If the Phillies hit on one of top three picks, consider this draft a win

For three weeks last summer, Mickey Moniak, Kevin Gowdy, and Cole Stobbe were teammates. They traveled the world - from Fullerton, Calif., to Taiwan and then Japan, where they won a championship as part of the United States' under-18 national team. The outfielder from San Diego, righthander from Santa Barbara, and infielder from Omaha forged a bond without knowing they would be linked in the future.

Now, the three teenagers will navigate pro ball together.

The Phillies selected the high school players with their first three picks in the Major League Baseball draft. If everything goes right, which it rarely does when developing baseball players, one, two, or all three could be a part of another wave of Phillies young talent that arrives early in the next decade.

With $13.4 million to spend on their first 10 picks, the Phillies made a decision to dump a majority of that bonus money into their top three selections. Moniak and Gowdy were committed to UCLA, Stobbe to Arkansas. All three are expected to sign soon.

Under Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak, the team's strategy in trades and the international market has been to acquire as many lottery tickets as possible. The splurges are nice, but there is no such thing as a sure-thing prospect. So, by spreading the draft money to acquire three top talents, the Phillies believe they have increased their odds.

This draft will be successful if one of those three players becomes a major-league regular.

"We feel we got two first-rounders with the first two picks, and really a compensation-type pick in the third round," said Johnny Almaraz, the Phillies' scouting director. "We thought all of those high school players have superior ability over a lot of the college guys. So we valued them more."

"Polished prep player" is somewhat of an oxymoron, but the Phillies sought a different kind of high school player from the high-ceiling, all-tool picks that populated former scouting director Marti Wolever's drafts.

Start with Moniak, 18, whose pure hitting ability is what attracted scouts. Last June, the team targeted Cornelius Randolph, hailed as the best prep hitter, with the 10th-overall pick. As with Moniak, there were questions about Randolph's power potential, but universal agreement that he would hit for average. And, in a game in which offensive talent has lagged behind the hard-throwing pitchers of a new generation, the Phillies will value a position player's hitting ability above all.

"There's a lot of people who use the word projection. There was no projection with Mickey Moniak," Almaraz said. "He possesses the ability that a lot of college players don't possess. He can run. He can throw. He can hit. His abilities are superior, and that's why we took him."

Gowdy, 18, started taking pitching lessons at age 8, according to Baseball America. The 6-foot-4 righthander worked with a Cubs scout named Tom Myers. He throws in the low 90s with a clean delivery.

"He has the ability to command the baseball at such a young age," Almaraz said. "I'm a believer you can't teach somebody how to pitch. He's got that innate ability to pitch and get hitters out, and that's what we want in this organization: frontline pitchers."

Stobbe, 18, is not likely to stay at shortstop, but the Phillies may stick him there at the start of his pro career. He was the two-time Gatorade player of the year in Nebraska.

"We valued his ability," Almaraz said. "We think he's a player that potentially has a chance to hit home runs and stay at shortstop."

He has the same power profile as Moniak; Almaraz estimated Moniak could hit between 15 and 22 homers in the majors if he reaches his potential. Others are not as optimistic. Some scouts questioned Moniak's power stroke, but Justin Machado, his coach at La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad, Calif., does not view those concerns as valid.

Moniak hit seven homers as a senior after going his whole junior season without one.

"The problem with all the power talk is nobody ever takes into consideration our field," Machado said. "We're about 415, 420 [feet] in the gaps. So all this talk about him not having pop, it's people who never came to my field and saw the ball just doesn't go there. All that really bothered me, all three years."

It was just the fourth time in 20 drafts that the Phillies used their first three picks all on prep players. History suggests the Phillies will be lucky if one of them is a difference-maker in the majors, and it will take years to know whether the strategy was wise.

But if the three reunited teammates somehow rise together, it will be remembered as one of the more important two days in the reconstruction of the Phillies.

mgelb@philly.com

@mattgelb