None of the college guys, bring me a High Schooler. I'd take Buxton or Correa or Dahl over this year's top college players. It's a whole draft of 6th-pick guys, so I'm not trying to find a #1, I'm trying to find the right #6, and I'm particular in wanting a hitter.
Still, I think there's gonna be some gamesmanship about price and signability. Our entire draft pool this year is smaller than the contracts Hultzen or Ackley got to sign.
Our pool is $8.2 million for all 50 rounds. Last year we spent 9.85 mil on the first 10 rounds (Hultzen got 8.5 over 5 years, with a 6.5 signing bonus, maxing out at 10.6 mil if he hits accelerators for early arrival). We spent 11.3 million total, and were trying to spend more - Cron just wouldn't sign on the dotted line for the seven figures we pushed his way.
Can't do that any more. If you go 10% over (aka, all the way to 9 mil) then you lose a first and second round pick. You lose a first rounder for breaching by just 5%.
Our price is fixed, and nowhere near what the Astros and Twins are getting (11 and 12+ mil respectively).
So there may be bonuses that the teens want that they won't be getting. That shouldn't be a huge problem for us at #3, but it will be a problem when taking tough-signs later. I'm very curious to see how the draft plays out this year.
I do expect to take Correa. He's not A-Rod by ANY means, but he's got talent. Of course, we already paid 3 million (reduced to 1.1) for Martin Peguero to be basically the same sort of player.
I can see us going with an affordable first rounder, because if there are 6 guys who are about the same and one is a million dollars cheaper than the others then we'd have extra money to pick up somebody who drops in the draft for signability (ie, throw at the Younger Seager).
We'll see. It should be interesting.
~G
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=== What's Lame About 'Im? ===
There are a lot of people who question whether Correa will ever hit at the big league level, just because ... well, what do you know about him? Not much. ... it's not clear that Correa is doing anything more than Carlos Triunfel was doing at the same age. True, Correa is taller, more leveraged and has more projectable power.
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Correa is 6'4" with long legs, not a common body type for ML shortstop. SSI doesn't believe that there's anything inherently wrong with Cal Ripken ... it's like in the NFL, the 3-4 defense is fashionable for a while and then the 4-3 defense is fashionable for a while. It's more about whether there's a glut of big linemen, or a shortage of them...
Troy Tulowitzki is a pretty big kid who stuck at short recently, but he doesn't have a high waist. (Longer legs don't scamper as quickly.) Of course, ARod has a high waist.
Correa gets into an org with scouts who like Rafael Furcal-style waterbugs with cannons, Correa is going to get moved to third base. Has Correa demonstrated that his bat will carry the 3B position? I'm saying, demonstrated well enough to go 1-1 overall?
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High school players are tough for sabermetricians, period. You are going on zero numbers, and numbers -- track records, as to how well a player has performed - do not exist here.
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=== Dr. D's Vibe ===
Correa is a teenager, a high school middle infielder who may have to move off shortstop, a kid who very possibly may not hit in the majors, and that is a whale of a lot of question marks for a 1-1 pick. Remember, the idea with a #1 overall pick -- or a #3 overall, which here is the same thing, because of the 5-way tie -- is to get SURE return. Not POSSIBLE return with real high upside.
Suppose that Correa IS Nick Franklin, three years younger. Is that a #1 overall? Certainly it's a #10 in the first round. Is it a 1?
Some people think the comparisons to Alex Rodriguez are obvious. To me they're obvious, also: Carlos Correa is obviously not Alex Rodriguez. In 1993, nobody talked about Alex Rodriguez maybe going #7. One GM said that year, "Alex is going to hit .400 with 60 homers some day."
Me personally, I like Correa's chances to hit rising line drives from the shortstop position. I like them well enough to take him #10, that is.
This is an upside pick. If Jack Zduriencik and Tom McNamara say that this guy is Troy Tulowitzki, that he's going to stay at short and that he's the best teenage hitter they've seen in five years, great. I don't guess that they will.
Glausman or Zunino for me. If they're both gone, I hope Jay-Z has a 2012 Hultzen in his hip pocket. If not, I'm good with Appel.
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My $0.03,
Dr D
Comments
It's not chock-full of amazing talent at the top where you have to work hard to miss out on a contributor (thanks Bavasi...).
It's not even like 2004 (Verlander was a smash, Weaver is great, Stephen Drew dropped for signability, Butler is a useful hitter, and the rest of the first is a wash of meh players or busts). That was a "wow, position players are terrible, draft arms!" draft that only worked out for a couple of teams in the first. And I don't think this one is that either - though Pedroia and Pence were in that draft's 2nd round, so some people underestimated the hitting in their reach for arms. There's talent with arms and with bats, HS or college, but it's not heat-of-the-sun sort of talent.
It's kinda like 2003, and that's how I've been approaching it. The 2003 draft:
#1 - Delmon Young. Had everything...but never put it together. Buxton, perhaps.
#2 - Rickie Weeks, a college kid with worlds of talent at a glove position. Zunino?
#3 to 6 - college arms and HS bats that don't work out.
#7 - Markaikis, a JC kid with a well-rounded game but nothing extra special. (Dahl, lol)
Then a HS and a college arm who are contributors, a college SS who fell because he probably had a lower ceiling and has turned out great (Marrero-ish), couple more pitchers, a clubbing OF with a low average and a HS catcher, some dude named Jones who some felt was more a pitcher than a CFer but has done pretty well for himself...
It was a bunch of decent contributors, no world-killers but more than a handful of nice pieces.
It feels like 2012 to me. Don't go looking for a 1-1 A-Rod because he's not there. You just want a guy who can get on a field and help you out. So if I'm Jack it's a player who can man a glove position (C, SS, CF...so there's several options there) and isn't all tools.
Jack showed he wasn't greedy last year, when he took "safe" Hultzen over "risky" Bauer. And while Bauer has been outstanding, Hultzen is doing just fine. Jack understands that these drafts aren't about impressing draftniks, they're about getting guaranteed future contributors into the organization.
Which means Jack with take Giolito as the highest-upside, big-risk player and call it a day.
He hates being predictable.
~G
Agreed, Doc.
As a change-up artist with easy velo, Gausman is intruiging. Having made a change his weapon of choice suggests to me that Gausman is willing to have that conversation with the hitter that League and others are not - the change is a pitch more dependent on the pitcher's understanding of what the batter is trying to do, no?
Zunino's competent defense and leadership from the C might make him too valuable to THIS org to pass on. The M's lack a leader and a "pure" catcher, right now. Zunino could fill both needs. Also, Zunino as an SEC star, shares a baseball culture with several of the M's other important players in Ackley, Smoak, Seager, Hultzen, and Paxton (maybe).
Zunino to form killer tandem with Montero or add Gausman to the pitching pile...
I like the creative thinking G ... if you *are* going to accept the lack of a 1-1 commodity then it makes a lot of sense to play the pick as though it were a #10 overall.... this paradigm had not occurred to me.
Do you visualize Correa as having the magic sparkle dust with the bat, that you see him as an ML impact bat and if so, why do you think so?
that idea has a lot of traction here.
You see Zunino and Glausman as reaches?
When he's amp'ed up, tight muscles, trying to go yard, the pitcher pulls the string ... when the batter isn't 100% aggressive you can stick the fastball in his gut and, late on the pitch, he isn't going to hurt you going the other way.
Very perceptive comment IMHO. Glausman does give that vibe like he tries to think out there, as opposed to Mark Appel.
And see where the pieces stack up.
2005 - Are Zunino or Glausman 1-1 guys in a draft with Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Tulo, Braun, Zimmerman, Maybin, Romero, McCutcheon... That draft was STACKED. Maybe it's not a fair comparison, but you'd be hoping they could be like Jay Bruce.
2006 - The "I'm smarter than you about pitchers" draft. One real hitter, a bunch of over-rated arms who could throw hard (see Appel, Glausman in place of Hochevar and Miller), and some gems among the lesser top-tier arms. What do you mean we didn't draft Lincecum? No way are the college arms this year rated as highly as they were that year, though Zunino would get some run to be a top-5 pick.
2007 - Top-tier players in every category. Amazing college arm, HS arm, college bat and HS bat. Everyone else is a non-factor so far, but there are still HS kids working on their first real time in the bigs now. Could this be the case with Glausman, Giolito, Zunino (instead of Wieters) and Buxton? Absolutely. This is a draft where Zunino and Glausman would fit in, except neither is better than Price or Wieters was believed to be at the time, nor Moustakas. They're still not 1-1 players, and any of those three guys would go 1-1 in this draft. Vitters might too, but that's not an endorsement of Vitters or the raw talent of this class.
2008 - Here you go. A muddled draft order, a great college catcher and raw HS hitter but no clear 1-1. This draft had a lot of depth to it (or it was viewed that way at the time) and a lot of serious power hitters, most at 1B. This class had way more college hitters in it than the 2012 class does, but the lack of pitching would make room for Appel or Glausman near the top.
2009 - Strasburg and Ackley are head and shoulders over everybody, but Zunino and Glausman could fight for #3, right? Zunino actually feels very much like Tony Sanchez (#4) to me. Feel free to lose your lunch over that comp any time, because if that was our #3 this year we'd feel pretty gypped.
Seriously, in what draft do you go "Zunino is better than everyone else"? If you say that about this draft, then that speaks to the uncertainly of this class.
I would absolutely aim for "Jay Bruce / Billy Butler / Carlos Quentin" types. Does that mean we should go for an arm instead and hope for them to jump plateaus?
If we do, then I hope it's Giolito so that we take our time with him and do it right, instead of rushing one of the college arms through the system - I don't believe any of them are up for that.
There will be impact players from this draft, but I'm leery of only looking at the Top-5-rated players and limiting our choices to them, because it feels very much like a talent plateau this year and not a steep peak. Maybe I'm not giving Appel or Glausman their due as top-flight arms, or Zunino the same credit I gave Posey, but it's how I feel. Buxton vs. Dahl vs. Almora is more preference than staggering talent discrepancy. Appel and Glausman would go some place after 10 last year, some time around Jungmann, certainly after Archie Bradley at 7.
Stop squinting and trying to find a HOFer in the fun-house mirror and just get a quality player. Dreaming of Zunino being Posey (or Alomar, or Santiago) instead of Sanchez could be disastrous, IMO.
~G
so you're looking at talents 5-10 on your board and sifting them, which is why I have no problem still promoting Dahl even though he'll likely go 15th or so.
I don't view Correa as having magic sparkle dust, no. I'm okay with his bat but not massively enthused yet, although he looks better than last year and I hear a lot of raving about his progress and future potential. He's got work to do, but so do most high school kids.
He's 18 and I don't think he's as good as Manny Machado (who was 17 when he was drafted 3rd in 2010). Machado has yet to demonstrate power, but he's 19 in AA - he's rocketing up the ladder. He takes walks, he should last at SS defensively, and he looks like a Rickie Weeks sort of player except moved over one slot on the field. Manny's as tall as Correa, so as he fills out and isn't the youngest player in every league he plays in he should add some extra base hits.
Correa's got the same sort of skills - but I'm actually afraid he'll be more like his fellow countryman Christian Colon, drafted right after Machado but not in his class at this point. Not the worst thing, but just "a blue-chip prospect" and not a world-killer by any stretch. I see him as possessing a good bat for a MIF but not a good bat for a MOTO. Isn't that what we want/see from Franklin?
The reason I'm all over Dahl is that he's had injuries masking his talent level. Maybe the injuries themselves should be a warning that he's not gonna hold up over a 162 game season, but when a guy fractures vertabrae (lifting weights) then gets mono before playing for Team USA and still looks like the best player on the field, it makes me believe his ceiling is not as limited as it's being portrayed.
Add in the near-perfect Josh Hamilton swing and his raw coaching situation, as well as his hungry baseball rat personality, and I'm good with him.
But again, that's because I feel like picking 3rd in this draft is like picking 6th in a more top-heavy draft, and 12th or so in 2005. In the right light, Correa could be viewed as a future MOTO star like Tulo. I just haven't seen him in that light yet.
If Jack does, I'll trust him, but that's not where I have him. The two MOTO-potential young bats for me are Buxton and Dahl, and I only think one of them will get to us. I remember Jack drafting Fielder "too early" and feeling pretty good about that pick later.
Don't think it'll happen again though, and I'll have to start looking for more positives on Correa than "interesting mix of Miller and Franklin" with my number 3 pick.
~G