2020 MLB Draft Thread (Pre-Draft Discussion)

[brewerfan82]

Best player available please. If that's a college pitcher great, if it's a normally top-10 position player that dropped while all the other teams were busy grabbing arms, that'd be great too!

[balsamlaker]

My night before prediction - the Brewers will revisit the 2017 draft in both of the first two rounds going Crochet and Workman back-to-back.

[patrickgpe]

I’d be happy with that. I heard the tigers were looking at him

For their 2nd pick.

[narwhalattack]

Hoping for Wilcox, Crochet, or Bitsko

 

Which means that they won’t pick any of them because they rarely ever draft someone I hope for

[Eye Black]

It sounds like Ed Howard is likely to get pushed down the board to a team with a larger bonus pool.

 

Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs said he still expects many senior signs that would typically be picked in rounds 7-10 to go in rounds 4-5 in order to help teams offset bonus pool spending overages in the early rounds. The draft is already incredibly short, so if that is the case there are going to be a lot of very talented players that are going to go undrafted over the next two days.

[patrickgpe]

Maybe, I'm off base. I understand why the bonus pools were put into place, to prevent the Yankees from drafting every tough sign and throwing money at them. It does put every team on equal footing based on their draft positions.

 

However, now with the shortened draft, it does seem a lot of players are going to go undrafted, with the "senior signs" that normally get drafted towards the back of the first 10 rounds, now going 4 and 5. Since, if undrafted, you can either sign or 20k max or go back to school if you can, it does seem the owners have gained more power in this draft.

 

I don't know how you fix it. I don't want to go back to the bad old days where the rich got richer. Maybe do something similar to the NFL?

[Zad Fnark]

Can you just get more guys through the undrafted free agent route?

[sveumrules]

Can you just get more guys through the undrafted free agent route?

 

Yes, but undrafted players can only sign for $20,000 this year so most HS players & college juniors who don't get picked will probably forego that in hope of a larger future payday.

[patrickgpe]

As far as predictions, I think Dingler, Beeter, or Wilcox are the 3 most likely.

[homer]

I haven't been this excited since the NFL draft in April.

[JackNicholson1974]

I'm going out on a limb here, we find our 1B of the future in Aaron Sabato.

 

Domo Arigato Mr. Sabato

 

Can't wait.

[Zad Fnark]

Yes, but undrafted players can only sign for $20,000 this year so most HS players & college juniors who don't get picked will probably forego that in hope of a larger future payday.

 

Thanks. Wasn't sure how it worked.

[madbad2000]

Maybe, I'm off base. I understand why the bonus pools were put into place, to prevent the Yankees from drafting every tough sign and throwing money at them. It does put every team on equal footing based on their draft positions.

 

However, now with the shortened draft, it does seem a lot of players are going to go undrafted, with the "senior signs" that normally get drafted towards the back of the first 10 rounds, now going 4 and 5. Since, if undrafted, you can either sign or 20k max or go back to school if you can, it does seem the owners have gained more power in this draft.

 

I don't know how you fix it. I don't want to go back to the bad old days where the rich got richer. Maybe do something similar to the NFL?

 

One way you fix it is to have hard slot values. It eliminates the gamesmanship of underslot deals to try to boost value later with a tougher sign because that later pick has a slot the player will get. In theory this should also put the top "talent" to the teams that need it based on draft slots. You will also see less senior signs because if you take that senior in round 5 you pay the slot bonus regardless.

 

The owners absolutely have increased power this year due to the shortened draft and take it or leave it undrafted pool. It wouldn't surprise me to see teams not use their full bonus pool and go 3 rounds of normal value and senior sign below slot for 4 and 5. And that only benefits the richer clubs that can afford to spend everything in their bonus pool including overages to get even more talent. I also read reports of some teams may punt on their first round pick until next year. Draft someone, offer the minimum lowball slot value and take another 1st rounder next year as compensation. Now that would be terrible for those players good enough to be a 1st rounder and then shuffled back into a bad situation next year potentially as a senior player. Unsigned draft pick compensation goes through first 3 rounds I believe, so that is something to watch.

[DR28]

I'm going out on a limb here, we find our 1B of the future in Aaron Sabato.

 

Domo Arigato Mr. Sabato

 

Can't wait.

 

Haha that's awesome!

 

If we want him, we'll need to take him at 20... No way he lasts until 53.

 

I'm torn tho, I really want a college arm.

[patrickgpe]

 

One way you fix it is to have hard slot values. It eliminates the gamesmanship of underslot deals to try to boost value later with a tougher sign because that later pick has a slot the player will get. In theory this should also put the top "talent" to the teams that need it based on draft slots. You will also see less senior signs because if you take that senior in round 5 you pay the slot bonus regardless.

 

The owners absolutely have increased power this year due to the shortened draft and take it or leave it undrafted pool. It wouldn't surprise me to see teams not use their full bonus pool and go 3 rounds of normal value and senior sign below slot for 4 and 5. And that only benefits the richer clubs that can afford to spend everything in their bonus pool including overages to get even more talent. I also read reports of some teams may punt on their first round pick until next year. Draft someone, offer the minimum lowball slot value and take another 1st rounder next year as compensation. Now that would be terrible for those players good enough to be a 1st rounder and then shuffled back into a bad situation next year potentially as a senior player. Unsigned draft pick compensation goes through first 3 rounds I believe, so that is something to watch.

 

I was thinking the same thing. the NFL does this pretty well. To play all of these games the teams do. Draft 1st round below slot. draft 2nd and maybe 3rd well above and then draft easy signings through the 5th is pretty crazy.

[brewcrewdue80]

BA just made a rumor post a team will not sign their 1st rd pick and take the extra pick next season. By rules they have to offer up an amount of the slot value in order to get that comp. I think 40% but maybe its 60%? Also noted many offers will be below slot value is the gist they're hearing. Maybe this will work in the Brewers favor seeing number of BPA fall in to their draft slot who they offer full slot to.

Id think a team like the Royals or Pirates drafting early with that high slot bonus would be the type to BA's rumor on not signing or well below slot. Marlins, Tigers. Probably a whole lot of the top 14 picks, slot values over 4mil. Consider that is more than the ML avg salary in previous years but be well over avg in 2020.

[brewcrewdue80]

 

One way you fix it is to have hard slot values. It eliminates the gamesmanship of underslot deals to try to boost value later with a tougher sign because that later pick has a slot the player will get. In theory this should also put the top "talent" to the teams that need it based on draft slots. You will also see less senior signs because if you take that senior in round 5 you pay the slot bonus regardless.

 

The owners absolutely have increased power this year due to the shortened draft and take it or leave it undrafted pool. It wouldn't surprise me to see teams not use their full bonus pool and go 3 rounds of normal value and senior sign below slot for 4 and 5. And that only benefits the richer clubs that can afford to spend everything in their bonus pool including overages to get even more talent. I also read reports of some teams may punt on their first round pick until next year. Draft someone, offer the minimum lowball slot value and take another 1st rounder next year as compensation. Now that would be terrible for those players good enough to be a 1st rounder and then shuffled back into a bad situation next year potentially as a senior player. Unsigned draft pick compensation goes through first 3 rounds I believe, so that is something to watch.

 

I was thinking the same thing. the NFL does this pretty well. To play all of these games the teams do. Draft 1st round below slot. draft 2nd and maybe 3rd well above and then draft easy signings through the 5th is pretty crazy.

 

They are technically in the infancy stage with this current style. The attempt was there to level the playing field and giving direct value of the pick. The games played how teams manipulated this structure may not have been all that well predicted when creating this draft structure. I mean, you cant trade standard picks. Imo at a 6÷-8mil draft pick value of top 5 picks and considering the hit/miss rate of even a top 10 selection, why not draft 2 players who fit a 9-25 BPA on your draft board with the value of your 1st pick? Now youre likely to have one of two make you ML team in the future and increased rate theyll be better than just a 1WAR kind of player.

So that said and taking the hard slot value, trading picks during a draft could be the solution. They just havent evolved to this yet.

[Austin Tatious]

I’m interested in Soderstrom but it looks like a lot of teams between 10-20 like him. So that’s probably a pipe dream. I don’t know if any of the high end high school athletes get to us when you look at guys like Hassel or Hendrick. Maybe Crow-Armstrong, although I wonder about the bat. But how these guys come off the board is anyone’s guess.

 

Another guy who intrigues me is JT Ginn. He’s talented but hurt. He could be a top ten level talent. The Dodgers went that route with Buehler and it worked out.

 

The UNC first baseman, Sabato, is really interesting. I know we love up the middle athletes but we only have stopgaps at corner infield. You hope he’s not just another AJ Reed because the profile isn’t that far off. Stearns would probably say he’s going after up the middle talent and as those guys bulk up, some can move to corner infield and corner outfield from center for the OF types.

 

A dream scenario for me is if somebody like Soderstrom slides to us at 20 and then Sabato is sitting there in the second round. Gage Workman from ASU might also be interesting in the second. I wonder about his hit tool though. But he’s a tremendous athlete who might develop. He’s got plus defender potential.

 

Overall, I personally don’t think our system will prove to be at the bottom. But we don’t have ranked players so we get dinged. However we have up to 10 guys who might have a chance to be ranked in the top 150 depending on development. That’s where we are lacking, players with visibility.

 

That highlights the point that we lack upside talent in the upper reaches of the system. If you wanted to address that, you’d get more and more collegiate talent. But in the baseball draft it’s dangerous to pre-determine a particular category.

[Eye Black]

Reminder we are going to move the discussion during the draft tonight and tomorrow to this thread (similar to an in-game thread).

 

Please continue our draft discussion at that thread link.

[brewcrewdue80]

Now that we are a couple of months removed from this year’s MLB Draft I figured we could kickoff the 2020 MLB Draft discussion thread.

 

With now less than 50 games remaining in the Brewers season they sit at what would would be the #16 spot in MLB Draft if the season ended today.

 

Below are some links and lists of the top draft prospects for 2020.

 

FanGraphs: THE BOARD for 2020 Draft

 

This Fangraphs list seems pretty legit. Dont know if they've just updated the rankings since this initial post, or just the views of the draft class stayed much the same after having a shorter season. Anyway, quoting the link. Useful for BPA I suppose for rounds 2-4.