2017 draft

The amount the first pick demands is a huge impact. Since the first pick goes to the worst team, waiting the time it takes for a HS player to be MLB ready also plays a role - especially with the fans who lack patience for a long time re-build.

If a club saves a million on the first pick, it can sign a HS pick taken after the first ten rounds.

There are some interesting players in the draft.   I'll be intrigued to see where Jordan Adell goes.  6.19 60, 99 mph exit velocity, and a 96 mph fastball recorded over a year ago.  Some question whether the hit tool will develop, but he is one of the most explosive athletes ever.  

I've mentioned Brent Rooker.   I'm betting he has a better pro career than many who will be taken ahead of him.

If I were the Twins, I'd take Hunter Greene first overall.  102 mph?  Yes please

HS pitchers have been taken first overall before, just never a RH prep arm.  Groome had some questions off the field last year that led to his slip in stock.  Moniak barreled up everything he saw during the summer at every high profile event.  Has tremendous barrel control and great hands.

Goosegg hits it on the head.  If you can sign any one of your top 3-5 with the 1-1 pick, and one of those can save you 1-3 million in slot money that allows you pay over slot later in the draft, you can have a significantly better draft class for the year rather than necessarily getting the one best player. 

Consider last year Moniak signed for 6.1 saving the Phillies nearly 3 million of the $9+ slot.  Likewise for the Braves signing Dansby in 2015 at 6.5 of an 8.6 million slot.  It becomes a combination of finance, talent and need, and when you look at the difference of talent being slim between the top 3 pitchers and top 3 position players, the other factors weigh heavily.  Now, when you have an unquestionable 1-1 like Harper, the talent begins to weight much heavier than the other factors, but there hasn't been that clear-cut 1-1 since him.

Good place to tell this story...  it bounces around a bit...

We had a 2014 in the program I coach, RHP, very athletic, perfect projectable body, effortless arm action, clearly had more than the low/mid 80's he progressed to during his junior and senior HS years.  This kid never played much travel (OK, none).  He also played HS soccer.  Just enjoyed playing.  Frequent check-ins for college playing aspirations were always met by the same... "Nah, just gonna get my business degree and work for my dad".  

Finally, late senior year, we were able to sort of back door him into a recruiting event where a D1 coach took interest.  The player then, reluctantly, played a summer college season with a team that had some degree of connection to this school.  He ended up going to the school as a preferred walk on, making the squad but red-shirting as a freshman, getting some quality playing time the next year and blowing up in a very good way this year as a redshirt soph.  He is touching 95, top arm for a good D1 in the Big West conference, competing well against the likes of Long Beach St and Fullerton.  Finished 8-1, 1.95 ERA and a projected top 200 draft pick!

Small world tie in -  Meanwhile, son's SF State roommates from last year and Picked Off and his wife join us for a GREAT visit over part of the Holiday weekend (could make for a lengthy post on it's own) a few days ago.  Part of the get-together was attending the college game where this player was getting his last start.  Well, each of the roommates ran across old baseball connections during the evening.  We were talking about this pitcher and I mentioned that he was projected somewhere top 200.  The couple sitting in front of us overheard, pulled out their rankings on their smartphone and pointed out that he was #150 something.  Then, they pointed out that their son, the starting pitcher for the opposition, was #140 something.  Pretty cool.  Small world.  We have a few guys we'll be following closely on draft day.

101, 102, whatever it takes: www.baseballamerica.com/draft/...#jbLeEgofLY0f1Q1u.97

Nuke83 posted:

HS pitchers have been taken first overall before, just never a RH prep arm.  Groome had some questions off the field last year that led to his slip in stock.  Moniak barreled up everything he saw during the summer at every high profile event.  Has tremendous barrel control and great hands.

Goosegg hits it on the head.  If you can sign any one of your top 3-5 with the 1-1 pick, and one of those can save you 1-3 million in slot money that allows you pay over slot later in the draft, you can have a significantly better draft class for the year rather than necessarily getting the one best player. 

Consider last year Moniak signed for 6.1 saving the Phillies nearly 3 million of the $9+ slot.  Likewise for the Braves signing Dansby in 2015 at 6.5 of an 8.6 million slot.  It becomes a combination of finance, talent and need, and when you look at the difference of talent being slim between the top 3 pitchers and top 3 position players, the other factors weigh heavily.  Now, when you have an unquestionable 1-1 like Harper, the talent begins to weight much heavier than the other factors, but there hasn't been that clear-cut 1-1 since him.

They really lowered the 1-1 slot value (now $7.8 million) as well as reducing the 1-2 (now $7.2 million) so there will no longer be an opportunity to for anywhere close to $3 million in savings so the strategies have been modified slightly this year - although the assumption is that the #1, #2 and #3 picks will get around the same as those picks got last year.  Very interesting what changes were made to the slot values.  I agree with the changes at the very top where they have leveled things out a bit, but they seem to have started to nickel and dime folks in the later rounds (why take $25k from the final guy in round #10?).  I know this was voted in last year but never saw much discussion about the changes other than how it impacted first round picks - nothing about the cumulative effects on rounds 3-10 when it looks like a 10% across the board cut was put in place.

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Nuke83 posted:

HS pitchers have been taken first overall before, just never a RH prep arm.  Groome had some questions off the field last year that led to his slip in stock.  Moniak barreled up everything he saw during the summer at every high profile event.  Has tremendous barrel control and great hands.

Goosegg hits it on the head.  If you can sign any one of your top 3-5 with the 1-1 pick, and one of those can save you 1-3 million in slot money that allows you pay over slot later in the draft, you can have a significantly better draft class for the year rather than necessarily getting the one best player. 

Consider last year Moniak signed for 6.1 saving the Phillies nearly 3 million of the $9+ slot.  Likewise for the Braves signing Dansby in 2015 at 6.5 of an 8.6 million slot.  It becomes a combination of finance, talent and need, and when you look at the difference of talent being slim between the top 3 pitchers and top 3 position players, the other factors weigh heavily.  Now, when you have an unquestionable 1-1 like Harper, the talent begins to weight much heavier than the other factors, but there hasn't been that clear-cut 1-1 since him.

They really lowered the 1-1 slot value (now $7.8 million) as well as reducing the 1-2 (now $7.2 million) so there will no longer be an opportunity to for anywhere close to $3 million in savings so the strategies have been modified slightly this year - although the assumption is that the #1, #2 and #3 picks will get around the same as those picks got last year.  Very interesting what changes were made to the slot values.  I agree with the changes at the very top where they have leveled things out a bit, but they seem to have started to nickel and dime folks in the later rounds (why take $25k from the final guy in round #10?).  I know this was voted in last year but never saw much discussion about the changes other than how it impacted first round picks - nothing about the cumulative effects on rounds 3-10 when it looks like a 10% across the board cut was put in place.

Correct, and they did this because teams were saving heavily on that 1-1 pick, with only Dansby Swanson the highest bonus paid to 1-1 since the slot system went into effect.

So for 2017, the first two picks actually decreased in slot from 2016, picks below that increased until pick 60, where it decreases again.

I suspect the same thing will occur this year, but for a $1+ million savings vs. $2-$3 mill.  While they're tweaking the advantage the top 2-3 teams held in the past by stockpiling that slot money for later picks.

My guess is the 10% haircut you reference is simply owners trying to curb/offset the annual escalation of bonus cost.

I'm not a fan of the slot saving unless you have a second top20 pick.

In theory it is a good idea but in practice the talent drop off after the 5th pick is very big and most sandwich or second round picks end up as replacement level players if the make it at all.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs...alue-of-draft-picks/

Imo top3 get the best player available, that is were the value is.

Go back and see what the Astros tried to do in Brady's year - they thought they could get three high quality kids for the price of 1-1 plus 200k. Would have been interesting had it worked out.

Goosegg posted:

Go back and see what the Astros tried to do in Brady's year - they thought they could get three high quality kids for the price of 1-1 plus 200k. Would have been interesting had it worked out.

Talk about a deal unraveling.  An almost perfect case of "size matters" both in terms of UCL and signing bonus.

Nuke83 posted:

HS pitchers have been taken first overall before, just never a RH prep arm.  Groome had some questions off the field last year that led to his slip in stock.  Moniak barreled up everything he saw during the summer at every high profile event.  Has tremendous barrel control and great hands.

Goosegg hits it on the head.  If you can sign any one of your top 3-5 with the 1-1 pick, and one of those can save you 1-3 million in slot money that allows you pay over slot later in the draft, you can have a significantly better draft class for the year rather than necessarily getting the one best player. 

Consider last year Moniak signed for 6.1 saving the Phillies nearly 3 million of the $9+ slot.  Likewise for the Braves signing Dansby in 2015 at 6.5 of an 8.6 million slot.  It becomes a combination of finance, talent and need, and when you look at the difference of talent being slim between the top 3 pitchers and top 3 position players, the other factors weigh heavily.  Now, when you have an unquestionable 1-1 like Harper, the talent begins to weight much heavier than the other factors, but there hasn't been that clear-cut 1-1 since him.

he has hit well but already then there were some scouts questioning whether he would ever hit for power. he does have some room to put on strength but he could still only be a 12 HR guy or so. his hit tool is good but so far his contact rate is just average although he is hitting for high BABIPs.

I follow the phillies a little and I don't really understand that pick. He is likely a good hitter but  he is not a slam dunk to get to the power. solid player and would have been a good lower top10 pick but I don't see the one standout tool for 1-1.

he could still of course get to the power and become a 70 hitter with 55 power and then he would be a superstar but I think that is a lot of speculation and his K rate could also creep from 21 to 25% while his power gets to like 45 and then he is a 4th OF.

The Astros were the 1st team to work the system to perfection with the Correa pick at 1-1, and McCullers at the end of round 1. Look at where their team is this year because of that draft. It would've worked with Brady except for the UCL tear. Instead they have Bregman manning 3rd base for them. Go Stros!!!

cabbagedad posted:

Good place to tell this story...  it bounces around a bit...

We had a 2014 in the program I coach, RHP, very athletic, perfect projectable body, effortless arm action, clearly had more than the low/mid 80's he progressed to during his junior and senior HS years.  This kid never played much travel (OK, none).  He also played HS soccer.  Just enjoyed playing.  Frequent check-ins for college playing aspirations were always met by the same... "Nah, just gonna get my business degree and work for my dad".  

Finally, late senior year, we were able to sort of back door him into a recruiting event where a D1 coach took interest.  The player then, reluctantly, played a summer college season with a team that had some degree of connection to this school.  He ended up going to the school as a preferred walk on, making the squad but red-shirting as a freshman, getting some quality playing time the next year and blowing up in a very good way this year as a redshirt soph.  He is touching 95, top arm for a good D1 in the Big West conference, competing well against the likes of Long Beach St and Fullerton.  Finished 8-1, 1.95 ERA and a projected top 200 draft pick!

Small world tie in -  Meanwhile, son's SF State roommates from last year and Picked Off and his wife join us for a GREAT visit over part of the Holiday weekend (could make for a lengthy post on it's own) a few days ago.  Part of the get-together was attending the college game where this player was getting his last start.  Well, each of the roommates ran across old baseball connections during the evening.  We were talking about this pitcher and I mentioned that he was projected somewhere top 200.  The couple sitting in front of us overheard, pulled out their rankings on their smartphone and pointed out that he was #150 something.  Then, they pointed out that their son, the starting pitcher for the opposition, was #140 something.  Pretty cool.  Small world.  We have a few guys we'll be following closely on draft day.

The kid in this story from our HS really climbed the board the last few weeks...  went 45th overall!!

Our town and HS is pretty small.  Pretty cool... even my phone is ringing off the hook.  One guy texts... "you had a hand in the 45th overall pick".  I replied... heck yeah, I said "do that again" pretty often

Heck of a story. Congrats.

cabbagedad posted:

cabbagedad posted:

Good place to tell this story...  it bounces around a bit...

We had a 2014 in the program I coach, RHP, very athletic, perfect projectable body, effortless arm action, clearly had more than the low/mid 80's he progressed to during his junior and senior HS years.  This kid never played much travel (OK, none).  He also played HS soccer.  Just enjoyed playing.  Frequent check-ins for college playing aspirations were always met by the same... "Nah, just gonna get my business degree and work for my dad".  

Finally, late senior year, we were able to sort of back door him into a recruiting event where a D1 coach took interest.  The player then, reluctantly, played a summer college season with a team that had some degree of connection to this school.  He ended up going to the school as a preferred walk on, making the squad but red-shirting as a freshman, getting some quality playing time the next year and blowing up in a very good way this year as a redshirt soph.  He is touching 95, top arm for a good D1 in the Big West conference, competing well against the likes of Long Beach St and Fullerton.  Finished 8-1, 1.95 ERA and a projected top 200 draft pick!

Small world tie in -  Meanwhile, son's SF State roommates from last year and Picked Off and his wife join us for a GREAT visit over part of the Holiday weekend (could make for a lengthy post on it's own) a few days ago.  Part of the get-together was attending the college game where this player was getting his last start.  Well, each of the roommates ran across old baseball connections during the evening.  We were talking about this pitcher and I mentioned that he was projected somewhere top 200.  The couple sitting in front of us overheard, pulled out their rankings on their smartphone and pointed out that he was #150 something.  Then, they pointed out that their son, the starting pitcher for the opposition, was #140 something.  Pretty cool.  Small world.  We have a few guys we'll be following closely on draft day.

The kid in this story from our HS really climbed the board the last few weeks...  went 45th overall!!

Our town and HS is pretty small.  Pretty cool... even my phone is ringing off the hook.  One guy texts... "you had a hand in the 45th overall pick".  I replied... heck yeah, I said "do that again" pretty often

Nice feature on him:

www.philly.com/philly/sports/p...itcher-20170613.html

Cabbage, great story. as a life long Phillies fan I hope it works out well for him! I am more accustomed to the Phillies Drafting guys like John Mayberry and sooo many others who look the part but can't actually play!

Modiak is sporting a cool .266 right now in single A and I believe it is the low A team at that. Small sample so we will hope he develops!!

The Phillies lead the league in drafting projectable talent!!

cabbagedad posted:

cabbagedad posted:

Good place to tell this story...  it bounces around a bit...

We had a 2014 in the program I coach, RHP, very athletic, perfect projectable body, effortless arm action, clearly had more than the low/mid 80's he progressed to during his junior and senior HS years.  This kid never played much travel (OK, none).  He also played HS soccer.  Just enjoyed playing.  Frequent check-ins for college playing aspirations were always met by the same... "Nah, just gonna get my business degree and work for my dad".  

Finally, late senior year, we were able to sort of back door him into a recruiting event where a D1 coach took interest.  The player then, reluctantly, played a summer college season with a team that had some degree of connection to this school.  He ended up going to the school as a preferred walk on, making the squad but red-shirting as a freshman, getting some quality playing time the next year and blowing up in a very good way this year as a redshirt soph.  He is touching 95, top arm for a good D1 in the Big West conference, competing well against the likes of Long Beach St and Fullerton.  Finished 8-1, 1.95 ERA and a projected top 200 draft pick!

Small world tie in -  Meanwhile, son's SF State roommates from last year and Picked Off and his wife join us for a GREAT visit over part of the Holiday weekend (could make for a lengthy post on it's own) a few days ago.  Part of the get-together was attending the college game where this player was getting his last start.  Well, each of the roommates ran across old baseball connections during the evening.  We were talking about this pitcher and I mentioned that he was projected somewhere top 200.  The couple sitting in front of us overheard, pulled out their rankings on their smartphone and pointed out that he was #150 something.  Then, they pointed out that their son, the starting pitcher for the opposition, was #140 something.  Pretty cool.  Small world.  We have a few guys we'll be following closely on draft day.

The kid in this story from our HS really climbed the board the last few weeks...  went 45th overall!!

Our town and HS is pretty small.  Pretty cool... even my phone is ringing off the hook.  One guy texts... "you had a hand in the 45th overall pick".  I replied... heck yeah, I said "do that again" pretty often

I'm on my way up to SLO tomorrow.  It's always great to see a Calpoly kid get drafted!  

Nice!  Enjoy SLO.  Just watched a few more of our kids at a Blues game Saturday.  You'll have to let me know if you are ever in the area catching a game.