sox assistant scouting director Nick Hostetler of Fulmer. ‘He battles, competes.
’I would want this kid to start Game 7 of the World Series for me, but also I have two daughters and I hope a guy like that marries one of my daughters. He’s that type of terrific kid.’”
Geez, Nick. Haven't even started negotiating with the kid yet and you're throwing in reception costs.