At Baseball HQ's First Pitch Arizona event this past weekend, Ron Shandler asked 12 analysts to participate in an exercise, designed to spark discussion, called the "5-Year Futures Draft."

Trout: a notch below

The chief distinction between this "league" and your typical keeper league: All owners are stuck with the players they select for the next five years, no matter what.

"Stuck" is probably not the word that comes to mind if you're drafting players like Ryan Braun (who went first overall) or, say, Clayton Kershaw. But it's important to emphasize that you're making a commitment to these players for the entire period. Cinco anos.

It was an interesting draft, to say the least. I heard names called that I never would've considered, frankly. But, hey, we won't know how this thing turns out until five years from now. I may get to the rest of the results some other time, but they have little to do with my primary point.

Bryce Harper should have gone in the top three choices. Instead, he fell to No. 9 - one freakin' spot before I selected. Boy was I disappointed.

Most people seem so preoccupied with what has happened most recently. Braun I get. Mike Trout, who went second, I get, but I wouldn't get. No way. Undoubtedly, I'd have taken Harper instead of Trout, and I think that most others who passed on Harper will regret it.

Yep, I would have taken the Washington Nationals' brash youngster instead of the center fielder from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim who had one of the five greatest seasons in the history of the game.