What You Need to Know:... (06/07)
the archives are now free.
2 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links
| |
|
|
June 7, 2013 Dissecting the DraftAssessing Day 1, and Day 2 Options
Yesterday we completed Day 1 of the MLB First-Year Player Draft, which consisted of the first two rounds (including competitive balance picks) and the first two picks of our “Shadow Draft”—the seventh and 45th overall selections. As a quick recap, our last full entry in the series highlighted five “wants,” or goals, for us to accomplish with this draft. These “wants” represented a best-case scenario for us as far as taking advantage of the strengths of the draft class as we see them and the needs of our “Shadow Farm System” (a summary of the system can be found back in the introductory piece to this series): (1) Two middle infielders; By setting these goals, we provided a roadmap for attacking the draft, keeping in mind our desire to have a diversified portfolio approach to amateur talent acquisition, which spreads the risk out across a draft class (and minor league system) while offering the opportunity to target high-end talent with as many picks as possible. Below we’ll quickly step through the thought process for our first two selections this draft, followed by a run through the goals for our selections today. If you followed along with us last night during the draft, you saw our supplemental entry in the series, which touched on some of the concepts we’ll flesh out below. First Round 1. Braden Shipley, RHP, University of Nevada | Scouting Report All three graded out comparably, so we had to look further than the raw scouting grades in order to make our selection. The first question we asked is, “Which player fits best with our draft strategy?” Looking to our “wants,” Shipley and Smith each would allow us to cross off two of our five stated goals, while Ball would satisfy just one. Additionally, Smith and Shipley would better address systemic needs in our “Shadow System”—pitching above the low minors and impact positional talent in the low minors—while Ball plays to a strength in the system—high-upside arms in the low minors. Additionally, both Shipley and Smith offered a slight chance to saves some money with our first pick. Keep in mind that we are allotted approximately $3.2 million for our seventh overall pick, and if our draft pick signs for less than that amount, we get the difference to spread around elsewhere in the draft. While it’s possible Ball signs at or below allotment as well, like Smith he has a quality college scholarship to use as leverage in negotiations, and he was generally considered to be on more teams’ radars in the top 10 than was Smith, meaning he may have had slightly better options and less reason to cut a pre-draft deal. Finally, looking ahead in the draft, there appears to be ample opportunity to grab a quality college arm and a quality high school arm, with the corner infielders offering a little less depth. The below table illustrates the number of preferred targets we anticipated to be available in each round, broken down by our “want” categories and a few other designations. The more players that fall into a particular grouping, the better the depth in that area/round, and the more likely it is that I’ll have at least one of my preferred options in that grouping/round when my selection comes. A bolded number indicates that at least one of the potential targets is expected to require over-allotment amounts to sign in that round.
Taking into considerations the opportunities we expected to have in the later rounds, this became a fairly easy decision. Dominic Smith was the best overall choice on almost all fronts, and that’s the player we tabbed with our seventh overall pick. Second Round Jon Denney (C, Yukon HS (Yukon, OK)) was also available when our second-round pick (45th overall) came up. Now we were faced with a question as to whether we go upside with Denney, whom we considered a first-round talent, or stick with our game plan to grab a quality middle infielder. As noted in Denney’s filed scouting report here at Baseball Prospectus, the Sooner-stater had an inconsistent spring, casting at least some doubts as to his ability to stick behind the plate. Additionally, as a player with early-first-round heat earlier this spring, there is a greater chance that his signing bonus demands will exceed those of Unroe (though both have excellent college scholarships to utilize as leverage, and Unroe is not considered to be an “easy” sign). Remember, we believe we have a chance to come away from our first-round pick with a little extra money, so we have the option to use it to go after Denney here. However, that will limit some of the other over-allotment opportunities we think we might have later in the draft, particularly with regard to high school arms. Further, if Denney was dropping because of high bonus demands or uncertainty as to whether or not he would sign (that seems unlikely, considering he opted to attend the draft in person), teams may not risk losing their second round-allotment, instead turning to him early on Day 3 after they’ve had a chance to call him and discuss the matter. Finally, consulting our draft depth table, the number of quality high school catchers really jumps out, as do the thinner middle-infield ranks. Opting to keep our financial flexibility in place for one more round at least, we went with Riley Unroe as our second-round selection. Looking Ahead to Day 2 (1) One middle infielder; The remainder of our selections we can focus on best available talent, and of course to the extent that someone unexpected falls to us and represents a good value for the pick, we can always opt to stray from our targeted goals. Here is the updated draft depth table. We actually saw a number of our preferred targets come off the board a round or two earlier than expected, so the dynamics have changed slightly, and our decision to grab Unroe with the 45th overall pick—he was grabbed in the real draft by Tampa later in the second round—was reinforced.
We appear to be pretty well set up to at least come close to ticking off each of our “wants” for the draft. My guess is that a number of the potential over-allotment picks will come off the board early today, as teams have had the evening and morning to reach out to players and gauge signability. Our best bet will likely be to grab a catcher in the third or fourth round, our other middle infielder in the fourth, fifth, or sixth round, and our college arm at whichever point in the next four rounds there doesn’t appear to be a better option in one of the thinner groupings. While it would be nice to add another high school arm, as noted above our “shadow system” is deep in pitching at the low-minor levels, and with that area having been a focus in past “shadow drafts,” I am not particularly concerned if we aren’t further adding to it this year. A Note on Bonus Pool Allotment For this “shadow draft” we stepped into the shoes of the Red Sox, picking where they pick. The total pool allotment for the top 10 rounds (each pick thereafter gets up to $100,000 for use to sign a player, but surplus cannot be transferred) is approximately $6.8 million, with the specific breakdowns approximated in the tables listed above. If we opt to try to sign an over-allotment player or two, we have to free up excess cash to do so. As noted, I believe Smith will be willing to sign for less than our first round allocated amount ($3.2 million), which will free up some cash—potentially up to $400,00. Additionally, we can opt to draft and sign low-leverage players at certain points in the top 10 in order to free up almost the entire allocation for those particular slots. These low-leverage players would be primarily college seniors or injured college juniors. There is around $630,000 in signing bonuses between the seventh and 10th rounds, and another $250,000 or so in the sixth round. In total, we should be able to come up with between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in extra cash, depending on how aggressive we would like to be. That means we can draft an over-allotment pick only if we are convinced he will be signable for his slot plus, at the most, around $1,000,000 (and that would be pushing us very close to our limit). There is additional wiggle-room whereby we can spend up to 5 percent in excess of our total bonus pool allotment without being penalized any future picks (we would pay a percentage on the overage as a penalty). By my estimation, the most aggressive we would want to get would be to go after one significant over-allotment target in the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth round. Alternatively, we could target players expected to sign for high-six figures while drafting some back-up options after round 10—in other words, take an over-allotment guy in the 11th round to whom we could push excess money if an earlier over-allotment signing falls through. We will go into greater detail, and explanation, of these intricacies when we wrap the whole draft next week, but I thought it important to at least touch on the issue here, since it will play into our Day 2 strategy (and you will certainly see teams with higher bonus pool allotments leverage their opportunities in this fashion). Up Next Nick J. Faleris is a practicing structured finance attorney and Sports Industry team member in the Milwaukee office of Foley & Lardner LLP. The views he expresses in Baseball Prospectus are his own, and not necessarily those of the law firm.
Nick J. Faleris is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @NickJFaleris
|
Fantasy Starting Pitcher Planner: Week 11
Two questions.
1. Does a high school player inherently have more negotiating leverage than a graduating college player? (In that he has the option of college. The college player's only option is independent league.)
2. Why does any player ever sign at below-slot money? Why doesn't every early round draft choice hold out for optimum cash? If it's widely known what teams have to spend and what each slot is worth, how is it that there's this much variability in what players will accept?
Thanks for all the effort you've put into this. Really edifying.