Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Draft Update

Andy Seiler has a new mock draft up on his website mlbbonusbaby.com. This one has Austin Wilson falling to the Giants at #24 with the Giants ponying up a signing bonus big enough to keep him from going to Stanford. I would think I had died and gone to heaven if the Giants actually drafted and signed Austin Wilson, but i think it would be a risky move to draft him even at #24. From what I've read about him and his parents, I just don't see him passing up an opportunity to go to school at Stanford. He could easily be another Gerrit Cole who didn't even give the Yankees a chance to make an offer before deciding to attend UCLA.

PnR Scouting has their mid-season 201-300 prospect list up. A lot of the names are high schoolers, which I consider irrelevant in this range. Very few high school prospects are going to be drafted and signed in the round 6-10 range. The Giants draft at #198, 228, 258 and 288. Some of the recognizable names on the list:

204. Dan Grovatt, OF/LHP, Virginia. Has outplayed Jarrett Parker this year.

211. Matt Den Dekker, OF, Florida. Athletic senior OF. Has had a disappoinging college career.

214. Jake Thompson, RHP, Long Beach State. Reportedly great velocity. Inconsistent results.

219. Kevin Keyes, OF/1B, Texas. A big kid with a loud bat. His stock has dropped, but I would be very happy to see the Giants draft him in the 6'th or 7'th round.

252. Mario Hollands, LHP, UCSB. Big LHP with a low 90's FB. Would be a great pick in round 7.

259. Cory Vaughn, OF, San Diego State. Similar to Kevin Keyes, but more athletic. Might be able to play CF.

263. Matt Szczur, OF, Villanova. I absolutely love this guy. I doubt he is signable as he is the MVP running back on their football team. Would be a terrific draft and sign in round 7 or 8.

264. Zach Varce, RHP, Portland. The Giants have a Portland pitcher, Ari Ronick in their system. Varce is a sleeper. Would be a nice pick in round 8.

272. Phil Wunderlich, 3B/1B, Louisville. Kind of Chris Dominguez lite. Could be worth a flyer as a sleeper power hitter.

That's about it. No Rico Noel or Tim Ferguson. No Andrew Barbosa. Rico Noel after round 9 would be a huge bargain, IMO.

7 comments:

  1. Got a question about the dynamics of drafting HS and college players. As I understand the current rules, if a team drafts a player who then doesn't sign, the team gets to pick again at the same draft spot the following June. If that's so, mightn't it make some sense to take a flyer on a HS kid like Austin Wilson? If the team can't sign him, it could always draft a college player at the same slot the next year and actually be ahead of the development path. It would seem that the ability to make up not only the pick but to make up lost time would mitigate the risk of the kid not signing. Thoughts?

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  2. If he's the best talent available, I think the Giants go for it, and if not, they get another draft pick in 2011's draft at 25. If they win like I think they can in 2010, they will probably end up with another pick in the 26-31 range too.

    And if we're lucky, Molina will drop to be a Type B free agent and we can pick up another pick close in the supplemental. And/or Renteria could do well enough to be a Type B (he would have to do a lot more like his first 4 games than the games since :^).

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  3. We would need to offer Arb to Rent and Money to get the compensation for them, though... No thanks

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  4. Andy Seiler speculates it would take about 4 million to sign Wilson, which coincidentally is close to the 4.5 million the Giants had available for signing Wagner Mateo and Duaner Jones, as pointed out by a post on McCovey Chronicles, and which the poster had hoped would be put towards the June draft.
    If he is available, I would hate to see the Giants pass on him, and certainly 4 million is a very generous offer, perhaps commensurate with where Wilson might otherwise be drafted if he doesn't drop. Way too early to say of course, but the teams that pass on him may regret it like the teams that passed on Heyward.

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  5. calsnowskier, I think that if they are only Type B free agents they have a better chance of being signed before the arbitration deadline since it would not cost the signing team a first round draft pick.

    Remember, if Molina is a type B, he probably had a so-so year like last year, and he would probably sign sooner than later, because after last off-season experience, he knows he's not going to get a multi-year deal and after another so-so but OK year, a team might be willing to sign him sooner than later if they want to improve their team and particularly if they rely on their pitching.

    Renteria, on the other hand, would have to have a pretty good season to go with 2009's stinker to become a Type B free agent. That would show that he's over his physical problems, and there would be a team willing to sign him sooner than later, since he had a good season.

    That went into my thinking on that.

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  6. First of all, part of good scouting is figuring out how likely a player is to sign at all, and if so, approximately what his price will be.

    As for the compensatory pick in the next draft, if the team fails to sign that pick, they lose it entirely, so that essentially forces a signability pick or the player would have the whip hand in negotiations.

    It would be foolish for a team to draft a player who was a low probability of signing, but if the team thinks it has a reasonable chance then the compensation gives them some confidence to take that reasonable risk.

    If the Giants do their homework on Wilson and conclude that he is signable in the neighborhood of what they are willing to spend, then by all means, they should make him their pick.

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  7. Thanks, good info baseball junkie, that sounds exciting. $4M would be too much to pass up, even for a Stanford edumacation. Of course, it would also require the Giants to believe that Wilson is worth that too.

    I think the money will be available for the draft. After all those signings this off-season, plus the money that would have went to those Latin free agents, I think this is all part of Neukom's statement that Sabean should not worry about the money, that he should bring Neukom all his baseball moves, and Neukom would consider it even if the budget was gone.

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