Stone Bridge '14 JB Bukauskas

JB is a great kid.  He has played with the Evoshield Canes for the past 2 summers. I was fortunate enough to coach him.  He has touched 100 several times this spring and his slider has the makings of a plus pitch. One of the neatest things about JB is that he knows how to pitch. When I coached him at the Perfect Game Underclass All American games in San Diego, he struck out 8 of the 9 hitters he faced in 2012. He threw a 2 strike CU to the last hitter that he absolutely buried on the outer half.  The hitter flipped it into RF for a hit.  When JB came off the field, he smiled and said "I knew I could put him away with a fastball or slider but I wanted to show the progress I've made on my change up."  It wasn't a sign of cockiness but a young pitcher (rising junior at the time) who wanted to experiment against some of the top hitters.

Deja vu on Connor Jones from last season.  Almost the exact same scenario.  Hard throwing RHP projected as late 1st rounder with a ACC school in hand and leaning toward school.

Connor was and is a great pitcher and pro prospect.  Bukauskas has 5-6 more mph, though, and that puts him in the rarefied air.

Having been down this road in our family, I totally respect choosing college over pros.  But I would have advised him to wait and see where he got drafted and how much money was on the table.  If $2 million is there, I'd be hard pressed to tell him to head to UNC.  Very, very few have seen higher numbers 3 years later (Gerrit Cole and Matt Harvey being the exceptions), and I'm not sure what they did can be duplicated under the new draft/slotting rules that took effect in 2012. 

I hope he isn't giving away a million on this.  But as long as he is willing to stay in the draft -- and the article doesn't indicate that he's withdrawing from the draft, as Nathan Kirby did 2 years ago, only that he's told teams he isn't interested -- someone might still take him and offer him something to try to turn his head.  I know I would. 

This is going to be very interesting to watch as it plays out. Dad and Mom very savvy.

Bear in mind that JB should be a 2015(!), and he is graduating from HS one year early. A 2015 throwing triple digits.

Agree with all said and would add for thought:

1. I'll bet someone will draft him, take a flyer and try to change his mind.  Pirates did that in 2011 with Josh Bell.  He and parents sent letters to all teams, saying do not draft him, going to UT.  Bucs took him in 2nd round and changed their minds.  I know it happens often, but that is the one story I am familiar with that is very comparable.  This was same year they took Cole #1.

2. Going from HS to minor leagues after what is essentially Junior year of HS had to be the swing factor.  I know he'd be looked after, but can you imagine?

I think it is important to note that the reason JB moved up into the 2014 class is to enroll at UNC early and avoid the excessive innings that he threw for his HS team last year.  His family believes he will benefit more from 3 years at UNC than on an MiLB bus.

A kid from our high school signed out of high school when he was only seventeen and a 7th round pick. He could have gone to Stanford. He turned eighteen in October. After the fact (released three years later) he said he was physically and mentally overwhelmed as a seventeen year old competing against men coming out of college at twenty-one and twenty-two. He was 6'2", 170. He said had he gone to college he would have come out three years later 25-30 pounds heavier, a lot stronger and a lot more emotionally mature.

If you are not physically ready, i.e. Man sized and emotionally ready to deal with 21 year old young men then heading to pro ball is problematic.

I will say that with the money slotting if you think you are going to go in the 20-35 range it is a fairly risky long term bet that you will do equally well or better 3 years later.  Way too many things have to go right and there are so many things that can go wrong.  You can survive injuries and it can be OK but you are talking a 5 times upside to any where from 10X to 1MM times downside with odds that are NOT in your favor.

I think this guy is the poster child of a guy that got lucky:

FROM BASEBALL AMERICA 2013 DRAFT INFORMATION:

The Twins have signed second-rounder Ryan Eades for $1,294,100, matching his assigned value as the 43rd overall selection.

Eades went 8-1, 2.79 wtih 78 strikeouts in 100 innings this spring, helping Louisiana State reach the College World Series. The 6-foot-3, 198-pound righthander works primarily with a 90-95 mph fastball and a hard curveball. He’s one of the few pitchers who has made a successful comeback from labrum surgery, which he had before his senior season at Nortshore High (Slidell, La.) in 2010.

Simple math for an 18 year old.  If the bonus is $1.2mm, assume 50% goes away in taxes and agent.  Leaves about $600k.  Invest $150k at 4% and you are a millionaire at age 65 no matter what else you do as long as you break even your whole life.  Set up a college fund of $100k in case pro ball doesn't work out as a fall back. Still got $350k in car money.

If his buddies in HS go to college and come out at 23 earning $40k and save 10% (remote likelihood) with 2% raises every year (good luck with that) it takes until you are 50 years old to save $150k of your own money and you never get anywhere near a $1mm total. 

From a pure numbers perspective...if you are a 1st round pick it seems to me that you should always take the money.  Not that simple I recognize but as a father if my son had a chance to land that money that early in his life I would explain this kind of stuff to him.

I checked JB's PG profile page and found that David Rawnsley had just posted this draft report on him yesterday:

Position:  RHP
Height:  6-1
Weight:  195
Bats/Throws:  R-R
Birthdate:  Oct. 11, 1996
High School: Stone Bridge
City, State:  Ashburn, Va.
Travel Team:  EvoShield Canes
Commitment:  North Carolina
Projected Draft Round:  1-1S

Perfect Game’s Jeff Dahn wrote an outstanding background piece on North Carolina righthanded pitcher Jacob Bukauskas in mid-April, detailing both the intense lower body strengthening that has caused his dramatic increase in velocity and his reclassification into the 2014 class.

This Draft Focus article will attempt to delve into a couple of other aspects of Bukauskas’ overall profile and his rise to potential first round status.

The eligibility rules for a high school player for the Major League Baseball Draft have remained relatively stable over the decades, which doesn’t mean that there haven’t been a small handful of exceptions. The rule basically states that any player who has used up his his high school eligibility, and/or has graduated from high school and not yet attended college, is eligible for selection.

Jeremy Bonderman was perhaps the first player to become an exception to this rule when he was selected by the A’s in the first round out of Pasco (Wash.) High School in 2001. The righthanded pitcher had been held back for academic reasons prior to high school before being diagnosed with dyslexia and was older than his peer group. He successfully petitioned Major League Baseball for draft eligibility after having to temporally drop out of school, take and pass his GED exam, then return to school to pitch his junior year nearing his 19thbirthday.

MLB was not happy with this development and adjusted its rules interpretation manual, a non-public document that teams use internally on a number of potential issues, to try to keep it from happening again.

Bryce Harper used a similar track to become eligible for the 2010 draft, although for different reasons. Harper’s baseball prodigy status made high school baseball relatively meaningless and he took the GED after his sophomore season at Las Vegas High School so he could enter the College of Southern Nevada for the 2009-2010 school year and become eligible for the 2010 draft. Junior college baseball, even with wood bats at CSN, proved to be equally lacking in challenges, and Harper was the first pick in the 2010 draft and an All-Star before his 20thbirthday.

Drew Ward, however, is really the exception that Bukauskas’reclassifying from the 2015 class to the 2014 class takes precedent from. Ward, like Bonderman, was an older high school junior who played at a very small rural Oklahoma high school. He took extra classes, including online classes through the University of Oklahoma, in order to graduate in three years and make himself draft eligible. MLB granted him his eligibility in the middle of last spring, contingent on him graduating, and Ward was picked in the third round by the Washington Nationals.

MLB took a step back after the Ward situation and acknowledged the basis of the rules and the reality of the situation, according to multiple sources, opening the door for Bukauskas to have a relatively stress-free transition from a potential 2015 draftee to a 2014 eligible player.

The irony, as Dahn describes in his story on Bukauskas, is that he and his family had no intention of graduating early with a focus on the draft. Their intent was always to accelerate the schedule to attending North Carolina.

That intent may still be valid and on the table, but it has been obviously side-tracked by Bukauskas’ emergence as perhaps the second hardest throwing high school arm in the 2014 class behind Texas righthander Tyler Kolek.

Therein lies the second irony. Bukauskas made his mark as a pitcher prior to this spring as a dominant performance pitcher who used a well-balanced three-pitch repertoire and an aggressive command of the strike zone to overmatch hitters, not overpowering velocity.

Bukauskas threw at numerous Perfect Game events prior to this spring, including both the 2012 and 2013 Junior National Showcases, the latter of which he topped out at 93 mph. However, his signature PG event was his final one, the 2013 PG Underclass All-American Games last August. That heavily scouted event, held the day after the Perfect Game All-American Classic, has a very high level of talent, talent that Bukauskas completely dominated. Here are my notes from his outing at the University of San Diego.

On line delivery with good pace, gathers over rubber, accelerates to the plate, occasional running action, commands SL well, some SL's have CB spin/shape/depth, quick compact arm, hi 3/4's, best life down, consistent 88-9 gets on hitters hands, late bite to glove side, throws to spots, K'd 6 straight at one point and overmatched many, nice change with big sink, overthrows at times and lowers slot, + change at times with + life, maintained velocity, topped at 90 mph, potential for 3 plus pitches.

Now take the same type of delivery, secondary pitches and command and put them with a pitcher throwing 94-97 and touching 100 mph instead of upper-80s. That is an impressive package.

How that package will play come June 5 makes Bukauskas one of the biggest wild cards in the draft. The decision making scouts will have had a chance to see him the second half of this spring, but they won’t have the depth of looks and resume that Bukauskas’ new peer group, pitchers such as Grant Holmes, Touki Toussaint and Sean Reid-Foley, have established. It’s easy to imagine Bukauskas hearing his name called in the first half of the first round, but it wouldn’t be surprising to have to wait until the compensation round as well.

All it takes, as they say, is the one team that likes you the most.

BucsFan:

Examples from 2011 and earlier are no longer on point for players entering the draft.  Through 2011 the Commissioner's office's "slot value" numbers were advisory only -- though departing might draw the equivalent of a stern look, many teams came to realize that there was no real penalty and teams like the Yankees and Tigers discovered that they could get top talent despite not having top picks merely by being willing to promise a guy more money than the cellar-dwelling teams were willing to offer.

The current collective bargaining agreement went into effect for the 2012 draft, and since then, slotting is much more enforced, and the ability to pay big dollars to a later round draft pick has largely evaporated.  The risk with a player like JB is that you'd have to draft him early to have any hope of signing him.  But if you spend one of your early picks on a kid who ends up not signing, it hurts.  If it's your first round guy, you get a compensation pick in the following year, but not many organizations can afford to make a habit of throwing away their top picks on guys who don't sign.

Fair point, yes am aware of the slotting rules, generally. [Josh Bell got $5m and I know that would not be feasible today].