BRAVES FINAL DRAFT SIGNING BOARD: Backstrom on board!

Perfect Game also assigns a numerical grade to high school kids that they believe they have viewed enough on the showcase to grade. A grade of 10 equals a potential high draft pick and/or elite level college recruit. Grissom, Owens, and Backstrom all score 10. Morton scores a 9.5. 9 is a potential high draft pick and/or high level college recruit.
 
Southcack77 said:
Thing to remember is these guys on day 3 that people get excited about?

They’re just high upside players in the context of day 3. Not high upside overall for the draft.

They don’t save the draft in any way. How braves fared on first two days and mostly day 1 is probably how this draft will go.
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This is not true. Many of these guys would likely go on to college and become more complete players before a much higher likely draft slot comes along in 2-3 years. We just had the money to make some of these no chance signs stop and think about it thanks to the first couple rounds. And thus far many of them have seemingly made the choice to sign. Now we control how they develop.
 
Southcack77 said:
Thing to remember is these guys on day 3 that people get excited about?

They’re just high upside players in the context of day 3. Not high upside overall for the draft.

They don’t save the draft in any way. How braves fared on first two days and mostly day 1 is probably how this draft will go.
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Braves' previous Day 3 guys include...

Victor Vodnik
C. J. Alexander
Trey Harris
Tucker Davidson
Corbin Clouse
Evan Phillips

Of course you're going to hit fewer homeruns in the later rounds, but our scouts have done a pretty good job finding "hidden values". With money to spend on some of those kinds of kids, I don't think one can conclude that Day 3 picks can't "save a draft in any way" - based on the limited information we've seen so far, adding a handful of the high-upside kids we took late certainly could go a long way.

Not long before this draft started, there were mentions that the Braves were picking 9th in a 6-7 player draft - those Day 3 picks MIGHT (long way to go, sure) be the saving grace and make this a very good draft since Langeliers, Shewmake, and Harris look to be picks with a pretty good chance of being relatively successful ones. If nothing else, Langeliers and Shewmake look like they could be ready as cheap replacements for Mac and Camargo/Culberson fairly quickly. How nice would it be for AA to step out and add Grandal with the money earmarked for Flowers and Markakis' extensions and Mac coming off the books this winter?
 
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Gattis is the most notable recent Braves pick after the 10th round. Before that there was Adam LaRoche. It is rare to get an impact player from those rounds.

Brandon Beachy should be mentioned as a NDFA.
 
nsacpi said:
Gattis is the most notable recent Braves pick after the 10th round. Before that there was Adam LaRoche. It is rare to get an impact player from those rounds.

Brandon Beachy should be mentioned as a NDFA.
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This excludes guys drafted in those rounds that didnt sign. When was Rendon drafted by the Braves?
 
For the purposes of evaluating a draft it doesn't make sense to include players who didn't sign.
 
nsacpi said:
For the purposes of evaluating a draft it doesn't make sense to include players who didn't sign.
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sure, but i think the point is that this draft doesn't really compare. because a lot of guys from those rounds look like they'll be signing. so it's kind of apples to oranges, usually the higher-ceiling guys from those rounds don't sign. but if they do because the Braves have money to get a lot of them done, it could change the hit-rate for those rounds significantly.
 
zbhargrove said:
This is not true. Many of these guys would likely go on to college and become more complete players before a much higher likely draft slot comes along in 2-3 years. We just had the money to make some of these no chance signs stop and think about it thanks to the first couple rounds. And thus far many of them have seemingly made the choice to sign. Now we control how they develop.
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Any prospect that doesn't sign can theoretically go to school and improve their draft stock. Of course, that's something that could happen.

MLB is pretty good collectively at identifying the best players who will sign in a given year. Teams have no incentive at all not to draft the best of these guys until after the 11th round. If someone is being taken there, you can pretty well bank the fact that there are major flaws or major development that has to take place before these guys are prospects.

Guys like this beat the odds all the time, but it's a small percentage of the entire population of them.

I don't think it makes sense to forgo talent at the top of the draft to make a volume of the best small (bad) bets late. Even the best of the bad bets is a bad bet.

I don't know that the Braves did screw up the first two days. If they made the right picks there, then having all these small bets might make it great. But these small bets are very unlikely to make up for blowing the first two days.
 
It's difficult to compare drafting strategies prior to the bonus pool regulations and the system that is in place now. A lot of the relative longshots with college commitments used to be taken in the first ten rounds, but with the limitation on the bonus pools and the loss of pool allowance for failing to sign someone in the first ten rounds have pushed a number of these guys into day three. I think you have a valid point in that if these guys were all flawless players, they all would have been taken in the 11th round by someone.
 
Super said:
sure, but i think the point is that this draft doesn't really compare. because a lot of guys from those rounds look like they'll be signing. so it's kind of apples to oranges, usually the higher-ceiling guys from those rounds don't sign. but if they do because the Braves have money to get a lot of them done, it could change the hit-rate for those rounds significantly.
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We've signed higher ceiling HS players taken after round 10 in previous drafts to above slot bonuses. But it is clear we will be signing more this year and it was a bigger part of the overall draft strategy.
 
nsacpi said:
We've signed higher ceiling HS players taken after round 10 in previous drafts to above slot bonuses. But it is clear we will be signing more this year and it was a bigger part of the overall draft strategy.
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It has admittedly been iffy for the Braves under the new rules. I remember when the Braves took Alec Grosser and the scouting press was all over it as a great bet on a late blooming high-school prospect. I did a little digging and here is a list of the post-10th round guys I recall requiring an overslot bonus since the bonus pool rules took effect:

2012--Connor Lien
2013--Alec Grosser
2014--Doesn't look like any
2015--Jarret Hellinger
2016--Matt Rowland, Zach Becherer, and Tucker Davidson (add the misfire on the Josh Anthony botched deal)
2017--Drew Lugbauer
2018--Victor Vodnik

There may be others, but those are the ones I remember being reported at the time. It's not a particularly impressive crew, but the jury is still out on some of these guys.
 
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50PoundHead said:
It has admittedly been iffy for the Braves under the new rules. I remember when the Braves took Alec Grosser and the scouting press was all over it as a great bet on a late blooming high-school prospect. I did a little digging and here is a list of the guys I recall requiring an overslot bonus since the bonus pool rules took effect:

2012--Connor Lien
2013--Alec Grosser
2014--Doesn't look like any
2015--Jarret Hellinger
2016--Matt Rowland, Zach Becherer, and Tucker Davidson (add the misfire on the Josh Anthony botched deal)
2017--Drew Lugbauer
2018--Victor Vodnik

There may be others, but those are the ones I remember being reported at the time. It's not a particularly impressive crew, but the jury is still out on some of these guys.
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Also Keller in 2015 got a slightly larger bonus than the other guys taken after round 10. Fernelys Sanchez in 2012. I'm just looking at HS players. Seth Moranda and Jackson Lauman in 2011. Luis Gamez in 2014.
 
Brandon Drury is the best recent HS pick by the Braves after the 10th round. He was taken in the 13th round in 2010. Vodnik could end up being a gem.
 
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