Entering our first year of draft coverage, I expected to be wrong a lot and learn a lot. But thanks to the depth of knowledge among our community members, we learned a ton and didn't look too bad along the way.
We published a community Top 10 Draft Prospects article on April 30th. Thirty-six days later, eight of the 10 players from that top 10 were selected with top 10 picks by MLB teams. What's more, we would have gone 9-for-10 if the Astros would have taken Justin Smoak (selected 11th overall) instead of Jason Castro. And Gordon Beckham (8th overall) came in at 11th in our community voting.
On May 8th, 27 days before the draft, I published a list of 32 players who I considered potential first rounders. My list ended up including almost 75 percent of the players taken in the first round. And over 80 percent of the 32 players I listed went on to be top 40 overall picks.
I wasn't confident enough to publish it prior to the draft this year, but I worked on ranking potential first-round talents up until approximately May 15th -- a busy work schedule prevented me from updating it after that. Here's the meaty portion of my 2008 Draft Board:
| Rk | Name | Pos | School | Score |
| 1 | Beckham, Tim | SS | Griffin HS (GA) | 91.5 |
| 2 | Smoak, Justin | 1B | South Carolina | 91.0 |
| 3 | Matusz, Brian | LHP | San Diego | 90.5 |
| 4 | Beckham, Gordon | SS | Georgia | 90.2 |
| 5 | Posey, Buster | C | Florida State | 90.0 |
| 6 | Alvarez, Pedro | 3B | Vanderbilt | 89.5 |
| 7 | Crow, Aaron | RHP | Missouri | 89.0 |
| 8 | Hosmer, Eric | 1B | American Heritage (FL) | 88.0 |
| 9 | Alonso, Yonder | 1B | Miami | 87.0 |
| 10 | Skipworth, Kyle | C | Patriot HS (CA) | 86.0 |
| 11 | Friedrich, Christian | LHP | Eastern Kentucky | 83.0 |
| 12 | Hunt, Shooter | RHP | Tulane | 79.0 |
| 13 | Hicks, Aaron | OF/RHP | Wilson HS (CA) | 78.0 |
| 14 | Odorizzi, Jake | RHP | Highland HS (IL) | 77.5 |
| 15 | Cooper, David | 1B | Cal | 77.0 |
| 16 | Wallace, Brett | 1B/3B | Arizona State | 76.6 |
| 17 | Collier, Zach | OF | Chino Hills HS (CA) | 76.1 |
| 18 | Melville, Tim | RHP | Holt High (MO) | 76.0 |
| 19 | Martin, Ethan | RHP/3B | Stephens County HS (GA) | 75.0 |
| 20 | Davis, Ike | 1B/OF | Arizona State | 74.5 |
| 21 | Meyer, Alex | RHP | Greensburg HS (IN) | 74.1 |
| 22 | Gillaspie, Conor | 3B | Wichita | 74.0 |
| 23 | Weeks, Jemile | 2B | Miami | 73.5 |
| 24 | Kelly, Casey | RHP/SS | Sarasota HS (FL) | 70.8 |
| 25 | Cole, Gerrit | RHP | Lutheran Orange (CA) | 70.6 |
| 26 | Havens, Reese | SS | South Carolina | 70.5 |
| 27 | Lynn, Lance | RHP | Ole Miss | 70.1 |
| 28 | Lawrie, Brett | SS/OF/C | Brookwood SS, Langley, B.C. | 70.0 |
| 29 | Fields, Joshua | RHP | Georgia | 69.6 |
| 30 | Hood, Destin | SS/OF | St. Paul's Episcopal HS (AL) | 69.1 |
Adam Foster can be reached at adamf@projectprospect.com.