2019 MLB Draft Thread

[nsacpi]

I'd be interested to see someone walk through how passing money down to Day 3 is a good strategy. I've got a lot of nits to pick with that.

1. It's a thoroughly picked over talent pool.
2. There is not a very good track record of success here, even on over-slot deals.
3. These are guys that either do not project as very high round talents or who have priced themselves beyond what most teams consider appropriate for their talent level. There are perhaps a few exceptions here, but they figure to be relatively few. Your ability to sign more than 1 or 2 of those guys is probably very limited.

The thought process is that there is this pool of HS players who are sitting on scholarships but are not quite worth a 3rd or 4th round pick. So you take them after round 10 and go over slot with them. Obviously the team has to carefully analyze the yield from this demographic. The Braves have not done much of this themselves (Vodnik and Drury being two notable exceptions) so they would need to look at the yield from other teams adopting this strategy.

 

[ball4life32]

some guesses:

Langeliers signs for 4.5M (400K under slot)
Shumake signs for 2.6M (500K under slot)
Philip signs for 700K (500K under slot)


giving us 1.4M to play plus about 600K from exceeding pool by 5%. So 2M to play with.

Who might get that?

400K for the Italian stallion Paolini
200K for Kalich who has an extra year of eligibility (draft eligible sophomore)
200K for the Mormon kid who also has an extra year of eligibility
1.2M total for the 6 HS kids taken after round 10

Total over slot is 2M.

Cant forget Harris III.

 

[nsacpi]

Cant forget Harris III.

I think Harris will be near slot. You balance the fact he is a local kid who is apparently a yuge Braves fan with the fact he has a scholarship. But his situation is a hard one to peg. He is the one player who I think the odds are fairly even whether he goes over or under slot.

 

[jpx7]

This James Acuna guy proves how much power there is in the ñ.

 

[Southcack77]

The thought process is that there is this pool of HS players who are sitting on scholarships but are not quite worth a 3rd or 4th round pick. So you take them after round 10 and go over slot with them. Obviously the team has to carefully analyze the yield from this demographic. The Braves have not done much of this themselves (Vodnik and Drury being two notable exceptions) so they would need to look at the yield from other teams adopting this strategy.

Let's assume this random article I googled is more or less accurate as far as chances of succeeding in the majors. https://sabr.org/research/chances-drafted-baseball-player-making-major-leagues-quantitative-study

Let's put the guys who aren't quite worth a 3rd or 4th round pick down as 5th round talent (to be as charitable as possible) and make the assumption that players taken in the 5th round are more or less 5th round talents on average. You're looking at a 13-16% success rate of even making the majors.

Ok, that's not terrible. Certainly better than some categories of prospect.

But why aren't you drafting this guy in the fifth round at slot? Likely because he wants more than fifth round money. fifth round money slot averages around $350k and you start to see how it's not going to be very possible to sign a volume of these guys.


this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as a strategy, much as I might like to think the Braves are being smart.

 

[Southcack77]

I think Harris will be near slot. You balance the fact he is a local kid who is apparently a yuge Braves fan with the fact he has a scholarship. But his situation is a hard one to peg. He is the one player who I think the odds are fairly even whether he goes over or under slot.

I think Kalich is a good bet to go slot or below.

"Majoring in agricultural leadership and development and plans to become an engineer or pilot."

Lol.

 

[nsacpi]

Let's assume this random article I googled is more or less accurate as far as chances of succeeding in the majors. https://sabr.org/research/chances-drafted-baseball-player-making-major-leagues-quantitative-study

Let's put the guys who aren't quite worth a 3rd or 4th round pick down as 5th round talent (to be as charitable as possible) and make the assumption that players taken in the 5th round are more or less 5th round talents on average. You're looking at a 13-16% success rate of even making the majors.

Ok, that's not terrible. Certainly better than some categories of prospect.

But why aren't you drafting this guy in the fifth round at slot? Likely because he wants more than fifth round money. fifth round money slot averages around $350k and you start to see how it's not going to be very possible to sign a volume of these guys.


this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as a strategy, much as I might like to think the Braves are being smart.

Are we talking about the Italian stallion or the HS guys we took on day 3. I think those are fairly distinct situations.

 

[CJ9]

I think Kalich is a good bet to go slot or below.

"Majoring in agricultural leadership and development and plans to become an engineer or pilot."

Lol.

He’s a draft eligible sophomore though, so he’s got a little more leverage than a typical junior. I think Kalich will get around slot, maybe a hair more.

 

[Southcack77]

He’s a draft eligible sophomore though, so he’s got a little more leverage than a typical junior. I think Kalich will get around slot, maybe a hair more.

Yeah, but things suggesting he might go slot:

1) he's already said he wants to sign
2) he has a major in agriculture, but says he wants to be an engineer...or a pilot .... (or an astronaut, fireman, brain surgeon?) when he grows up.
3) He's a reliever.

I know you said you follow Florida baseball earlier in the thread, so I'm sure you've seen guys that don't picture themselves as ever being big bonus babies who just want to get on with it. I think there is a decent chance he is one.

 

[Southcack77]

Are we talking about the Italian stallion or the HS guys we took on day 3. I think those are fairly distinct situations.

I don't know why we'd be talking about anyone other than a Day 3 guy.

I don't guess it's going to be productive discussion.

 

[BeanieAntics]

I think we may have to go a little over slot to get Cody Milligan. He was a pretty firm commitment to USM before going in the 9th and he was really looking forward to coming here because he was going to basically be handed our starting catcher role.

I'm not sure if 150k is going to be enough to pull him from USM, but I could be wrong.

Also, I was pretty sour on our first three picks and I still am, but I kinda like some of the guys we took in rounds 3-10. Paolini looks much better than I initially anticipated when I heard we drafted him, I think Harris is gonna be a really good pick, I love the Devito pick, and I love the Parker pick.

I don't love the strategy that we employed, but I have to admit that some of those mid rounders are better than I initially though.

 

[Deester11]

I think we may have to go a little over slot to get Cody Milligan. He was a pretty firm commitment to USM before going in the 9th and he was really looking forward to coming here because he was going to basically be handed our starting catcher role.

I'm not sure if 150k is going to be enough to pull him from USM, but I could be wrong.

Also, I was pretty sour on our first three picks and I still am, but I kinda like some of the guys we took in rounds 3-10. Paolini looks much better than I initially anticipated when I heard we drafted him, I think Harris is gonna be a really good pick, I love the Devito pick, and I love the Parker pick.

I don't love the strategy that we employed, but I have to admit that some of those mid rounders are better than I initially though.

I'm in this camp. Nice thoughts.

 

[nsacpi]

I don't know why we'd be talking about anyone other than a Day 3 guy.

I don't guess it's going to be productive discussion.

To answer the question you raised. We have but one 5th round pick

For the day 3 picks, we pad the bonus a bit and get a half dozen more players who are also approximately 5th round talent. We are talking making very low yielding picks slightly less low yielding. If you get one more major leaguer out of those 6 HS players we took on day 3 its a successful strategy.

 

[mqt]

This James Acuna guy proves how much power there is in the ñ.

James Acuña*

 

[rico43]

Braves' complete draft posted on tacked thread above.

 

[thethe]

Approach is interesting. Almost similar to not signing any big international FA but spending 50-100k on a bunch of guys. Never know how teenagers will develop.

 

[Jay212033]

Approach is interesting. Almost similar to not signing any big international FA but spending 50-100k on a bunch of guys. Never know how teenagers will develop.

Has anything developed yet since then? I don't think anything is gonna develop out of this draft either unfortunately

 

[Super]

Has anything developed yet since then? I don't think anything is gonna develop out of this draft either unfortunately

cool man

 

[50PoundHead]

I'd be interested to see someone walk through how passing money down to Day 3 is a good strategy. I've got a lot of nits to pick with that.

1. It's a thoroughly picked over talent pool.
2. There is not a very good track record of success here, even on over-slot deals.
3. These are guys that either do not project as very high round talents or who have priced themselves beyond what most teams consider appropriate for their talent level. There are perhaps a few exceptions here, but they figure to be relatively few. Your ability to sign more than 1 or 2 of those guys is probably very limited.

If a guy is considered a challenge to sign in the first ten rounds, you lose that money from your bonus pool. It doesn't make much difference in the first couple of rounds, where teams usually will meet the contract demands of a high-profile high school player. But when you get to mid-to-late second day, the slot allowance becomes limited and signing guys who have an option gets a little dicier. Rather than lose the pool money, you are likely to draft guys in that range that you are reasonably assured of signing regardless of talent. Take what's left over after the first ten rounds and load up on a couple of Day 3 guys.

 

[Southcack77]

If a guy is considered a challenge to sign in the first ten rounds, you lose that money from your bonus pool. It doesn't make much difference in the first couple of rounds, where teams usually will meet the contract demands of a high-profile high school player. But when you get to mid-to-late second day, the slot allowance becomes limited and signing guys who have an option gets a little dicier. Rather than lose the pool money, you are likely to draft guys in that range that you are reasonably assured of signing regardless of talent. Take what's left over after the first ten rounds and load up on a couple of Day 3 guys.

Perhaps a couple.