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Not sure if we paid him $1M but pretty sure we went over slot on DJ Wilson who I always felt was a waste even if we only gave him slot.

Unfortunately I can’t say I am a huge fan of the Ed Howard pick. I think he will play a nice SS but I question whether he will hit enough. Hope I’m wrong Bc he seems like a great kid.

Wilson was $1.3M.  To my recall, he's the only non-HS draftee who got the superslot million, at least since back in the Maples/Dunston era when spending was uncapped. 

Do you follow HS baseball in Chicago area enough to have seen Howard in games?  Just curious.  I think your comment is on point, that he seems like a great kid, and the reports on his defense are really favorable; but in the end, as with any player, how valuable he'll end up being will largely depend on the bat. 

Heh heh, as the Wilson example perhaps reflects.  If defense, attitude, effort, character, and work ethic were enough to make a good player, we'd have our center-field situation solved.  But hitting is the one tool you can't live without, and perhaps the hardest to project. 

Hopefully Howard really will have it, and the Cubs have some evaluation resources to be able to both project hitting capacity and to optimize hitting skills better now than has tended to be true in the past.