Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 465: How Draft Day One Went Down

Episode Date: June 6, 2014

Ben and Sam talk to Nick J. Faleris about the best values and most surprising picks on the first day of the amateur draft.

I don't want to get drafted, I don't want to go I don't want to get drafted I don't want to get drafted, I don't want to go I don't want to get drafted, no, no, no Good morning and welcome to episode 465 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller.

And as promised, we have brought back BP's draft expert, amateur prospect expert, Nick Folaris. Did we promise that? I don't remember you promising that. We strongly suggested that it was a possibility. So we have followed through on that strong suggestion. Of course, the first couple rounds of the draft are now complete. The day before the draft, of course, all of this is abstract. You might not want to get too invested in any one player who might not end up going to your team. But now those of you who root for

particular teams have a personal stake in these players. So things got real. So now you probably want to know about the players that your team selected or didn't select. And we'll get into that now. Before we begin, let me throw something out there. You know, we talk all the time about the futility of mock drafts and how impossible it is to predict who will be picked where. Is it possible that all this time the problem with mock drafts is that I haven't been doing them? Because at the tail end of yesterday's episode, I just, I parachuted into the rumor mill. I gave you all the straight draft dope with my hot Kyle Schwarber to the Cubs pick.

Then I dropped the mic or I guess more accurately, I carefully removed the mic from my desk so that I could fit my keyboard back onto it. And then 18 or so hours later, when it came time to pick fourth overall, Kyle Schwarber's name was called by the Cubs. All I'm saying is it is possible that I am a mock draft prodigy. Unfortunately, we'll never find out because in order to preserve my perfect record, I will refrain from making any future draft predictions. But I guess we could start with Schwarber because he was a guy who was not quite that high on most mock drafts. And as we talked about yesterday, there wasn't a whole lot of separation between many of the guys after the top few.

So it's not shocking that he went where he did. But tell us a little bit about him because, of course, there's always a ton of interest in Cubs prospects. And they're a system that already was regarded to be sort of skewed towards position players perhaps. And now they've added another. And so what does that do to their system also? So tell us about him and tell us about the implications for the Cubs. Yeah. So this was a, you know, the Cubs might've been the most interesting team today for a number of reasons. Schwarber is, you is, to my mind, the best overall college bat in the draft. He's got plus-to-plus-plus raw power, primarily at the pole side,

but he's strong enough to hit at opposite field. He's a left-handed bat. He can hit for average. One thing that I absolutely loved about him um his advanced splits if you break it down uh he actually hit uh his best on friday nights which is when he would generally be playing against uh you know matching up against the ace of the other team um hit well with wood last year with team usa uh you know he's got an advanced feel for the strike zone he handles the barrel well i mean this is really just a pure hitter uh you know if he's got an advanced feel for the strike zone. He handles the barrel. Well, I mean, this is really just a pure hitter.

Uh, you know, if you look at the cub system, he fits in well with some of their other, you know, corner power bats. And the first thing I, well, the two things I thought when they picked here, um, the first thing that jumped out is, uh, I'd be shocked if he, if they weren't saving at least a million dollars on their slot allotment signing him, he didn't have a clear cut home. Um, so when you talk about the fourth overall slot, he could have fallen, for all we know, to the mid-first round. There should be some savings there for the Cubs.

So that was my first thought, is they're banking a little bit of money with this pick to maybe spend on an over-slot guy. The second thought was Schwarber's really a first baseman and if he were drafted to an al team he might be limited to dh long term this looks to me like you know the cubs may be thinking and it's something that we've talked about on the bp prospect team that this offseason that you know it might make sense to package some of that excess corner power they have in their system to try and get a young, cost-controlled arm,

rather than having to go out and buy one or two on the free agency market. They can put a couple together and go out and go after maybe even someone like David Price and then extend them. That's an option that they'll have. So those are two things I thought were very interesting with the Cubs' first pick. And then it got even more interesting because their second round pick uh which is one of mike farren's favorite players in the draft was jake's the net from maryland he's a senior um you know he fits well in the second round from a talent standpoint you know he gets his fastball up to the mid 90s good, good life, good slider, throws the ball well, comes out

of his hand well, fills up the strike zone. Change-up is a bit rudimentary. He's going to have to develop it a little more. But that's a guy who has absolutely no leverage, and you'd expect him to go to a team that's looking to save money. So all of a sudden, as soon as that happened, I started texting immediately with scouts trying to figure out what was going on, because that was two picks where it looks to me like they could save a fair amount of money and uh no one that i was texting with could figure out what they were saving the

money for because they didn't you know they weren't going to pick again for another i think 33 picks and uh you know the the first thought that that a couple people came back with was Monte Harrison, who's an outfielder from Lee's Summit, Missouri. He's a multi-sport player, Nebraska commit, and had a $2.5 million price tag supposedly. So that would make some sense. But when that name was tossed out to me, I thought, there are too many teams that have extra money that could pop them in the next 36.

I'd be surprised if you're not that one. I mean, can you plan teams that have extra money that could pop them in the next 30 picks. I'd be surprised if you're not. I mean, can you plan for that sort of thing? Like, you know, determine your first couple picks based on one guy who might very well not be there when it's your turn to pick again? Well, absolutely. And I think we talked about that a little bit yesterday, that that's part of the problem with some of this gamesmanship. It's not just a matter of freeing up the money. You've got to be able to have the opportunity, and you've got to be relatively confident that you're going to be able to implement that plan

because what happens when your next pick comes around, and let's say you had two or three guys you wanted to spend on it, if you were beaten to the punch, now you've just got a bunch of money you're sitting on. So it'll be interesting to see what the Cubs do with their third-round pick tomorrow. There are a couple of signability guys that they could certainly make a run at with that extra money. Keith Weisenberg, a Stanford commit. He's a Florida high school pitcher. Jackson Reach is another Nebraska commit.

He's a Nebraska catcher, really toolsy guy, played with the USA Olympic team. I'm sorry, not the, the 18th international team. You know, so, I mean, there are guys out there. Dylan Seas, another Georgia high school right-hander. But it just seems odd. I mean, it seems like a lot of savings for, you know, probably limited options by the time they're picking tomorrow. And you still have the Marlins and the Astros who have extra money picking ahead of you.

So you could have two or three more overslide guys off the board before the Cubs even get to pick tomorrow. Well, you just answered my question. I was going to ask if there are any other teams that look as though they have slot savings in their early picks, are there any others besides the Astros and the Marlins? And with the Astros and the Marlins, do you get the sense that it's deliberate in the way that they picked, or is it just that with this draft class it's hard to spend the number one and number two slots with any of the guys who are available? Well, that's it. So if you break down the bonus pool allotments in the aggregate,

the Astros and the Marlins are leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else. They're at like $13 or $14 million total, and then I think after that it drops down to like $10 million. And then the average is somewhere around $5 million. So, I mean, they've got just an inordinate amount of money compared to almost everyone else. Now, they're going to spend some of that. I mean, Brady Aiken isn't going to be cheap.

He's going to be a $5.56 million guy. But they've got money to spend. So if there are some of those overslide guys hanging around out there that are actually willing to sign, even if it's a $2 million price tag, over slot guys hanging around out there that are actually willing to sign, even if it's a $2 million price tag, you know, I can't imagine the Astros and the Marlins are going to let those guys go around to, to round four. They're going to be pretty aggressive tomorrow. I mean, right now,

teams are on the phone with advisors and with, with players trying to gauge their signability, trying to gauge their numbers and come up with a game plan tomorrow. So, you know, you guys had to jump on and do a podcast right away. Everyone else is, is back to work. And as to work, especially the teams that are drafting early tomorrow and have a little bit of extra money. So it starts up again, I think, at 12.30 tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be really interesting, the first 10 picks, especially out of the sheet there.

And so we skipped over the first few guys to get to Schwerber, but, you know, the Astros took Aitken first overall. We discussed him at length yesterday. Kolek went to the Marlins second, and Rodan ended up going to the White Sox third. And I suppose on most of the mock drafts, those two teams were reversed, right? Most people seemed to have Rodan going to the Marlins, if not Alex Jackson, and then Chicago going with Kolek. So that was a slight surprise, I suppose. But talent-wise, maybe not a particularly big difference as far as the evaluations of those two pitchers go.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think that both picks make sense. I had Aitken and Rodan as my top two talents i had had larger issues with colic just from the risk profile but i wholly understand you know investing in them at the top of the draft and uh you know it'll be really really interesting to see what the marlins dev staff does with them because they they work well with power arms this is a guy who hasn't really been exposed to advanced coaching. So, I mean, they've got just a great starter kit here for a big power arm

that they could eventually slot into the front of rotation. So it'll be really interesting to watch Kolik progress over the next couple years and see how he takes the pro instruction and basically making baseball part of his everyday life. And should we assume then that these guys, Aitken or Kolick or Rudon, anyone who goes this early, should we assume that there's some sort of deal in place or that the team and the player understand a basic framework of a deal? Is there anyone who might go down to the wire or might even return to school?

Who is the first player picked who comes with some serious signability concerns? I think for the most part, the guys that came off the board today in general, but certainly in the early part of the first round, are going to be signable. As for when they sign, that really depends on their appetite for playing hardball. I mean, if you look at someone like Kevin Gaussman, who the Orioles drafted a couple years ago, he really got great advice from his advisors. They were able to sort of wait out the process to the point where Baltimore had signed almost all of their picks, and they had a couple of overslot picks that they were in talks with,

but essentially it came down to, you know, Gossman putting the Orioles on the spot and saying, look, we know you have this much money left over. You can go this much over your pool allotment without losing a draft pick, and this is the number I want to sign. And so he was a sophomore, a draft-eligible sophomore that had a little bit of leverage, and just he and his advisor played the system very, very well. And he ended up, I think, he was one of the few people who got an overslot bonus in the top 10 picks that year.

And that was a matter of waiting out the process and putting pressure on Baltimore at the right time. So, you know, you may see that from some of these guys up top. There's no one that jumps out to me as being likely not to sign or a risk not to sign. that jumps out to me is being likely not to sign or a risk not to sign. All indications are Jeff Hoffman wants to sign and get started with his rehab. The Blue Jays save money with Max Pentecost at 11, I'm sure at least a little bit of money, which they'll turn around and then probably spend on Sean Reed Foley,

who they ended up getting a great value later on this evening. And I had heard his price tag might be up north of two million dollars he had a florida a commitment to florida state and uh so that's someone who you know i guess that type of pick you'll see how the talks go but i have to imagine the blue jays picked him you know comfortable with his number or comfortable they could reach an agreement with him um so i think you know as far as first round is, there's no one really that jumps out as being surprising. Well, I guess there were some surprises later on in the first round like Cole Tucker, but no one that looks like they'll be a difficult sign. So you mentioned Hoffman.

Hoffman went very high, not as high as he would have gone if he hadn't had Tommy John. Eric Fetty went very high, not quite as high as he would have gone if he hadn't had Tommy John. And it seems like teams are able to basically price this risk into what they want to do with their pick. You talked yesterday about how you basically put a dollar sign on each one of these guys. What does it knock off when a guy has Tommy John? How much did Hoffman's dollar value, dollar figure change on your sheet when he had the injury? And do you get the sense that teams, is there pretty much a consensus around this or do teams disagree strongly about what that change is? In both Hoffman and Fedde's case, their value got cut basically in half.

Hoffman was right up there with Aitken, ahead of Rodon. For me, a $6 to $6.5 million guy, kind of on par with maybe a Garrett Cole. I had him at a 3.5 valuation after the surgery um and the slot for the blue jays at number nine is uh i think three point like 3.1 3.08 million or something like that so um you know that's that's right around where i have them maybe a little bit of a discount even if they if they can get them assigned for slot there and they may be able to get them to sign for slightly under slot, depending on how much he wants to get started. And, you know, if he can get on board the idea of, well, we're taking

on some extra risks. So we have you valued at, you know, 2.8 million instead of 3.1. You know, who knows, maybe he's willing to just sign that and get started. Fetty I had as like a back part of the top 10 value. I think it was just a little bit north of $3 million, maybe like $3.25. And then after the surgery, I had him at like $1.8 or $1.9. I think that's about 19. He went 18 or 19, so that's like $2 million there. So, you know, again, kind of right around where I would expect him to go from the value standpoint. So, you know, again, kind of right around where I would expect them to go from the value standpoints.

And I think that teams have their own calculus for how they arrive at that value and how they assign risk to players. And, you know, that has to do with a lot of things, including mechanics. And do we have to is this a situation where we have to overhaul someone's mechanics? You know, what is the body like? Is there any other injury history to deal with or to consider. So teams will have their own calculus for how they assign risk associated with something like Tommy John surgery. But I think as a rough estimate, if you were to cut someone's value in half, that probably works pretty well in the first round. And Danny Knobler had a piece today that said that, I'm going to quote here,

at least 10 of the 30 major league organizations won't even consider drafting a pitcher if he has already had Tommy John surgery. Do you buy that? Do you think that's true? No, not at all. Because what that's saying is, if you were to go to Jeff Hoffman and no one had picked him come round three, and he were to say, I'm willing to sign for $400,000, you're telling me there are teams in baseball that wouldn't take a four hundred thousand dollar risk on jeff hoffman i mean that that type of black and white rule um to me doesn't make sense now maybe it's you know in real world uh application it ends up being true because teams you know dock players enough for that existing injury that they're generally off the

board before they select. But, you know, given the state of baseball today and all, you know, all the arm injuries that we're seeing, it seems to me like it'd be counterproductive to cut out a whole portion of your draft population with a rule like that. And I think it's, I think you have to take it on a case by case basis. So you can see how maybe the Blue Jays felt more comfortable about taking Hoffman ninth because they also had the 11th pick as compensation for not signing Bickford. But the Nationals had the 18th pick, and they took Fedde, and that seems to be a pattern for them. If certain teams have their identifiable trends in the draft they go for the the high risk high ceiling guy or they go for the the low you know the high floor guy low ceiling

guy the nationals go for the hurt guy the injured guy it seems like lately at least and and they've done this the last few years in in 2011 they took anthony randon in 2012 they took giolito uh and you know those both of those picks have have worked out fairly well for them so far um they took uh they took matt perk right which i guess didn't didn't work out so well although that was later in the draft so so is this uh is this smart would you consider doing this if you were a scouting director would you would you go go for the hurt guy as they have? Oh, sure. I mean, in Giolito's case especially, I mean, that guy, you know, Giolito was arguably the best player in that draft class.

And when you have a chance to go after him when you're drafting the second half of the draft, I mean, I think as long as you can free up the money, because that was under the new slotting system, so it's not like they could just throw as much money as they wanted to at him. As long as you think you have the room mean, he was a top 10 talent for me, but he's not, you know, this wasn't an elite talent that, you know, you could sit there and say, oh, my God, I can't believe this guy is available for us. And I think you could find comparable talent in that range. a personal preference, either the Nationals really, really liked him or there is something to this idea of kind of going after the guy that's already had his surgery and you having the control in his reconstruction, I guess, how you bring him up, how you sort of shape any tweaks in the mechanics, how you build up the arm strength. Maybe there's something to that. I haven't heard that, but at this point, I guess you have to consider it considering the history. And one early selection that we didn't really touch on yesterday is Nick Gordon, who the twins took fifth overall. And a lot of

people know him from the D Ordon, Tom Gordon connection, but can you give us a quick scouting report on him? Sure. So Gordon is, unlike many high school, up-the-middle players, he's not really a toolbox. He's much more advanced baseball instincts, advanced feel for the game, more refinement than upside and projection. So his big thing last summer is he was uh he needed to add strength he was an undersized guy quote you know more resembling his brother than his father from a physicality standpoint and in the off season he worked really hard he put on about 15 pounds of you know good weight strong muscle, and came back this spring hitting with much more

authority, generating better bat speed, making more consistent hard contact. And his game really just took a step to the next level offensively. And that's what evaluators were looking for. He always had a good sense of the strike zone, a good timing in the box, good balance, a good idea of what he wanted to do, but he didn't quite have the physical strength to handle elite velocity and spin and make those in-swing adjustments. So once that happened, the hit tool went from maybe this guy is a slightly above average hitter to, well, this guy could be a 285, 290, maybe a 300 hitter. He's got such a good feel for hitting. And now the bat speed's there.

He's able to get good barrel acceleration through contact. And evaluators start to think, hey, this guy might even be able to be a 1520 home run guy. I mean, the weight looks great on him. He handles it well. And there are no questions about him being able to stick up the middle. Some teams I've heard like him better as a second baseman but he's got such a good arm and and generally uh handles himself well enough in the field that he's not super flashy but i mean he's going to be able to handle shortstop i think and if you have a shortstop it's a 15 20 home run guy they can hit you know 285

290 maybe even 300 and has you know plus the plus plus arm and you know average speed i mean that's a that's potential all-star. And then I think the only other top 10 guy we haven't really talked about is Kyle Freeland, who went to the Rockies eighth overall. Someone in your chat, and you were chatting for much of the afternoon and evening at Baseball Perspectives, and people should go read the transcript, connected Freeland to some of the Rockies' other recent picks, mentioned a trend toward taking college lefties and seemed to think that maybe they've gone for

sort of low ceiling guys. Would you agree with that characterization? And when will we see Freeland? Because he seems like he could be one of the quick movers. Yeah, so Freeland's a really interesting guy. He had a really bad start. The worst start of the year was his last start, and that was the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. He walked four guys. His line was like five innings, four hits, four walks, four runs, and those four walks represented 31 percent of his entire walk total

on the year he only walked 13 people for the whole season um i mean this is a guy who really has a good feel for for throwing the ball to both sides of the plate uh good velocity you know not elite velocity but consistently you know 89 to 92 and he gets up gets the four seamer up to 95 uh 96 even at times. Throws the ball well to both sides of the plate. And then he's got a changeup and a slider that he can manipulate. So his changeup he can throw sort of like a split variation. He can throw it with a little bit of fade, a little bit of cut.

And then his slider, he has sort of a deeper sweeping slider. And then he can shorten it up to almost cutter action. So he really covers the whole velocity spectrum from about 78 miles an hour up through 95 miles an hour. And he does it from the same arm slot. It's a low arm slot, which some evaluators don't like. There's some recoil in the arm. There's some head whack. But it hasn't really negatively impacted his control. His command isn't elite.

I mean, within the zone, he doesn't always hit his spots. his control. His command is an elite. I mean, within the zone, he doesn't always hit his spots. And, you know, there's some concern that he may be, you know, fly ball heavy as a pro if he can't keep the ball sort of down into the corners. But, you know, this isn't a back end guy that's a safe pick. This is a guy that's got really good stuff. He's got a track record. As long as the medical, there was a question about medicals. As long as he's ready to start throwing in pro ball, he can go straight to high A, start next year in double A, and be up in the bigs at some point next year. It's really, I thought, a good pick. As long as the medicals check out and he's healthy, it's one of the best arms in the entire class.

So according to the dollar values that you put on guys, according to how your personal draft board looked, was there or who was the biggest value, the best value or the biggest reach? Was there anyone who slipped out of the first round that you expected to see there was there anyone who made it to the first round that you didn't expect to see there any anyone that we haven't mentioned yet well we touched briefly on sean reed foley who's a florida state commit and he ended up blasting i believe all the way all the way to the blue jays in the second round and you, you know, I had him as a top 15 guy. You know, advanced field for three pitches,

showed really well throughout the summer, had a really strong spring. You know, there was a velocity bump through portions of the spring where he was up consistently in the mid-90s, you know, commanded the ball well. And I think the issue there was just signability once he once he dropped out of that you know top 10 range top 15 range i think teams that were in the 20s where maybe that maybe that's where they had him because there is limited projection in the body you know maybe they just weren't confident that let's say that you know the asking price was 2.5 million million and your slot is 2

million you don't necessarily want to have to go over slot right there there was a lot to choose from so i think that that that he slipped maybe because of sign for assignability purposes michael chavis who ended up going to the red sox and the red sox just had a monster draft they just really nailed it as far as i'm concerned uh you know i had him as a potential three million guy and they got him at the end of the first round and i'm sure he's going to sign for for slot and i think it's like 1.8 million where they got him so that's i mean to me that's like 1.2 million in surplus value that's close to the best value they got the other one they got was michael kopeck who i had as a potential two million dollar guy and they got him after shavis so they got uh you know by my calculations almost

five and a half million dollars of value for, you know, less than four million dollars of investment, which is pretty huge. And my last question, you've been following the draft very closely, you know, reading everything, talking to people. Have you heard anyone with a team say that they do draft for need? I am always on the lookout for teams that say that they draft for need because at this point, no one ever says that they draft for need. They say that we take the best talent available, we take the top guy on our board, and everyone nods sagely,

yes, oh, that's very wise, very wise. Does anyone not say that, at least with a top pick? Does anyone say, yeah, we didn't have a third baseman, so we took a third baseman? Does anyone admit to that? No, no one really admits to that. But what teams do is they'll manipulate their board or they'll manipulate sort of what they're looking for in their draft profiles

where they'll almost set their board up so that, like the Yankees getting Lindgren, who's a quick-moving, power-armed, lefty reliever. I think we'd all be shocked if he wasn't sort of pushed through the system quickly and helping out in the Bronx in short order. Was he the absolute best talent on the board? Well, he certainly wasn't an indefensible pick there. And the Yankees could say, you know, at that point in the draft,

what we really thought was the best value was relief pitching. And he was the top guy on the board for relief, you know, college relievers that could move quickly. So I think teams don't want to come out and say they draft for a need because you don't ever want to be in a position where, you know, someone can point to you, ask, you know, question why you picked a certain guy and say, you why did you pass on player x y and z um you know you want that you don't want the answer to be well because our big league team needed a situational lefty reliever you want to be well you know he just wasn't the top guy on our board he was close but he wasn't that the day we made a game time decision so you put yourself in a tough position if you say you're not taking the best guy available you know it's a little bit of uh of cya verbiage but it's uh it's just part of the game i guess all right so that is the recap of what has happened so far you should all go read nick's chat transcript at bp

where he talks about much of the other action that we didn't discuss. He will have a recap up at BP at some point today with all the picks so far. He will also have a chat on Monday doing a draft wrap after all of the rounds are over at 12 p.m. Eastern. And you can, of course, follow him on Twitter at Nick J. Filaris, where he will be giving his live reactions to various picks. So thanks again for joining us, Nick. Yeah, absolutely. And for all the listeners here who are following the draft tomorrow online, I think it's going to be the audio broadcast. A great place to kind of have open while you're listening to it is our MLB video library,

which has over 300 videos. We had all the first rounders. We've got video of them throughout the scouting circuit in the spring. MLB video library, which has over 300 videos. We had all the first rounders. We've got video of them throughout the scouting circuit in the spring. And it's a great way to get a look at the players that you're hearing and reading about your team drafting tomorrow. Yes. So if you want to take a look at your shiny new toy, just go to Baseball Perspectives and you can find a link to that at the top of the page.

All right. So that is it for us this week. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go to baseballreference.com, subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30. Please start sending us emails for next week's listener email show

at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and rate and review us on iTunes. Subscribe to the show on iTunes. Have a wonderful weekend. We will be back on Monday.