White Sox first-round draft pick: California 1B Andrew Vaughn

I've never seen Andrew Vaughn play a baseball game in my life, so I won't pretend to have a great scouting report on the guy the White Sox picked Monday with the No. 3 overall pick in the MLB draft.

I will say this pick represents a continuation of the Sox's philosophy to take polished collegiate hitters -- past first-round picks Zack Collins, Jake Burger and Nick Madrigal also fit that mode. As we're all aware, the Sox have had mixed results with those three players, and none of them has made the major leagues yet.

Will Vaughn be the guy? We can hope, and there's plenty to like with his college statistics. He won the Golden Spikes Award last season as a sophomore, when he hit 23 homers, and he's a candidate to win the award again this year as a junior. His slash line is .381/.544/.716 with 14 doubles and 15 home runs in 52 games. Teams are obviously pitching around him -- he has 59 walks and only 33 strikeouts this season.

His on-base percentage has never dipped below .530 in either of the past two seasons at Cal, so he's basically turned the odds of the game on their ear. Usually, it's the pitcher who has a much better chance of success in any pitcher-batter confrontation. Vaughn? He reaches base more than 50 percent of the time consistently.

In case you were wondering if his power will transfer to wood bats, he had five home runs in 14 games in the Cape Cod League last summer, so, yeah, there are reasons to believe this guy is going to hit.

What's not to like? Well, he's a right-handed hitting first baseman. He's not that big -- 6 feet tall and 214 pounds. He'll provide no defensive utility and little baserunning prowess, so he has to hit and hit a lot to be a successful player.

The other thing is, the Sox system already is loaded with guys who might need to move to first base, including incumbent left fielder Eloy Jimenez. Some believe Collins needs to move from catcher to first base, and some believe the oft-injured Burger needs to move from third base to first base. And, the Sox invested a second-round pick a couple years back in Gavin Sheets, who is playing first base at Double-A Birmingham.

How many first base candidates do you need? The Sox have plenty, but the hope has to be that Vaughn will be on a fast track to emerge as the cream of the crop at that position.