OK, I'll put up a post at the top of the page for real time draft discussion. I'll try to check in from time to time today. Can't access from work though and I have an urgent family matter to attend to so I might not be back until tonight. I'll recap some names still on the board for Day 3:
Tyler Gaffney, OF, Stanford
Pepperdine MI's.
Greg Larson, RHP, Florida
Dan Gulbranson OF, Georgia Southern.
Almadova, OF, Hawaii? (can you tell us more about him, LG?)
Andrew Barbosa
Andrew Triggs
Any other sleepers or fallers out there you are interested in? Based on the later rounds from yesterday, I'm thinking we are going to see a whole lot of names we don't recognize today. It think the Giants could draft another HS player or two who will sign for $100K.
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I'm hoping for a repeat of Blackburn, a HS signing out of the blue. Its going to be hard with the 100K limit of course.
ReplyDeleteDo the Giants have enough pitching? Never enough pitching! DJ Hicks might be another potential re-draft. Apparently most teams see him as a DH though.
Will LaMarche, RHP out of Chabot, looks like prime 16-20 round material.
Michael Ratterree, clank glove 2B who Rice moved to the OF, has some power potential.
I doubt he'd sign, but please please please take a shot at Justin Jones Los Gigantes. LHP out of Cal who had a rough year. Make that priority #1 actually.
Want another Jones from California? OK, Christian Jones, LHP out of Oregon. Make that priority #2. Lefties are always fun.
Wow! Fla-Giant really, really hates this draft. Man, he sounded helpless and hopeless over on MCC. I really don't think it's nearly as bad as he's making it out to be. Even he seems to brighten a bit when he talks about specific players they drafted but then he goes back into his darkness. Get that man some Prozac, and fast!
ReplyDeleteHe follows the International side closer than anybody I've seen, and the Giants just aren't doing much there. So he's down on that. And I think everybody was hoping for a bold move for some hitting prospects.
DeleteI see some trends towards RDF cheapness that reminds me of the Michael Tucker years, I have to say. I'm trying to stay positive, but I'm not exactly thrilled with this draft, and I definitely am not thrilled with the international front, especially juxtaposed with the Rangers who are ultra aggressive about everything.
What is RDF?
DeleteThanx!
I could use a little darkness.
DeleteWhat is Fla-Giant saying? I would go there, II can't handle their 1000+ all-on-one-page threads.
Thanks.
RDF = Rainy Day Fund
DeleteMCC = I contribute to those 1K threads myself, so I abstain from criticism.
Fla-Giant = This is a very uninspiring draft. Day 3 brings the seniors, in a big way. The Giants are up to 3 guys on the LA-Monroe squad, and they have another 10 picks to go, maybe they'll take a couple more. This day 3 bumps it back to a C grade from me DrB, a total waste of time, except for perhaps our 27th pick.
You don't think this is a horrible draft, Doc? For a team like the Giants, this is exactly how they should NOT draft. I really have to question what's going on in the boardroom and the draft room. It's one thing to think "we have our own opinions on players," but it's something else when you are so far outside the mainstream that you look this bad.
DeleteOf the 6 or 7 drafts I've followed somewhat closely, this is the worst I've felt afterwards. This seems like the Gang That Couldn't Draft Straight.
I guess I don't see what everybody is so upset about. Stratton is what we all hope a Ty Hensley, to name just one, will become in 3 years, except Stratton is already there. Same goes for Agosta vs an HS pitcher they would take in Round 2. Once you get past round 2, it's pretty much all a crapshoot anyway and some of these HS kids everybody is salivating over become real signability concerns.
DeleteThere is a strong bias in the internet prospect/draft watch community that HS draftees are automatically better even though there is little, if any, evidence to support that notion.
I actually feel pretty good about this draft mainly because the Giants addressed their lack of minor league pitching depth.. I remember Agosta's start vs Hawaii pretty well because I thought the Giants could draft him.. He struggled with his command that night but he also proved why he was a top prospect and a good pitcher.. Thru 5 innings he had given up 2 runs 4 hits 3 walks 8 ks pitched thru trouble and my guess is he was close to 100 pitches.. He breezed thru the 6th and 7th innings and they finally took him out after 120 pitches.. he got thru the game without having his best stuff.. Wiliamson is a big dude 6'4" 240 LBS! I've read that Okert has a chance to make it the majors quickly as a reliever.. According to BA, Blach was projected to go in the 5th round which he did.. I bet alot of these HS kids do have signability concerns with the new rules.. Maybe the time to pick a HS player would have been either round 1 or 2 but they took Stratton and Agosta instead which I'm happy with.. yes, I'm a little disappointed they didn't address the offense, maybe next year.
DeleteLG
I like the Stratton pick he should take more than 1 or 2 years to get to the majors just in time to take over zito's spot in the rotation i believe. As for the other picks im fine with them can't judge until we see them perform.
DeleteThanx again.
DeleteI should clarify that it's more my computer than me per se that can't those 1000+ threads.
And I think it's not quite bias but 'conventional wisdom' that HS draftees are better. It's good we challenge conventional wisdom. It always worries me when things are reduced to one formula. So we will see.
Not high on Williamson at all. I know the power stands out and that you should not read to much into college stats buy a guy who hit .280 or something going in the 3rd round seems to be a big stretch. He's Chris Dominguez to me cause both K for fun. Last 2 years the giants have gone college way at look at the results. Brown, Panik, Parker all struggling, of course this year they were pitchers. After round 6 not much to look forward to as much of those players look to be organisation fillers. My guess is that the Giants draft is gonna be graded in the bottom 5 by the experts. Although that don't mean anything cause the true results of who were the teams that won this draft will be seen in 2-4 years. In the end not happy with this draft at all. My own grade will be a C-. Too many college seniors, old guys and only one HS player so far and I don't have high hopes on him either.
DeleteThe Giants were never going to have a highly rated draft due to their lack of picks. When your first two picks are #20 and #84, then you are not going to end up in anybody's top 10 draft grades no matter what you do.
DeleteI look at it from the standpoint of what did they do with the resources(picks and bonus pool) they had to work with. When you look at it from that standpoint, I think they got very good value out of this draft.
I'll stick with by B grade.
RDF = Rainy Day Fund, reputed fund Giants keep just in case they feel like spending to win, shorthand for being cheap.
DeleteI don't know, but I like Stratton and Agosta a lot, and just because there were position players there don't mean that they thought they could develop them. Have not read much about any of the other players though, so I don't know what was available. And ultimately, even at Stratton's spot, getting a good player is very against the odds, 10-15% chance of finding one, so hitter vs. pitcher, I would prefer the Giants stick with what they know best, pitchers. And both sound very good.
And really, once you get beyond Agosta, we are probably talking about players who have less than 1% chance of becoming a good player, so it's nothing to get down about, international too, the odds are just so low.
I think I prefer having a lot of lower signings than one huge signing with regards to the international free agents, there is just so much risk involved, and, for example, there been only one good example of a very good player obtained from Japan - Ichiro - everyone else has been OK/average or worse. Hasn't been one good pitcher long-term either, Dice-K looked good but now is a big albatross, lets see what Yu is doing in a couple of years. $100M is a lot to pay for a year or two of good pitching.
I guess one could get down because there are no real standouts in our draft. Well, I could have told anyone that at the end of last season. With our record, we were going to get a pick in this range, and draft picks there have not done well previously, so you can expect not to have a great draft.
And given the new CBA where teams are drafting more to talent than other factors, it makes sense that players that were falling to us previously is no longer falling, they will be more cooperative with teams pre-draft in order to maximize where they get slotted and get the best money for their clients. So guys like Susac won't fall to us like last season.
The Giants have never been really aggressive in the draft. They dont like to pay overslot money. I remember a lot of mock drafts had them with Nick Castellanos in 2010 (who is killing it in A+ and AA) but they decided to go with the lesser talent and cheaper Gary Brown.
DeleteWith these new CBA rules I wonder if were gonna see a lot more of these type of drafts from the Giants. Where the only 2 picks are relevant and the others are fillers.
Teams have to be more creative now, the most common thing for me if I were the GM or scouting director will be to draft top talent in the first 2 rounds , then draft college seniors who will sign for peanuts($500.00-$10.000) instead of slot amount. THis will save approximately $1M, then throw that money in the 10th round to a top HS player. To me, thats a better way than to draft a bunch of guys who are just fillers and in the end you still end up spending $1M on nothing.
Dirty secret: The only reason the MLB draft goes beyond 5 rounds, heck, maybe even beyond 2 rounds, is because teams want to stock their farm systems with cheap talent. From a purely talent acquisition standpoint, there is probably no reason for the draft to extend beyond 3 rounds at the most Let everybody else sign as undrafted FA's.
DeleteThat is not to say the Giants haven't actually done quite well finding undervalued gems in the later rounds, but they could get those players just as easily, or maybe more easily by going back to scouting and signing without the draft process. As far as trying achieve competitive parity, you accomplish everything you need to with that in the first 3 rounds.
DeleteDoc, the counterpoint to your dirty secret is staring you in the face: Dirty Sanchez, Wilson and Romo. Not to mention the pipeline of Bochy or Blackburn, possibly my guy Demondre Arnold, or Runzler/Edlefsen if you want to stretch it.
DeleteYou play within the rules you have. I think they made an extremely poor play on day #3. Stratton and Agosta look good, I like the picks and have defended them here and on MCC. If the Giants are content with that, they are not competing to the full extent. And this is the exact point of departure, where I go looking for my lunatic fringe card. I have high expectations and standards. I am greedy. I want them to compete hard for every scrap, I want them to go big in the International scene, I want them to mine the dumpster dives. I want them to spend free agent money. I want them to win, and continue to win.
The Giants came piss poor today, day #3 of the draft.
Well, you and I are going to have to disagree. Nobody thought much of Sanchez, Wilson or Romo, Runzler or Edlefsen when they were drafted. There is no reason to think there isn't at least 1 or 2 similar players buried in the Day 3 draft somewhere.
DeleteOh there is one. At the Dirty Sanchez spot, #27. Chris Fern from Union College, KY. Lefty. Gonna watch him close. By far the best pick of the day. BTW, the pitching breakdown was 10 LHP to 11 RHP.
DeleteSee, Shankbone! If you just pry yourself away from MCC doomsayers long enough to look at some of the picks, you find a gem shining here and there. Honestly, if you are expecting more than that from any team on Day 3, you are just looking for an excuse to be disappointed.
DeleteDon't get your dauber down, Shankbone!
Breland Almadova - 6'1" 185 JR CF - His best tools are he's a good defensive centerfielder, good arm, good speed(12 SB), takes good routes to the ball defensively, made some highlight reel catches.. However he didn't hit well, only a .267 BA 3 hrs 20 rbis .383 ob%. He hasn't been drafted yet, and they're in the 25th round, so I would like to see him come back to Hawaii for his senior year.. It was nice to see Senior RHP Matt Sisto get drafted in the 20th round by the Phils. Due to lack of velocity, he relies on changing speeds and good location of his pitches.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that it was noted that for the 1st time, no Hawaii recruit was drafted in the 1st 15 rounds.. Maybe due the new CBA rules? If this encourages more kids to go to school 1st to develop their skills in college baseball instead of turning pro right away, maybe its a good thing..
LG
So far, it looks like Stratton, Agosta, McCall, then a few relief specialists (Johnson, Blach, Okert), then pure filler. When you put all your eggs in one (ok, 6) baskets, I get a bit nervous...
ReplyDeleteYou know what? I'll make a prediction that at least 1 or two of the "filler" picks you refer to will produce a significant MLB career which is likely higher than average for those draft slots.
DeleteFreaking out over the draft right now is ridiculous. People can obviously look at BA's rankings and see what "value" their team got. But personally, after the past few years I'm going to trust that John Barr and the Giants front office can put together a better draft board than ESPN can.
ReplyDeleteWith every pick, realize that the Giants had that person ranked higher than any other player available. Unless there is some personal connection, I'm going to say the Giants probably have a better idea of what he can do than any fan. Let the team draft. Enjoy the picks. Read their scouting reports. Be stoked that we have one of the smartest organizations in baseball working to make the team better.
Can someone, perhaps Shankbone, explain to me how the Giants might be thought of as cheap (RDF)? Do people believe they won't get up to the $4M+ they have allotted to them, and that they can't exceed by more than a relatively small amount without losing a draft pick next year? Since the spending constraints are public, as are the slot amounts, do people believe that a significant number of players will willingly sign under slot--significant enough, that is, to enable the team to offer serious overslot money to some promising player? Also, since the Giants have too little talent at the top of their farm system, is it a bad idea to draft college players, who are therefore closer to being MLB ready? I'd like some clarification, please.
ReplyDeleteHey Campanari - First, because I was the one to bring up the RDF, I'll address it a little, but let me make it clear what I said: "I see some trends towards RDF cheapness that reminds me of the Michael Tucker years, I have to say."
DeleteNow you are asking a question about the draft specifically, so here is the specific information on the draft. Let me be clear, the draft is part of the development puzzle, but I was not asking for them to exceed their assigned budget, nor was I implying they might not get that budget filled out. The Giants have $4,076,400, which is the 26th highest in MLB. Here is the link for those interested, with the exact $#s for each of the first 10 rounds:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/draft-preview/2012/2613426.html
I'm sorting through everything still. My initial gut reaction on Day 3 was it was a cynical exercise to fill out the ranks with no vision towards real development. However, I think that was a trend across MLB, not just the Giants. My evidence right now: Giants drafted 7 guys with 1989 birthdays, 14 with 1990 birthdays. Over half the draft is behind the development curve. 21 pitchers, 19 hitters total, I like some of the pitchers, and barely any of the hitters. They threw up some HS kids at the end as well as a couple San Mateo JC pitchers, otherwise it would have tilted worse. Don't have the overall #s organized yet, but the draft a senior was spiking huge across MLB, with the AL East drafting over 20 seniors in the first 10 rounds alone.
When you compare and contrast last years draft to this year, it looks to me like the somebody pushed a button. And please, lets not get confused here with the afford big HS prospects game. That is not what I nor Fla-Giant are talking about. Where are the clever JC picks? Where is the PR Academy picks? Where is a sneaky HS grab like Clayton Blackburn. Where is a symbolic drafting of a high profile HS player even though there is no chance to sign? That would actually save money, they don't have to pay a dime. Punt that anywhere after the 10th round. Just a very uninspired third day, on top of not a very good 2nd day. I don't know what these guys are signing for. I do know that some of the picks who were drafted in the 1-10 are signing for as little as 5K. Yup, 5K. Whether that is what the Giants will do, I'm not sure. The Giants don't look to be gaming the system on the 2nd day, but the difference between their #5 pick slot and #10 pick slot isn't much, 225K to 125K.
I'll get into the RDF cheapness on the international front and the past couple of years another time. I'm too exhausted right now. Hopefully that clarified someething, or at least got you a link to some of the data.
Shankbone,
DeleteI understand completely what you are saying. I would counter that last year was more likely the anomaly year. If you look at years before that, the drafts are very heavily tilted toward college players and the Giants have always been very willing to draft college seniors and others who are old for the level. Whether you agree with them or not, I just don't think the Giants believe that age vs level is as important as some other organizations and many analysts.
Now, the Giants have been willing to take HS players in the first two rounds if that's who they really think is the best player available. I honestly believe that they took Stratton and Agosta because they thought they were the BPA and it's not like there is a paucity of evidence to back them up on that. Even Williamson may not have been the reach he seemed to be. It's a terrible year for college hitters. Yes, BA had him ranked in the 200's but Matt Garrioch, who I also respect, had him at #110, 5 slots higher than he was drafted! They then stayed true to philosophy by taking a bunch of big power arms in rounds 4-8.
I do think it is possible that the new CBA rules made them lean more heavily toward college players, but it's not like they've ever gone whole hog for HS'ers. Let's see how this plays out. The Giants may end up with the last laugh when they have all their picks signed for slot money and playing in the minors, while all those HS'ers and Boras clients are playing Bonus Chicken with the teams that drafted them.
Well, I think avoiding the Boras clients, especially with a new system to test out, is a wise move. Chicago looks to have their hands full with Almora already.
DeleteThe Giants shouldn't pay complete attention to age. And the back end will always have some of the older gents trying to make it into professional baseball. It is just a bit over the top this year, both across baseball and with the gints as well.
I'm treating this discussion per your title. Everybody all day long has been throwing Stratton and Agosta at me, both here and on MCC. Well, I like those picks. That's not really the issue. The issue is I want the Giants to get away from the D grade they're going to get from the interwebz community at large, the C grade I'm hanging on them, and even the B grade you've got for them. The goal should be to demand more.
I think I've defined it, maybe not well, but I have articulated actual players I would want. Now I'm no professional, but I follow this team pretty damn closely. The need for middle infield depth and talent is pressing. There were quite a lot of proven hitters they passed on in the 1-10 rounds. There were also some nice 4th OF talent they passed on. I am very unimpressed with their hitting. Couple that with Sabean's remarks about not going after any hitting on the FA market, it all has to come from inside, and I'm a bit miffed. Can't articulate the other stuff with Sabey Sabes, but his interview about the draft with Tolbert raised my eyebrows a lot. As a guy who really wants the Giants farm system to excel and feed the team for years, it was dispiriting.
To think that there was ever a possibility of the Giants getting an A grade out of this draft is getting pretty far out into the Lunatic Fringe, if you ask me. There was never any serious possibility of that happening with the position and bonus pool cards they were holding going in.
DeleteLets break this down a bit. The strength of this draft was in HS pitchers and HS 5 tool OF's. Now, 5 tool HS OF's are notoriously unpredictable in their development and they tend to be overvalued and thus expensive to sign. No way were the Giants, who have been burned by those types in the past, going to take a risk like that with the CBA rules clouding the picture, so we can take that off the discussion table right off the bat.
As for HS pitchers, Stratton and Agosta give you everything a HS kid would give you plus cost certainty plus a head start in development.
As for Rounds 4-8, the Giants, the true Moneyballers, have always believed that power armed college relievers are one of THE undervalued commodities in the draft. Yes, they have bust potential, but you aren't paying much for them and they have high ceilings.
As for the hitters, I think I like them better than you, keeping in mind it was a terrible year for college hitters and HS hitters were likely never a serious option for the reasons outlined above.
Oh, and is there a transcript of Sabes' interview with Tolbert somewhere? What did he say to get your dauber down like that?
DeleteI thought this was a discussion of the Day 3. Obviously its not. Larry Baer and the SF general partners or whatever the current shell company are awesome. Brian Sabean is awesome. Keep up the good work. I'm going to bed.
DeleteWell, I actually think they are pretty awesome, so there!
DeleteWorrying about what a team drafts in rounds 16-40 is like trying to figure out that 6th number you are going to put on your lottery ticket: it most likely won't matter. At all.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, after the first round, the odds are very against any of them ever even making the majors, let alone be useful, let alone be a good player. The odds of most of these picks being a good player is significantly under 1%.
Let's take a look at the 9th round, from 1990-1999. That's still seems low to most people. The numbers are bleak.
In those 10 years, there were 285 players drafted. Unfortunately, I cannot tell who was signed and who wasn't, so I counted all of them; thus there could be some over counting. Still won't matter.
In those 10 years, only 59 of them even made the majors. Thats' 20.7%. I then looked at players who had at least 162 games if position player, 30 games if pitcher, or essentially one year's worth of play. Only 27 qualified there, 9.5% of picks. Now lets look at those over 4.5 WAR: only 9 of them, or 3.2%. There are only 6 of them with over 9.0 WAR, or 2.1%. My standard for a good player is 18.0 WAR and there were only 5 of them or 1.8%.
In other words, it will take approximately 57 years of selecting the 9th round pick, on average, to find one good player, roughly 32 years to find at least a moderately good player (that's > 4.5 WAR). It would take 5 years of these picks just to find a player who even makes the majors, 11 years to find a player who plays more than a year of baseball for you.
It is that much worse for picks 16-40.
So worry about how these picks is not really warranted. Find your favorites to root for, because the odds are against these players, they will need all the support they can get. And some will make it, it is just not very likely, based on the history of the draft.