Reds' draft in '08

Here is a comment from Kevin Goldstein, prospect guru at Baseball Prospectus:

Yonder Alonso, 1B, Reds (Seventh overall)
Like the Beckham comment, this isn't necessarily a bad pick, as Alonso had a solid but unspectacular full-season debut, this is more about what could have been: in the hours leading up to the draft, the Reds were torn between Alonso and University of Georgia shortstop Gordon Beckham. Alonso looks like he might be a power/on-base first baseman with problems hitting against left-handers, while Beckham looks like a future star with a chance to be a "face of the franchise"-type of player. So there are no big complaints about what they have, as long as you don't think about what could have been.

Beckham had a great year in the majors with the White Sox. In the meantime, Votto established himself as The Reds' best player and the Reds traded for Scott Rolen and his $11 million contract for next year. Those two facts, coupled with the fact that we don't have a decent shortstop prospect (we have some decent prospects who play short, but all will have to play elsewhere in the bigs) make the draft of Alonso even worse. Maybe the Reds were still thinking they'd move to Phillips to short. And I typically advocate drafting the best available player and sort it out later. But this is one the Reds will regret. Maybe they should start shopping Alonso now.