This question was posed to me over the weekend. My knee-jerk reaction was, “Of course not!” But then I started thinking… (Yes, I know, the pun almost writes itself.)

First, let us look at the facts:

• Donavan Tate was the 3^rd overall selection in the 2009 draft.

• He signed for $6.25m

• Because he was a multi-sport player (full-ride to North Carolina to play QB) the Padres are allowed to pay out the bonus in installments

• He was injured in 2009 and did not play. Also injured in 2010 Tate only managed to play in 25 games and 90 at-bats

• Had the Padres let the signing deadline for Tate expire without signing him, they would have owned the 4^th pick in the 2010 draft.

• The 4^th pick in the 2010 draft was Christian Colon; SS Kansas City (followed by: Drew Pomeranz; LHP, Cleveland, Barret Loux; RHP, Arizona, and Matt Harvey, RHP, New York Mets)

• Or the Padres could have drafted someone else in 2009 (the 3 following picks were: Tony
  Sanchez; C, Pittsburgh, Matthew Hobgood; RHP, Baltimore, and Zachary Wheeler; RHP, San Francisco)

(Obviously the Padres could have drafted someone other than the players listed here, but I do not want to simply grab the player who became the best player after being drafted.)

Tate is still the über-athlete he was when the Padres drafted him. He takes good reads in centerfield, he has well-above average speed, power, throwing ability, etc. He is a potential 5-tool talent. The problem is however, he has struggled to make contact so far as a professional (41 strikeouts in 90 at-bats)…

Will he develop enough contact-ability to make himself a star, or at least enough to get himself on the big league field? Or will Tate fail to develop and pull a “Chris Weinke” (FSU QB who was a stalled minor leaguer) and head back to college some time down the road?

The baseball draft is the biggest crap-shoot in all of professional sports’ talent acquisition forums. A team can be successful if only 10% of its draft picks log significant innings/at-bats in the majors. With the bar set that high (low?) the top selections are nearly always the best athletes or the best collegiate performers. Ideally, a player is a top athlete and has a track record of elite performance. However, when that ideal combination-player is not available, a team has to take a shot on a guy with either less athleticism or less performance. And strategically teams need to avoid selecting players from only one pool (athletic upside but lacking in performance or significance performance-success but lesser athleticism). They need to balance their approach and take players from both pools. This balanced approach will help minimize the risk of being so athletically-focused you miss out on guys who developed the skills to play baseball while also getting players with more upside who can develop into upper-tier talents.

The temptation is to look at the facts as we know them to be now and say they should have drafted [this] player; he’s a star (i.e. fans who said the Padres should have drafted Justin Verlander in 2004 or Brandon Belt in 2009). A better – more honest exercise is to look at the strategies (as best we can tell what they are) and decide if you are comfortable with that approach.

I, for one, have thought that the Padres have drafted and developed talent much better than their reputation suggests (but admittedly their reputation has been earned with first-round failures). I thought then, and still think now that the system is not dependent on Donavan Tate succeeding – there are other CF prospects in the system who should be able to handle the starting job if Tate doesn’t succeed. And because of the system depth, I think taking a chance on an athlete like Tate, with his upside, makes a lot of sense – then and now.