The Boston Red Sox selected Dustin Pedroia, SS, with their first draft pick. The following are excerpts from various sources on Pedroia. I have bolded the most interesting facets of Pedroia’s game:

Dustin PedroiaMLB.com says

PHYSICALLY MAXED OUT. SMALL, SCRAPPY FRAME W/ AVG STRENGTH FOR SIZE. SIMILAR TO DAVID ECKSTEIN. EVEN STANCE W/ FLEXED KNEES. SMALL LOAD & WEIGHT SHIFT. STEPS IN BUCKET. AVG BAT SPEED, EVEN PLANE BAT CONTROL W/ CONSISTENT CONTACT. HITS WHERE PITCHED. LOTS OF DOUBLES TO GAPS. INSTINCTIVE DEFENDER W/ SOFT HANDS, WORKS GROUND-UP, BALL DISAPPEARS. PLAYS WELL ABOVE TOOLS. HEADSY BASEBALL RAT W/ PLUS INSTINCTS. KNOWS HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. GUY YOU WANT ON YOUR TEAM. DOES WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.

From the Arizona State Sun Devils (link 1, link 2) comes the following:

Pedroia (Woodland, Calif.) finished a close second for earning his second consecutive Pac-10 player of the Year award, but became only the fourth player in ASU history and 22nd in Pac-10 history to earn first-team all-conference honors three straight years. The junior shortstop heads into the NCAA Tournament hitting .395 (92-for-233) with a league-leading 24 doubles, nine home runs and 48 RBI.

Has put together one of the best individual career performances in ASU Baseball history