The 2017 MLB Draft Thread (#9 Pick + #34 & #46)

[brewmann04]

I know Captain Kirk is hitting well at Home but I would like to see Broxton playing CF the rest of the way

[MrTPlush]

if we go 12-12 the rest of the way we go 73-89 and would likely get the 9th pick....I would rather not lose 90 (which I think is a big deal mentally) and get the 9th pick than go 69-93 and get 7th pick...Am I alone in this thought?

 

Choking away the division in September and not making the playoffs like in 2014...maybe.

 

Losing 90 games in a lost season you never had a chance in...probably not.

[paul253]

Brewers are going to end up with the 10th pick. They always pull this crap. Lose all season long then when it doesn't matter in the least bit they'll start winning like crazy.

[sveumrules]

Coming into the year I was hoping for a top 5 pick but figured we'd probably end up in the 6-10 range.

 

I'd like the best possible draft slot & bonus pool but at the end of the day if nine other teams are better at being bad than we were I guess you tip your cap to them?

[LouisEly]

Nothing irritates me more than the AAAA label being thrown at a guy who has <=300 sporadic PAs, that short leash leads to players looking over their shoulder and does nothing for their mental development as a player.

I'd argue that there are a few things that irritate you more than that , but I agree completely with the premise.

 

Still bothers me that Joey Meyer got all of 516 PAs to prove himself in the majors. Had to have Greg Brock get his ABs (and Jeffrey Leonard). "He struck out too much." No, he didn't; his career minor league K rate was about 20%, and his walk rate was ok (almost 9%, for a slightly higher than 2:1 K/BB ratio). Yes, he had a bit of a sophomore slump, but that happens when you only play in 11 games (plus one PH) in the month of April.

[LouisEly]

Brewers are going to end up with the 10th pick. They always pull this crap. Lose all season long then when it doesn't matter in the least bit they'll start winning like crazy.

As other have said, this can be a very good thing because it means that the young guys on the big league club are developing and improving, and/or the older players who will need to get moved soon (Garza, Guerra, Torres, Braun) are playing well and increasing their trade value, allowing the Brewers to bring in more prospects.

 

The difference between the 5th pick in the draft and the 10th pick will be made up for by acquiring prospects who have some track record of success in the minors and are more of a "sure thing" than a draft pick. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that Monte Harrison is likely to have a better career than Keon Broxton; Keon's the type of prospect a veteran who is playing well can bring back. If Guerra is still pitching this well next year, think about what they could get for him. He doesn't have the track record, but that is more than made up for by his low salary and team control. Anyone could take him and not have to worry about his salary for several years. If Garza keeps this up by mid-season next year he will be relatively cheap and could bring back a decent prospect or two. But the key is that those guys have to play well in order to have that trade value.

 

Think of it like having the 5th pick, but signing a guy for the 10th slot and using the extra pool money to buy guys later in the draft - those later picks are the prospects that will come back in trades for guys who are doing well.

[MrTPlush]

It is what it is at the end of the day. I know people are going to hate it if we have a nice September, but every team has it's ups and downs during the year. You have to look at the big picture. It's not going to bother me if we have a nice September and our draft position slides. That's how baseball works.

 

Currently we sit in the #10 spot. Our Pathagorean W-L is one game better, we are losing more than preseason projections, and currently using advanced statistics we are the 7th worst team. It isn't like our production on the field doesn't match our record. We have the amount of wins we should have.

[paul253]

As other have said, this can be a very good thing because it means that the young guys on the big league club are developing and improving, and/or the older players who will need to get moved soon (Garza, Guerra, Torres, Braun) are playing well and increasing their trade value, allowing the Brewers to bring in more prospects

 

Or it could be a very bad thing. While I certainly root for young guys to get experience and play well, i don't buy that two or three extra good starts by guys like Garza or Guerra are going to have any positive affect on their trade value. People know what those pitchers are. Three good starts isn't going to change that.

 

I'm all for winning. But by "winning" I mean overall. Competing for playoff spots and division championships. We have this frustrating tendency of playing like crap all year long then when wins actually do more harm to your future then good we go on this tear, costing us 4-5 draft positions, draft pool money and maybe even a pick if we make another dumb signing like Kyle Lohse. I can't say that they should TRY to lose but man is this frustrating to see the same scenario play out year after year after year. I think by now we know that momentum doesn't carry over to the next year so I have faith that this little streak were on means anything.

[Roderick]

As other have said, this can be a very good thing because it means that the young guys on the big league club are developing and improving, and/or the older players who will need to get moved soon (Garza, Guerra, Torres, Braun) are playing well and increasing their trade value, allowing the Brewers to bring in more prospects

 

i don't buy that two or three extra good starts by guys like Garza or Guerra are going to have any positive affect on their trade value. People know what those pitchers are. Three good starts isn't going to change that.

 

I disagree. Those two pitchers still are adjusting their value with each start because of their circumstances. Someone like Nelson or Anderson isn't going to move the needle as much with their last couple of starts.

 

How Garza and Guerra finish the season, would effect their offseason value if the Brewers were to look to trade them.

 

If Garza pitches well to the end, I could see some team (I wouldn't, but there are 29 other GMs) rolling the dice and taking him off our hands for free. If he has a couple of stinkers, I don't see anyone taking him without the Brewers kicking in on his contract.

 

For Guerra, it is just a matter of having enough starts under his belt that you don't have to worry that he is a product of only seeing teams once or twice. And the longer he goes healthy, that eliminates that concern also. I still don't see how the Brewers would get as much value from him as he is worth to the Brewers until trading deadline 2017. If he is healthy and pitches well through then, we should get full value. Making minimum, means every team in baseball would be interested.

[TheCrew07]

If everyone who I want to be playing is actually on the field and they win, so be it. I'm not going to begrudge the players doing their best and winning. My problem has always and will always stem from the short sighted "this guy gives us the better chance to win" argument which isn't even necessarily true. Maybe today, but probably not a month from now when a prospect is settled in and hopefully performing well, and especially not in the following seasons.

 

I think effect of struggling bat in the line-up is vastly overstated by many, every line-up will have a struggling player or 2 in it every day during the season, how often do teams really put up 15+ hits? It pissed me off when Gamel wasn't given a shot for McGehee, I wanted to strangle Macha every time he sat Escobar for having 3 bad games in a row, and now Counsell is ticking me off sitting one of Broxton or Santana most every day.

 

Even posts like Rluz' about Villar's value as a SS (where he stinks defensively) get under my skin, that's just a recycle of the original Hall vs Hardy debate and then later the Hardy vs Escobar debate. I'll say this one last time because I think it should be self explanatory by now, but even if you take a small step back in that first year swapping out a veteran for a prospect, the potential to be a much better team in year 2 is very real. Like I tried point out numerous times in the Hardy/Escobar debate... if you trade Hardy for a decent young pitcher, then the pitcher + Escobar will provide greater long term value than the current Hardy + below replacement level pitcher on the staff. Yes you step back from Hardy to Escobar, but you gain so much more by replacing a scrub pitcher.

 

Play chess people, see all of the moves working in unison, roster management should not be linear like playing checkers.

[Mass Haas]

If Garza keeps this up by mid-season next year he will be relatively cheap and could bring back a decent prospect or two.

 

Remember, the Brewers will be holding a club option on Garza for 2018 at just $5M.

 

Not quite John Lackey at $507,000, but potentially still valuable in a deal.

[MrTPlush]

So I hear people every day preach how we always go on this big hot streak to close out the year ruining our draft position and I decided to take a look. I did not list the record in a year we competed because who cares about draft position in those years...no one.

 

2015 (13-15): Nope doesn't follow the myth.

 

2014 (9-17): Really doesn't follow the myth.

 

2013 (15-12): Ok record but not far of the .500 mark they played the entire year if you take out the miserable 6-22 May record.

 

2012: We were competing

 

2011: We were competing

 

2010 (15-15): A .500 ball club that played .500 ball the last month.

 

2009 (16-16): A .500 ball club that played .500 ball the last month.

 

2008: We were competing

 

2007: We were competing

 

I am so sick of hearing about how we always tear it up at the end to ruin our draft position. History shows we actually don't do that and usually play just like we have the majority of the year. If you are wondering, no, adding in August doesn't really change anything. I was into the the late 20th century before I gave up looking for a year where we a) weren't competing and b) had a stellar finish to kill our draft position.

[LouisEly]

Or it could be a very bad thing. While I certainly root for young guys to get experience and play well, i don't buy that two or three extra good starts by guys like Garza or Guerra are going to have any positive affect on their trade value. People know what those pitchers are. Three good starts isn't going to change that.

In most instances this is true for players that age, but the exceptions are when those players are coming off of injuries (both Guerra and Garza) or haven't established that they can go 180 IP in a season (Guerra). Guerra certainly needs to prove that he can be relied on to still be effective in September/October if a contender will give up significant value for him.

[LouisEly]

What is more important than a couple of spots in the draft order is the depth of the draft and the delta of talent between, say, the fifth overall pick and the 10th overall pick. Last year was generally a weak draft - no one or two players stood out as being the clear #1/#2, and there wasn't much difference in talent between the #3-5 picks and the #11-13 picks. 2014 was similar - it could be argued that Hoffman/Conforto/Turner/Beede/Newcomb is as much if not more talented than Kolek/Rodon/Schwarber/Gordon/Jackson.

 

2013 is the other side of the coin - there certainly is a dropoff after Frazier at #5. Meadows/Bickford/Smith are still fairly talented, although I think that Meadows is overrated.

 

The question is how deep 2017 is.

[And That]

The difference between #3 and #5 in the draft is quite significant from a bonus pool perspective.

[And That]

So I hear people every day preach how we always go on this big hot streak to close out the year ruining our draft position and I decided to take a look. I did not list the record in a year we competed because who cares about draft position in those years...no one.

 

2015 (13-15): Nope doesn't follow the myth

The Brewers lose 2 more games (maybe even just 1?), they pick two spots higher. It doesn't take a "big hot streak" to lose important draft position.

[young guns]

I am so sick of hearing about how we always tear it up at the end to ruin our draft position. History shows we actually don't do that and usually play just like we have the majority of the year. If you are wondering, no, adding in August doesn't really change anything. I was into the the late 20th century before I gave up looking for a year where we a) weren't competing and b) had a stellar finish to kill our draft position.

I went back and looked and I believe the "myth" popped up from our 2013 finish. Its not necessarily from the entire month of september, but from the last 8 games where we went 6-2. Before those last 8 games were were in the 7th spot 1 game from 6th and 3 from a 3 way tie with 4th(though both the cubs and twins only won 1 more game so we had no shot at those spots). We were about 2-3 games ahead of 6 teams with 70-72 wins(we had 68 at the time).

 

In those 8 games we had 1 against the cards, then 3 against the braves and 4 against the mets. The cards and braves were the top 2 teams in the NL that year and the mets were one of the teams a few games above us. We beat the cards then took 2 of 3 from the braves and 3 of 4 against the mets. Which dropped us into a 4 way tie for 8th and since we had the best record the previous team of those 4 teams ended up 11th in the standings and picked 12th because toronto received the 11th for failing to sign their previous years draft pick.

 

4 wins would have had us 7th and 2 6th. So basically winning 6 instead of 4 those last 8 games cost us 5 slots in the draft. For those of us who dont care about wins in a lost season, every september win is agonizing because of what damage just a few "meaningless" wins can do to your draft standing.

 

The Brewers lose 2 more games (maybe even just 1?), they pick two spots higher. It doesn't take a "big hot streak" to lose important draft position.

If they lose 1 more they would have picked 8th(tied with Philly, but lose tiebreaker) so 4 spots. Oops, see now youre talking about 2015, but this is correct for 2013.

[MrTPlush]

So I hear people every day preach how we always go on this big hot streak to close out the year ruining our draft position and I decided to take a look. I did not list the record in a year we competed because who cares about draft position in those years...no one.

 

2015 (13-15): Nope doesn't follow the myth

The Brewers lose 2 more games (maybe even just 1?), they pick two spots higher. It doesn't take a "big hot streak" to lose important draft position.

 

That isn't what the myth is though. It is that we play really well and over what we had done all season. Adding onto that the poster who just recently mentioned it said we were already starting to do what we do every year. So he is obviously is talking about a month long streak not some kind of 6-2 to end the season. It isn't so much the drop in draft position people complain about, but the fact we play extremely well AND drop in draft position. However history says we don't play that well.

[brewmann04]

No disrespect to anyone but its more important to get a better draft spot during this rebuilding .

[And That]

If the poster just recently made that comment, wouldn't that be less than a month? It seems like you are the person defining "the myth" as taking place over exactly the last month of the season. Haven't seen that defined length of time from anyone else.

 

I believe what the frustration is, is that while the Brewers have generally been not good for decently sized chunks of their history, they have rarely managed to be bad enough to get one of the top couple of picks. Since their lone World Series appearance, the Brewers have drafted in the top 3 exactly twice, and have not drafted first overall in more than 30 years. Given the Brewers' historic mediocrity, you would think they would have lucked into the top spot at least once since BJ Surhoff. They're not even "always the bridesmaid" - they have been more of an usher.

[paul253]

That isn't what the myth is though. It is that we play really well and over what we had done all season

 

In what way were we competing in 2012? You can't remove the biggest piece of evidence we have then claim there is no evidence. If we were competing in 2012 we wouldn't have traded Zach Greinke. We were 9 games under .500 heading into August. Still 5 games under .500 heading into September. Then we went 20-11 the rest of the way. If you are going to even begin to argue we were competing then you have to acknowledge the only reason we were even close is because of the fact that we played significantly better in September and October then we had all year. In other words, because of the hot streak

 

Also, in 2013 while September may not have been a typical "hot streak" in terms of record, playing 3 games over .500 in September was quite the improvement from playing 17 games under .500 like we had been all season long. Again, if you compare the final month to the rest of the year then id say that we did in fact go on a hot streak at the end of the year.

 

Finally, while this season isn't over yet we are 6-2 so far in September. Even playing .500 ball for the rest of the way would be a bit of a hot streak considering that, even taking out our awful August, we would still have been 7 games under .500 this year.

 

I think there is plenty of evidence that we have played significantly better towards the end of the year lately. It's happened twice in the last four years and has started happening so far this year.

[1992casey]

Since their lone World Series appearance, the Brewers have drafted in the top 3 exactly twice, and have not drafted first overall in more than 30 years.

 

I may be wrong, but I believe the Brewers have drafted first overall once and only once.

[reillymcshane]

I don't know if this has been posted, but Fangraphs is running an 'early look' series on the 2017 draft - just eligible high school players. It is by position, and here's what they've done so far:

 

Centerfielders: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-early-look-at-the-center-fielders-in-the-2017-draft/

Left Handed Pitchers: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-draft-summer-showcase-series-left-handed-pitchers/

Catchers: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-early-look-at-the-catchers-in-the-2017-draft/

Middle Infielders: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-early-look-at-middle-infielders-in-the-2017-mlb-draft/

[MrTPlush]

People are referring to a longer time frame when saying "we always finish strong". It's definitely directed at a 15+ game stretch minimum.

 

So let's take 2013...

 

People are mad because we played over heads at the end of the season. However were those same people upset when we play to a miserable 6-22? You take out that month and we actually played over .500. If we played like we did the rest of the season in May our pick would have been A LOT worse.

 

It doesn't matter if they historically play well at the end or not. Picking and choosing a month, a week, or any other time frame is just silly. Getting mad that we played over our heads towards the end to get a worse draft position is not right. Teams play over/under their heads all season. Some at the start and some at the end. While one can point to a good September record this year one could just counter that with the brutal August that was us playing under our potential.

 

I guess what annoys me more is how people get the idea we robbed ourselves of a better draft pick. To me you look at the 162 game record. We lost 90...did we perform like a 90 loss team? Yep. Ok so I don't see the problem. What do people want the Brewers to do? Go to the plate with pool noodles at the end of the season?

[reillymcshane]

What do people want the Brewers to do? Go to the plate with pool noodles at the end of the season?

That's what Khris Davis uses to throw balls in from the outfield.