Cubs Draft Pick “Shocked” To Be A Cub

The MLB draft is always an anticlimactic thing. Even when there is a surefire talent at the top of the draft, as there was in 2009 with Washington Nationals No. 1 overall pick Stephen Strasberg, the rest of the draft is populated with players no one has ever heard of, many of whom don't even play college ball, and many of whom may not end up on the teams that drafted them.

Yes, "signability" is now an MLB draft buzz word, and it throws the whole thing out of whack. Can a player be had? No? Should we trade down and sign him a different slot? What happens then? It's a big mess, one the die hards understand but the casual fans will probably always ignore.

Another reason for that is that a team's draft picks take so long to have an impact on their major league team. In most cases it takes years for top prospects to even sniff the majors. That doesn't create a whole lot of interest. And let's be honest: we have no idea how certain players will pan out, far less of an idea than we have in the draft's NFL and NBA counterparts.

Which is why we can't really tell you anything about the Cubs's first-round selection yesterday, the No. 31 overall pick. His name is Brett Jackson. He's from California. And he's really, really excited to be a Cub. So that's good.

Other than that, the numbers are the most important thing: Jackson went .303 with 12 home runs and and 85 RBIs in 152 games for California. He's a lefty, and his high strikeout total in 2008 hurt his draft status. He's speedy and has an "above-average" arm.

And that's basically that. Will he be good? Great? Just OK? Horrible? We have no idea. The Cubs, sad as it is to say, probably don't have all that good of an idea. You draft a prospect, you set him up in your system, and you hope things work out for the best. Which is another way of saying: Brett Jackson, welcome to the Chicago Cubs.

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.