Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 902: The Names to Know from Draft Day One

Episode Date: June 10, 2016

Ben and Sam talk to Baseball Prospectus draft expert Christopher Crawford about what went down on day one of the amateur draft.

You said it yourself before, I guess before I could hear it, but now my dear we know. It's like you said, my sweet unknown, how I've been feeling you for now Hello and welcome to episode 902 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Hello, Sam. Hello, Ben.

Today is that special day of the year when we talk about players we just heard of, many of whom we will never hear of again, the best of whom we'll maybe hear of again in a few years. And the worst of whom we'll hear from again. Will we? I feel like... Maybe, yeah, if you distinguish yourself. Yeah, I could, like, I Yeah, I think I could name, there were 24 guys taken in front of Trout, if you count Gritchuk, which you shouldn't, but you would. And I bet I could name 22 of them.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, these guys will always have a place in the record books as guys who were picked before whichever one of them turns out to be really good yeah so they'll always have that you're randall gritchick's biggest defender you're always ready with a randall gritchick defense well i also i just i don't like the i i you know three times a month i see somebody know with with alarm that gritchick was taken ahead of trout and sometimes that's used to to say that even the angels didn't know how good Trout was and right and so on it's just it was an accounting it was it was it was something like a practical joke or anyway go ahead okay so we have a guest who does know a lot about these players and will tell us something about them today it is Christopher

Crawford who writes about the draft and prospects for BP and has been a very, very busy man in the last 24 hours or so. He wrote a mock draft for Sports Illustrated. He ranked the top 125 draft prospects for BP, and then he did a live pick-by-pick reaction post also at BP, and he now has a very quick respite before round three begins. So hello, Chris. I kind of want to hear Sam name all 22 players. Yeah, I was hoping that Ben wouldn't ask. I don't put people on the spot.

I might be able to do it. I might just, while you guys are talking, I might be testing myself. Okay. So, Chris, you tweeted, It took close to five hours for a group of old men to read some names off a card. TV ratings gold. So, did you have a favorite moment from the broadcast? Favorite live look-in at a draft room?

Favorite crazy comment by someone about a player? I probably shouldn't say, but I probably did. I probably did. It was, it's just not a very good event for television. I mean, the NFL draft really shouldn't be a good event, but you follow these guys through college and they do a much better job of presenting them. And it's just not good TV. And for that amount of picks to take that long of time, especially the second round

taking that long was ridiculous. I mean, just there's no reason why that should take longer than watching a BBC documentary series. There's no reason for this to take that long and to be that boring. And I get paid to do it and love every minute of it. When do you officially start to not like even you? When do you start not caring? Like there's a certain point where you're just listening to the conference call and it's just name after name after name. Is it like round six? Is it round 26? Do you go all the way to 40? Is it round three? Oh, that's a good question. I will say as soon as, now normally, not to humble break too much, normally I have heard of the guys who, all of the guys who were taken on day one.

There was one guy who taken yesterday who I had never heard of, honestly, just flat out had never heard the name. So I had to do some real quick research as soon as there's names that i just have not even a recollection of remembering hearing someone talk about or seeing on tv or anything like that i i drone pretty good and start just looking for the tracker to see which uh which players i'm going to write about or be able to talk about. But usually that takes, that starts in about round five, give or take a top 200 guys are usually gone by then. And you start seeing, especially with these new rules, the guys who were going to sign for a thousand dollars. And yeah, it gets,

it gets pretty much, it's mundane anyway. It gets real mundane about round five. Who was the guy? Brian McGregor, the Pirates pick 68. I had absolutely no idea who it was. Immediately started emailing because I was doing the pick by pick analysis and was like, oh, I guess I could write I got nothing and that'll be pretty funny, but I'd prefer not to have to do that. So yeah, I had absolutely no clue who Brian McGregor was. Yeah, so you started emailing and what kind of reactions were you getting about that pic? Not positive ones. It was definitely a reach type guy. Now, sometimes they keep these guys secret. What's interesting

is some of my best contacts are in the area he's in. So in fact, one of my absolute favorite contacts is in that area and he never brought him up. So was able to find out at least projectable right-hander, which is more information than I had on him yesterday. But yeah, that's tough. When pick 68 is a guy that I have never heard of. And yeah, that's rough. You want to hear something funny?

Sure. His name's Travis McGregor. Well, there you go. That's how much I know about Brian McGregor is that his name is Travis McGregor. That just proves my point. I'm sort of glad I got that wrong because it just kind of proves my point. Well, I get to that point at roughly pick number one. Yeah, that's totally fair.

I'm guessing that your mock draft, like most or maybe all mock drafts, was running off the rails immediately. Yep, immediately. And I thought about, well, here's the thing. After I filed the mock draft, I found out that Moniak was going to go one. And I really did think about writing in and saying hey can I change this I know some information then I realized who cares like no one's gonna remember any of this stuff in fact the last year I did on Sam's suggestion a mock mock draft and it's one of the my favorite things I've ever written it basically goes from uh me talking about why mock drafts are stupid to why I liked Max Payne Fury Road to Beastie Boy lyrics.

So it was immediately bad and I cared for about a tenth of a second. So sorry that my mock draft wasn't good. But the few players I had heard of and knew something about didn't take a little while to come off the board. So with those first couple picks or first few picks, it seemed like teams were going with high floor types or safety picks to some extent. Was that a money thing? Was it just a desire not to be very aggressive and have someone who turns out to be a bust? I think it's definitely a cash thing. Both, especially the Phillies pick and the Braves pick were definitely guys that obviously they like the

player, but they were guys that if you were going best player available, certainly wouldn't be at the top of your board. That's a really risky proposition to me. You really have to be sure that you're going to get top upper echelon guys with those next picks i don't think either atlanta or philadelphia did so i think they kind of if you're going to call them losers i i think you might call them losers the phillies phillies did a little better than atlanta i think but absolutely those picks had everything to do with the allocated funds rules it's they they may say that they were on the top of their board, but they're lying. Isn't it kind of, you could maybe argue that it's actually the opposite,

that it's risky to put all of your, to take best player available, to put all of your pool or a larger percentage of your pool into one guy instead of spreading it around and having more potentially top talent guys that you're trying to groom. Yeah, you could definitely argue that. It's funny that you said groom. There's a guy named Groom. Yeah.

To me, when you're picking at the top of the draft, you're picking at the top of the draft for a reason, and it has to do with two things. So it kind of defeats my – it's a devil's advocate either way. But to me, when you're picking that high, you have to get one of the stars of the draft. And there were two guys that I think have, there's two guys in this draft that I think have a chance to be a star. And that's Corey Ray, the Louisville outfielder, and Jason Grom, the left-hander that ended

up going to Boston at 12. And passing on those guys to get a good but not great player for Philadelphia and then a projectable right-hander in Kevin Gowdy, who ranked somewhere around 25, 26 on my board. So getting two top 25 players to me doesn't equal getting two guys who have a chance to be basically the face of your organization and maybe that's too strong a word i would prefer to have that star power at the top trust my scouts and be able to get diamonds in the rough later in the draft they obviously disagree and uh they certainly especially atlanta accrued some interesting talent i don't think

any of it i wouldn't trade any of those guys for Corey Ray or Jason Grom, I guess is what I'm trying to say in the long run. AJ Puck is the one guy on this draft board that, like I could have told you his name three weeks ago. He was, I think, the guy that went into the season, the common fan thought that he was the leading contender to be number one overall. And even yesterday, it seemed to me that he was maybe the leading contender to go number one overall. And I was reading some Reds pre-draft coverage, and there was a feeling that, well,

if Puck was available, they would definitely take him, but he probably wouldn't be. So how out of line was that kind of, how out of line was I? Did Puck's falling surprise a lot, or is that actually pretty much where the industry had him? Kind of both. I think if the draft would have been held last week, I think Puck would have been the number one overall pick. I think teams, as we get closer and really started doing some investigations, started worrying about the back and also worrying about the fact that as good as the stuff has shown, he really hasn't pitched all that great. I mean, he's been good and he's led Florida. Florida's baseball program

is just loaded and he's one of the best players on one of the best teams in college baseball, if not the best team. But he wasn't a stalwart or anything close to that. And I think that started to scare teams like Philadelphia and Cincinnati, because I was sure he was going to be one of the top two picks. He wasn't actually near the top of my board. I had him actually ranked below Mickey Moniak in my final top 125. But I really thought as a left-hander with a plus-plus fastball who shows a wipeout slider and a good enough change, I thought for sure he would go in those first two picks just because teams usually don't pass on left-handers like that, but they did. And I think Oakland did well to get him. I don't think he's a steal by any stretch of the imagination,

but I think he's really nice value because you just don't see left-handers like that grow on trees very often. And is there anybody who did fall, particularly at that high level, that you think is a signability issue with, say, in the top 15 or 20 picks? Is there anybody who looks like a great deal, a steal on talent, but realistically, their bonus demands are going to be higher than the slot? Sure. Jason Grom, for sure. He is a guy, I think, who, if not for some high demands and then some off the field stuff, but we don't need to get into that because it doesn't really have a huge effect. But I think he's a guy, I would have

taken him 1-1 because I think he's the best player in the draft. I think he's going to be a really expensive signing. And I think that's why you saw them take a guy in CJ Chatham who's probably going to be a utility infielder at best with their next pick. I think they're going to have to go real cheap. And there's a really good chance that they may even have to go over that allocated funds because they just don't have a lot of money. To me, and this is just me, and maybe this is not the industry consensus, I would give up my first round pick next year to get Jason Grom, especially if you're Boston, a team that's going to be picking in the bottom third of the draft, it looks like,

I would be willing to give up that first round pick to get the best talent from this draft. So it won't be cheap. I imagine they'll be able to get it done in the long run, though. So the way that we all generally understand the draft is that most of these guys who are getting picked, they've already had discussions with the team. And basically, the team knows how much they're going to be asking for. And so the team is fairly confident that they're going to be able to sign them because they've already had that conversation. If a guy like Grom, Grom, not groom, Grom, is that right? Correct. Okay. If a guy like Grom slips down, is it likely that the club hasn't had that conversation with the player, with his representative? And is it conceivable in the same way with Puck? Like, did the A's actually think that they might get Puck or did he just happen to fall in their laps and now they've got to figure out what he's actually asking for?

Sure. With Puck, I think that there were some discussions with Oakland. I think they have an idea of what type of figure he's going to be looking for. I would imagine the top six would have, it's kind of like, you know, the NBA draft, like even some of these guys who are guaranteed to go one or two will still do workouts with like the third or fourth best team or the top team will also bring in the third or fourth best player. Maybe it's for show or something like that, but it happens. But this happens in baseball too too where I'm sure Oakland had some sort of workout with AJ puck and they have an idea about what his figures with Grom in Boston I don't know because the assumption all along was that he was gonna go three to Atlanta and then things changed real quick and

all of a sudden that college commitment changed from Vanderbilt to Chipola which is basically groans way of saying, give me my money or I will be right back here next year. So I don't know for sure if they have an idea of what kind of bonus demand. I know they obviously know it's going to be high, but the actual amount and whether or not he'll be willing to sign with Boston, that would be one that I wouldn't be so completely sure of. I still think they'll get it done. Was there anyone who falls into that group of players who had one really good or really bad pre-draft start or something and just scared everyone away or made everyone excited? I'm always amused by that phenomenon where someone just has one good day or bad day and suddenly they climb or they fall.

I will say Huck kind of did that a little bit. He was not good in his last regional start. I don't think it was the ultimate factor. I still think the back was the ultimate factor with Puck falling to six. And again, I still don't think he fell that much. I think he went right along with where the talent suggested. It's just teams love tall left handers, but he was not good in his regional start. The other guy may be Jordan Sheffield, right-hander out of Vanderbilt, that probably would have been a top 15-20 pick, but really struggled in his last couple of starts, especially finding the strike zone. And when you add that up with the fact that he's a smaller guy

and that he's already undergone Tommy John surgery. So maybe not exactly that one start, but I think both those guys' struggles played an impact, at least a little bit in their draft stock. So we just skipped right over the actual names at the top of the draft, but what did the Phillies get with their number one pick? They got a good player. I just don't think they got a great player. And with the first pick, I think you hopefully are getting that all-star type caliber player.

He's a guy with a plus hit tool. Mickey Moniak, we should say. Mickey Moniak, yes. I'm sorry, I should have said the name. Out of La Costa Canyon High School, which is not too far from me. A guy with a plus hit tool and a plus run tool

who is a pretty good defender in center field, not elite, but a guy who should be at least average to above average there. A little bit of pop from the left side, kind of sneaky pop, maybe a 45 grade there. Looks like a guy to me who's going to be a guy who hits at the top of the order for a little while. And then as the speed declines, which it always declines because that's how life works, probably hits more at the bottom of the order while still playing

good enough defense to stay in center field. I don't like comps, but the poor man Steve Finley thing that came up was it kind of made sense to me, even though it was kind of a lazy comp

because of the area and whatnot. But all comps are lazy. But I think you're looking at a guy who's going to be a a nice player just not a star by any stretch of the imagination well i guess people said the same thing about aaron noah right and yeah he's more than that now yeah absolutely hey that's i mean that's that's your hope that your that your area guy put in the work and that he's going to be much more than uh what because they don't give a hoot what we think.

If they think he's going to be an all-star center fielder who hits at the top of the lineup for a long time, take him 1-1 and prove us all wrong. I just don't see that happening. And who is the fastest mover here potentially? I guess maybe two questions. If you had to stake your life on someone from the first round being a big leaguer, plus hit tool, solid average power, can run.

His speed is a little misleading. Like, he's a 60 runner, but he's such a instinctive guy on the bases. He stole 44 bases this year in college, which is a very high number. He's a guy who I think can steal 20 to 30 bases, maybe even higher at that big league level. And there's some concerns about the defense. I think he'll be an okay center fielder or a very good right fielder. But it doesn't really matter where he's playing because he's going to hit.

And I would be very surprised if he is not a starting outfielder or at least a competent bench bat at some point. Fast to big leagues, it's easy to do, but I got to go with Zach Birdie. He's a right-hander out of Louisville who got taken right in that compensation round by Chicago. He's the brother of Nick Birdie, who a lot of people said the same thing. The difference between them is Zach Birdie has a clue where his pitches are actually going, and he actually has an above-average changeup too. Some people think he could start, but I would give him every chance.

I would not give him that chance. I would just take him to the bullpen, and I would put him in high-leverage situations as soon as next year. And the Cardinals made a pick that made Harold Reynolds angry. Can you tell us about that pick at number 23? Thank you for not making me talk about what Harold Reynolds said. Delvin Perez was number three on my board. He is one of the few infielders in this draft who has a lick of upside. He has tremendous bat speed, has a chance for plus power from the right side.

He's a plus runner, plus arm, plus defender. There are some who have some concerns about whether he's going to stick at shortstop just because tall guys always have some concerns about whether they're going to stick at shortstop. I would give him every chance, and if he does have to move to third base, the power should play. He has huge maturity issues, and now he has a failed PED test. So there's obviously a lot of risk here. At 23, though, I can't fault the pick. I think if Grom is to steal the draft, then I would say that Perez is a very close second. Ben, what did Harold Reynolds hate about it? What did he say? He said it sent the wrong message. I don't know. He said maybe more pointed things just about the fact that

I guess a guy who failed the PED test was taken in the first round anywhere. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You mentioned that it was a deeper draft than maybe some of the more recent ones, but was this an unusual number of names that would be at the top of the talent board falling toward the middle or the back end of the first round? I mean, I don't know whether it's actually unusual. It's just that everyone I'd heard of kind of fell down the draft board for one reason or another. It's for recently, certainly. It is one of the weirder years for seeing talents

fall because we had seen these guys the guys who fell like carlos rodon fell to third you know yeah it had been a while since we'd seen the jason grohm thing kind of reminded me of i hope he doesn't become this but do you you guys remember ryan anderson uh the big sander out of uh it kind of reminded me of that situation a little bit where he slipped because, but that was clearly money. This had some money and also some maturity issue stuff, I think, played a little bit of an effect. It was a weird year. You usually see, you'll never see it go in a complete order of best player available because these high school players have so much leverage. in a complete order of best player available because these high school players have so much leverage and because of these allocated funds and the picks getting taken away because of signing

free agents because god forbid somebody tries to improve their club you better take away their draft pick you'll never see a a best player available but this was this was a weird year there were there were a number of reaches early and there were some real steals in the middle late so yeah i'd say it's weird so it uh i'm just curious if there's a higher correlation now in general uh between best player available and draft order under these rules or under the old ones because it used to be that you could actually like you know poor teams would actually get priced out by these demands uh now it's, but so now nobody's really generally priced out. But on the other hand, it's created this whole like kind of game theory system where you're trying to use the leverage that your bonus pool gives you. So do you think that five years ago,

10 years ago, it was more, it was a more kind of rational order of best players, you know, starting at the top and going on down or is now more rational? I think now is more rational. I think just looking at some of the drafts of 2005, 2006, 2007 and a little bit before where you saw guys like Matt Bush and Matt Anderson be first picks and some guys like Brian Bullington was never the best player, but he was close. But normally now I think you've seen at least close to the top talent go at the top

and followed in at least some sort of order. Looking back at some of those drafts in the past, man, there are some really talented guys who slid entirely because of financial concerns and those teams picking up top, having absolutely no chance to sign them because the leverage they had was just outstanding. If you guys remember the Travis Lee situation and the JD Drew situation, those guys basically are why these new rules exist. So it's better, I guess, in that sense that they don't have the power to completely take away. guess in that sense that they don't have the power to completely take away. Of course, I personally don't think the draft should exist at all, but it's kind of a catch-22. I do think, though,

to answer your question, that we do have a better sense of BPA going in order, but this year was kind of an exception to the rule. Draft didn't exist at all. What would we watch on June 9th? Anything else. Anything else at all. So you mentioned that you didn't think that the teams that picked at the top did as good a job as they could have at getting high ceiling talent later to compensate for their lower ceiling talent early. Were there any teams that you really thought did a great job on day one? Yeah, I thought Milwaukee did an outstanding job. They took Corey Ray, who I talked about earlier. I think that was a really solid pick, probably going to be like for all the reasons we talked about. They also took two guys I really like,

like for all the reasons we talked about. They also took two guys I really like, Lucas Urkeg, who is a guy out of Menlo College, which huge baseball power that no one's heard of because it's not a baseball power. He transferred from Cal to Menlo and put up big numbers, but he put up big numbers at Cal too. So this is a guy who has a little bit of a track record, one of the few corner infielders in this draft

who has any sense of power projection. And they also took a catcher named Mario Feliciano, who is one of the better all-around athlete catchers. And he's the type of guy that you could actually see if Milwaukee wanted to fast track the bat, move to the outfield. I think they did really well. I think they did really well. I think Seattle did really well. Kyle Lewis was a guy who I thought was going to go in the top three as well, who fell to them at 11. I think some concerns about the small school stuff

and also the length of the swings caused him to fall. But he has big power projection. He should be able to stay in center field. And he's kind of like the George Springer type, the guy who swings and misses a lot, but still can hit for average just because he squares everything up. And they also got a guy named Joe Rizzo, who small guy, diminutive.

I have no idea where he's going to play in the field, but dude writes and just can hit anything on any part of the plate out, not out, but hard, hard contact all over the field. I think those are the teams that really stand out to me. Hey, can we go back to Delvin Perez for a second? How did he, how do you get caught at that level? I mean, who's testing a 17 year old and at what point in the process are they being tested? Well, it's everybody who registers for the draft has to go through that drug testing process. I don't know how many drug tests they actually do.

Wait, everybody who read, wait, okay, hang on. Sorry, I probably just interrupted. You're probably about to answer this. So there's thousands of people that are registered for the draft? You have to actually enter your name into the draft, whether people really, or if you have college eligibility, there's actual entrance into the draft. With people really, or if you have college eligibility, there's actual entrance into the draft, with some exceptions you've seen, like the Johnny Manziel pick. I don't know if he actually entered himself into the draft or not. But as far as I know, for high school kids, they have to actually be entered into the draft.

And once you enter into the draft, you have to go through the drug testing program. We've seen some kids not be eligible for the draft and flat take themselves out of the draft by not entering into that program, which kind of takes away from the drama or really tells teams, hey, I'm not entering this program, so you really can't take me. So I don't know how much drug testing they actually do, but I know they do do drug testing towards the end of the year. A few guys got positive results this year. I don't know how much drug testing they actually do, but I know they do do drug testing towards the end of the year. A few guys got positive results this year.

The only big name guy this year, though, was Perez. And there's no testing at all in NCAA? As far as I know, there's no testing done in the NCAA for that stuff. But once they're actually in the draft program, they test. I'm sure some colleges have their own type of testing system, but the actual NCAA, as far as I know, doesn't actually go through with the test. And do you have any idea at all when in the process they get tested? Is it after their season ends?

Is it before their season starts? Could it be any time in the previous year? No, I don't. I don't know how that program works. But normally these guys get put into this draft program late in the previous year? No, I don't. I don't know how that program works, but normally these guys get put into this draft program late in the year. So the test has to be sometime around April, May. I don't know how many tests they do or anything like that, but I do know they definitely get tested. Are you at all surprised that there isn't, I don't know, that there aren't a lot more

college players and high school players doping because they're until this test until May, nobody in the world is paying attention to them. Yeah, actually I am. And to be completely honest, it's the best time to get caught because it's not to be a moralist or to say, I don't care about this stuff, but if you're going to do it, do it now before you before your because delvin perez won't be suspended for what he did he would he tested positive the teams now know that he tested positive for a ped which came out and uh that will that played an effect on his stock along with the other stuff but now that's done so and it's like john gray when he tested positive for adderall nothing nothing nothing negative came

about from that just that that hey this is a guy who failed a drug test I am surprised that more players aren't caught using to be honest because the uh the ramifications just aren't near what they are once they get to the professional level well I guess if they know almost exactly when that test would take place they they could plan accordingly. Sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And maybe they do, but I have a feeling it's at least somewhat random. But yeah, I am surprised that more don't get popped because, like, for all the reasons I said, there just aren't nearly as many punishments as there are for if you get caught in the major league level was there anyone taken in the second round who is super sad right now because he was a first

round guy on everyone's board or or because he wanted to go to medical school and he's got to play baseball now he has to make a tough decision you know so here's the here's the funny thing. So the first round went in a weird order, but kind of that top 30 guy, top 23, 25 guys all kind of went. I would say in round two, and I'm looking at it right now, maybe Kyle Moeller, a left-hander that Atlanta popped that maybe he thought he was going to go in that 15 to 25 range. Big left-hander that doesn't offer much projection, but shows two plus pitches and a usable third. I guess he'd be the one guy who would maybe be a little frowny face, but Atlanta has so much money to spend that I would assume he's getting first-round money. So I don't think he's going to be sad for too long. Yeah. All right. Well, are there any players we haven't talked about you want to

shout out for whatever reason? Anyone you developed an affection for that you are particularly pulling for? I root for everyone, but the one guy that I will say that I'm really hoping does well is Tampa Bay second round pick Ryan Bolt. He was a guy who would have been probably a top 15, maybe top dozen picks out of high school in Minnesota, and then had a, just a horrific knee injury that caused teams to completely pass. And he ended up in Nebraska and he really hasn't performed the same sense, but because of how much money he really cost himself and because he's a really good kid and because he uh because there is some upside there are three plus tools that he'll show the power just never came and he was only an okay performer at nebraska which is in the big twat big 10 that's not you usually want

to see those guys really hit because that's not a great baseball program but but he's a guy i'm rooting for and a guy that uh i'm hoping can become a nice everyday center fielder. Okay. And by the way, was Cal Quantrill the eighth overall pick for the Padres? Is he the only guy who very high up who is an injury case and had Tommy John and teams just kind of banking on him coming back at full strength? Because often there are a few guys like that early in the draft. Sure. There was a couple. Jordan Sheffield, who we mentioned earlier, had it in high school. He's the only one who's currently recovering from it. And you can't see me, but I'm putting quotation marks up.

There are rumors that the reason he hasn't thrown a pitch yet this year is because he's had a deal done with San Diego for quite some time. And he's really the one guy who has the most risk. I had heard that they had a deal at 24. I did not expect that to be at eight. Maybe they got a little nervous that somebody was going to take him, pop him before the pick again. But they had easily my least favorite draft of any team. And part of it is because they took control with eight. Okay. Well, if we haven't talked about your team's pick, Chris has written about him, so you can go to Baseball Perspectives and look at his pick-by-pick reactions, or you

can buy the Baseball Perspectives 2016 MLB Draft Guide, which Chris wrote, and he profiled all the players with tool grades and scouting reports. So excellent info there. And now he has a very short break until round three begins and he dives back into the coverage. So thank you, Chris, for taking a break from draft stuff to do more draft stuff. Thank you for having me. And you can follow Chris's reactions to picks and all of his other tweets at CVCrawfordBP. Quick follow-up on yesterday's episode. We talked to August Fagerstrom from Fangraphs about candidates for five-man infields and four-man outfields.

And whether we would ever see such a thing in the major leagues. Turns out one of those things has happened. R.J. Anderson, formerly of BP, now of CBS Sports, tweeted at us to send a picture of the Rays doing a four-man outfield against Travis Hafner many years ago. And Adam Burke on Twitter sent us a screenshot of the AP recap of that game. It says, we got lucky a couple times, Joe Madden said. In the ninth and Tampa Bay up one, Madden employed a four-outfielder shift that included third baseman Akinori Iwamura. Hafner almost beat it beating the shift another reference to this week's podcasts

sending a 400 foot drive to center that was caught by Rocco Baldelli. So if we had had to guess which manager would be the most likely to try a four-man outfield we would have said Joe Madden. Turns out he's already done it almost a decade ago. Well played, Madden. I'll link to that image RJ sent in the Facebook group if you're interested in seeing what it looked like. Okay, so you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Today's five Patreon supporters are Theus Bergstrom, Kyle Godown, Sarah Comby, Kevin Incandenza, and Russell Goldstein. Thank you. You can buy our book.

The only rule is It Has to Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. This is my last chance to tell you to buy it for Father's Day. So if you do have a dad who cares about baseball, it wouldn't be a bad gift. You can go to theonlyruleisithastowork.com to read more about it, and you can buy it wherever books are sold. And again, if you have finished the book, please review it on amazon and goodreads and if you have any questions for us and our upcoming book club podcast send them to us subject line book club you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and rate and review and subscribe to the podcast

on itunes you can get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the Play Index using the coupon code BP, and you can contact us by email at podcast at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. That's it for this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we'll be back on Monday. Stranger On a quiet stream