Draft Stuff
With less than two weeks before the draft kicks off (day one begins Tuesday, June 9th), we’ll start increasing our draft coverage. Today, we’ll start by featuring some of the content from the main folks covering the draft.
Baseball America unveiled their Top 100 today, and they’ll be releasing numbers 101-200 tomorrow. The top 100 rankings are available for everyone, while the scouting reports are subscriber only. If you’re at all interested in minor league/draft coverage, BA is worth the money. Plus, supporting them gives them additional revenue to give Conor Glassey a big raise.
Keith Law has a Top 100 and a first round projection, both of which are only available to ESPN Insider subscribers. The draft blog that Keith and Jason Churchill have been running is very good, including tons of video of these guys so you can see them for yourselves.
Finally, MLB.com has a ton of draft reports from the major league scouting bureau, including video. The content/price ratio is unbeatable, but the reports are more geared towards the player’s skills, so you won’t get any of the rumors attaching players to teams or projecting who goes where.
For those who don’t want to be bothered to do research themselves and just want a summary, here’s the Mariner-centric thoughts as of today.
Washington is not passing on Strasburg. Don’t bother hoping.
Pretty much everyone agrees that Dustin Ackley represents the next best risk/reward package in the draft after Strasburg. There are some high school pitchers that theoretically have higher ceilings, but none of them have established themselves as genuine phenoms whose upside can overcome the tremendous risk with drafting an 18-year-old arm. Despite the talk that the draft is unpredictable after #1, pretty much everyone agrees that Ackley is the logical choice at #2. Left-handed, high on base percentage line drive hitter, won’t need much time in the minors – he fits the M’s needs almost perfectly.
Trying to project names for the #27 and #33 picks is next to impossible, given the uncertainty over how the first round will play out. However, smart money is on college pitching. The M’s have basically nothing in terms of upper level starting pitching prospects, and this is a deep draft for college arms. There are lots of scenarios where the M’s could end up with a guy like Rex Brothers at #27, and it’s not very often that you can peg a college lefty starter who throws 96 at the end of the first round. Especially if the team takes Ackley at #2, I’d imagine they focus on pitching at #27 and #33.
Oh, and MLB is slashing the bonus recommendations again, trying to force an across the board 10% cut in signing bonuses. It’s not going to work, and will instead just lead to approximately no one signing before the deadline on August 15th. I love baseball, but MLB does a lot of stupid stuff.
And even if it did, catchers are a positional scarcity throughout the whole league. A catcher who hits as well as a left fielder is a better talent.
Again, as with Morrow, the fact that the M’s player development wasn’t able to keep Clement at his most valuable position (or else that their scouting wasn’t able to project he wouldn’t stick there) is a much bigger problem than draft philosophy.
Well, I wouldn’t be too quick on pulling that trigger. It depends on what OF spot Ackley might play, and how well he’d play it. If he could stick as an average defensive CF, or an above average Corner OF, then he’d have to be an above average defensive 2B to make it worth it. On the other hand, if he’s going to be an average corner OF, then making an average 2B out of him would be an improvement.
I’m assuming that part of him being so high on the list is that he’s projecting as a CF or a plus corner OF. So we should probably keep him there unless he proves he can’t do it.
Bryan Price claims the D’backs had Scherzer, Hochevar & Morrow as their top three.
I am not sure if you were responding to me. I was responding to someone else who said the M’s should let Ackley learn 2nd even if it meant him spending another year in the minors because we don’t “need” outfielders.
My point was simply that it’s not like the M’s are overflowing with superstar outfielders. If the kid can play CF and he hits the way his is projected, the M’s definitely have room for him in the OF.
Right. I figured both Lincecum and Miller would be off the board, and they’d choose between Scherzer and Kershaw, and a few others (in addition to, of course, Morrow). You kept telling me “Morrow, if he’s around” as did others. And I kept saying “NOOOOO! I don’t like Morrow. Too much talk of being a RP.” As well as anyone you know how much I hated that pick at the time, and not just because he wasn’t Miller or that other guy.
You can dismiss Keith Law all you want, but he’s considered an expert w/r/t the draft. Baseball America and Keith Law disagreed that Morrow was a top-10 talent. That’s not a consensus.
That’s all I’m saying. It’s probably picking nits, and maybe Morrow isn’t a clear-cut example. All I’m saying is that there’s certainly some data to suggest that the person in charge of the draft for the M’s has shown some tendency to not necessarily pick the best-available-talent (as viewed by respected experts in evaluation). We can argue all we want w/r/t who’s REALLY an expert in terms of ranking and evaluating draft candidates, and certainly it’s ultimately the job of MLB front office staff.
Keith was an outlier. Everyone else had Morrow as a top ten guy.
I know you don’t like Fontaine, but he did a good job for us, and 90% of the stuff you believe about him isn’t true.
And even if it did, catchers are a positional scarcity throughout the whole league. A catcher who hits as well as a left fielder is a better talent.
That’s more or less what I was alluding to, yes.
You can dismiss Keith Law all you want, but he’s considered an expert w/r/t the draft. Baseball America and Keith Law disagreed that Morrow was a top-10 talent. That’s not a consensus.
I’m not dismissing him, but a) it doesn’t change the fact that he was a long way from covering himself in glory in evaluating that draft, and b) “not a consensus” is a long way from any sort of stable foundation for declaring Morrow not the best available choice available to the M’s at the time.
And as for moving Ackley to 2B, it seems to me that the only reason you’d want to do that is if he has arm problems trying to make the throws from the outfield. If you have to move him in, then by all means, move him to the keystone, since he’d be a lot more valuable there than at 1B; otherwise, he has the speed and (as far as I can tell) everything else to be a good centerfielder, and whether it makes intuitive sense to you (or me) or not, it seems to be pretty well established that a good CF is more valuable than a good 2B.
I’ve never said I don’t like Fontaine.
In trying to play devil’s advocate a little bit, I’ve wondered if he’s overrated, and questioned many, if not all of his decisions. Fontaine is probably the best talent evaluator the M’s have ever had, prior to this current administration. I happen to think Zduriencik himself is a better talent evaluator than Fontaine, but by no means do I dislike Fontaine. I’m frustrated by some of his decisions, but he’s definitely one of the better scouting directors out there. He’s just not perfect, and his decisions have not all been correct.
If he does that, don’t you MAKE room for him???
He’s just not perfect, and his decisions have not all been correct.
Jack Zduriencik drafted Mark Rogers. You make enough picks, you’re going to get a few lemons. That’s why you evaluate process, not results. Bob’s processes were fine.
Again, as with Morrow, the fact that the M’s player development wasn’t able to keep Clement at his most valuable position (or else that their scouting wasn’t able to project he wouldn’t stick there) is a much bigger problem than draft philosophy.
I think it’s a bit of an overreaction to blame Mariner player development processes for Clement’s knee (which is really what’s going to drive him off of C).
I’m not thrilled that the M’s drafts have netted three relievers and a gimpy 1B myself, but that’s evaluating results in hindsight as opposed to process at the time the decision was made, as Dave points out.
“but that’s evaluating results in hindsight as opposed to process at the time the decision was made, as Dave points out.”
I think that’s true, but we may need to define terms here… what does ‘process’ mean in this context? We’re talking about the draft, and 99% of people would agree that, especially in the first round, the process is supposed to be about determining who the best baseball players are.
I’m not trying to bash Fontaine (or Z, or anyone) – I’d just like to know what we mean when we say the ‘process’ under Fontaine was great. Mix of HS/College? Arms/bats? Fewest WTF? picks?
“Bob’s processes were fine”
Any process that leads a team to take a relief pitcher (who held out for over slot money) with 20th overall selection doesn’t seem fine to me.
Dave, I read Gammons’ article from a couple weeks back about Ackley possibly moving to second base.
Is that realistic? How long would a huge position-change like that take?
…If so, that would seemingly be a huge deal for the M’s. No need to rosterbate, but that would help things in terms of getting enough lefties in the line-up.
“Any process that leads a team to take a relief pitcher (who held out for over slot money) with 20th overall selection doesn’t seem fine to me.”
They thought they’d be trading JJ, which was accurate. Also, he drafted Adam Jones for gosh sake.
Pete: nope — Fontaine’s first draft was 2004, and his first pick for the M’s was Matt Tuiasosopo. Jones was drafted the year before.