mlhouse

I think $2 million was a good bargain for Enlow. I thought he was going to be in the $3 million range. My guess is that the savings that people thought Lewis, Rooker, and Leach were getting arent as big as we first thought and the JUCO guys selected in the 5th and 7th might get a bit above slot.

We were drafting at the top of each round and had a compensatory A pick. That sort of helps. If you are drafting first overall, your 5th round pick is going to be pick 136 in this draft so getting 6 top 100 ranked players isn't that astounding.

Your cleanup hitter should be the power hitter with the highest OBP. Getting your leadoff hitter on base is the most important step in scoring a run. Who is most likely to lead off the 2nd inning? The 4th hitter. And if the 4th hitter does not lead off the 2nd inning, that means that he is batting in the first inning with runners on base. EXACTLY what you want. Bill James worked this out many years ago.

I agree that you will have boycotts, but you will be able to bring in a lot of players to participate. Think of it as a Cape Cod League on steriods. You control injuries with significant pitch limits and load the pitching staffs up with a lot of pitchers to keep these overall pitch limits, but still play a substantial amount of innings and the hitters substantial levels of PA's. Think about my example of BJ Garbe in 1999. He was the 5th player picked and got a $2.75 million bonus. Our 3rd round pick was Justin Mourneau. If a guy like Mourneau goes to the short season draft league and smashes the ball against draft level competition, he shoots up the draft board past guys who held out, The same money is paid out to the draft picks, but Mourneau gets the money and Garbe does not.

Some more draft analysis. The 2017 draft marks probably (at least for the past 5 drafts anyways) were there was a 10 pick stretch of the draft that the Twins did not select a high school player. In 2017 for picks 21-30, we did not select a HS prospect. The last several drafts the Twins had selected at least 2 HS players with those picks. The rise of the college senior in the baseball draft I think is a remarkable thing. THis year the Twins drafted 4 college seniors in the first 10 rounds, 13 overall. While they drafted more in 2016, 7 of those players were drafted in the last 10 rounds to find cheaper organizational filler. My analysis is that teams are starting to outsmart themselves. THey are playing too many "draft under slot" games and then drafting lower value players in rounds 6-10 to save money. While I don't think it is a bad strategy to draft a guy at the top of the draft that will sign for less money, and I think the Rooker selection at #35 was both a good draft value and as a college senior without real future options he can be some savings, you use taht to add to a high 2nd or comp level pick draft slot to sign a guy who slips to that level, then draft to the slot values of the rest of the draft. While all the other teams are selecting lower valued, but cheaper, 6th-10th round picks your team can get higher value in these very valuable rounds by drafting to slot.

I think he is and the Twins should commit to him as their regular DH. What they need to do is understand the batting order, however. With their current lineup, the batting order should be: Grossman Mauer Dozier Sano Kepler Rosario Polanco Casto Buxton Your top OBP guy leads off and your power hitting OBP bats clean up, not 3rd. The 3rd hitter should NOT be your best hitter, almost the opposite. It should be a power hitting guy that has more of a propensity of striking out (an out that avoids DPs) but has power. He gets better pitches to swing at because the BEST hitter is behind him. If Kepler ever gets to be a guy that can protect Sano a bit, the Twins will have a nice lineup. But, they put a high strike out, lower OBP guy at the top of the order adn their best hitter 3rd.

http://www.ncsasports.org/baseball-recruiting/british-columbia/abbotsford/mennonite-educational-institute/cade-smith2

I get it........ still is interesting to go back and see late round bonuses. It is also interesting that they were pretty much money spent for nothing.

Shane Drohan drafted in 23rd round by the Phillies.

Another thing I was curious about, what type of exceptional bonuses have the Twins given out to picks outside the top 10. SO, I looked at the last 10 years and noted some of these bonuses, as well as total spending outside of top 10 rounds. 2016 11th Tyler Benninghoff $600,000 Total: 895,000 2015 Total $340,000 2014 Total $105,000 2013 Total $250,000 2012 30th Zach Larson $190,000 Total: $490,000 2011 26th Trent Higgenbuthom $195,000 Total: $610,000 2010 23rd Dallas Gallant $122,500 26th Kelly Cross $100,000 Total: $222,500 2009 15th Steve Liddle $200,000 Total: $200,000 (Brian Dozier was the 8th round selection and only signed for $30,000) 2008 30th Michael Tonkin $230,000 Total: $330,000 2007 Total: $100,000 Of these late round bonus players, only Tonkin reached the majors.

I looked at the 2012 draft. The Twins signed 27 players from that draft. Of those 27, 9 are still left in the Twins organization. 1 Byron Buxton MLB 1.5 JJ Berrios MLB 1.5 Luke Bard AA 2 Mason Melotokis AA 2 JT Chargois AAA 5 Tyler Duffey MLB 10 DJ Baxendale AAA 11 Taylor Rogers MLB 12 Alex Muren AA

Just to see, I looked at last 5 drafts. For picks in rounds 31-40 we signed 3,3,3,5,6 of those ten players in the those drafts, 2012-16. Picks 21-30 5,6,8,5,7 Picks 11-20 7,10,9,8,8

Wow, our California area scouts must be totally worn out: Round 9 UC-Riverside Round 10 Cal-Irvine Round 13 Fresno St Round 14 Merced College Round 15 Fresno St Round 18 UC Santa Barbara

The diamond in the rough was the argument, but the difference is you just draft the diamonds first, and pay them, and the fake diamonds who get the money are drafted later and paid much less. I came up with this idea after watching Twins high draft pick B.J. Garbe play in rookie ball for Elizabethton. I saw him for 4 plate appearances and easily saw he did not have the bat speed to make the major leagues. This was something that was evident even when playing in rookie ball that was not evident playing high school ball in Washington state.

I one time suggested this to a guy who was high in the Twins organization. He hated the idea. But, I think that the league should set up the short season minor leagues for draft eligible players. They then go play against each other and you can scout the players against a set level of competition. Then, after the short season is over, you draft.

Mennonite Educational Institute....

I prefer Enlow to Leach by a long shot. The bonus money is assumed to be significanly higher for Enlow vs. Leach. SO, I guess I would rather risk losing Leach than Enlow. Even if I believe it was a mistake, it might work out in the end if they can sign both. I hope that is the case.

Questioning when we will select some catchers?

1. I don't think that the Twins drafting of Lewis at 1.1 was a straight forward money saving pick. Based on what I have heard in public media and their deliberation, they probably had at least McKay and Lewis ranked close, with the pitchers, and took the player in that group that was willing to take the Twins offer. 2. I think that the Twins management has turned to a new money-ball draft approach. Since the original, college pitchers have become overdrafted and overpriced. So, drafting a HS position player at or near the top of the draft gives you essentially the better bang for the buck now. 3. I believe that the Twins made a mistake passing on Blayne Enlow at #37. Draft wise it has worked out because Enlow was still available at #76, but drafting him at #37 meant it was easier to sign him above slot value and you did not have to risk losing him between picks #38 and 75. If you draft him #37, and have to pay him $3 million to sign, you only have to come up with $1.2 million over slot. But at #76 you have to come up with $2.25 million over that slot, meaning $1 million more needs to be skimped from other picks. 4. So, you work out the deal for Enlow at #37 and then draft a guy at slot value at 76. Since we overdrafted Leach, there is a good chance he is still available at 76. 5. Once the draft reached the 6th round, teams suddenly turned to college seniors to save on the lower round slotted value. In the 10th round, 24 college seniors were selected, 6 juniors, and zero HS players. 6. I think that this creates a new moneyball opportunity and shows why I would have selected ENlow at #37. Lets say you do that, and pay Enlow all of the slot savings you made from Lewis, and you still have a bit more from that and a lower slot signing of Rooker. Now, from rounds 3-10 instead of selecting players below slot value, you draft signable players in those rounds at the slot value. I think that this would have given the Twins somewhat better value, particularly in the later part of the 2nd day.

The problem with your statement is that it is based on hindsight. When the Twins made their selection at #35 and #37, being at the top of the 2nd we could not tell what a other teams would do. The Yankees made what appears to me to be a pick that is projected to sign under slot. THey could have used this savings to go after Enlow in round 2, squeezing money from later picks and then saying to hell with the cap to make the money work. They did draft a HS pitcher in round 2 that looks to be a potential above slot signee. So, again, while what you said is true, it is only true because we know the results, not just the information taht was available at the time of selection. If Enlow signs with the Twins and we don't lose any of the subsequent picks for signability reasons (which is unlikely since much of the later Day 2 selections were all based on picking signable players), it all worked out. However, it still was a mistake to pass on Enlow at #37 and wait for him to slide to #76. The risk in him not being available was simply not worth it.

Again, it isn't totally true. Other teams other harder to sign HS players after Enlow.

I'm not sure that is all completely true because the team that picked right after the Twins, the Reds, selected Jacob Heatherly at pick 3.2 and Nick Allen went later in the 3rd. So some teams were willing to chase similarly rated HS prospects with solid college commitments in that round. Then you can see how teams then spent the latter part of today squeezing their draft pools just like the Twins did today. THey did this by drafting college seniors that have limited signing options. Look at the seniors drafted by round: Round 1 0 CBA 1 (Rooker) 2 1 CBB 0 3 2 4 3 5 2 6 5 7 6 8 11 9 18 10 24 If you look at these later rounds, in round 5 there were 12 high school players selected. From that point in the draft on, there were 8 total HS players selected in rounds 6-10. Four in round 6, one in round 7, two in round 8, one in round nine, and ZERO in round 10. So, other teams are conserving their slot money too because they aint foolish. Which, in my opinion, if you manage your slot caps on the top of the draft will create opportunities for you to find players in those rounds and sign them to good value contracts.

On that, I don't disagree but I think you overstate the value of the "entire night". If he has the arm you think he does I don't pass on him at #37. They already know what it takes to sign some of these players, and drafting him there makes it easier to get the deal done and you don't risk losing him in the draft. Again, it is easier to maximize your draft value if you select Enlow at #37 and only have to go above slot $1.2 million (around what the savings was for Lewis) than to draft him at #76 and have to come up with $2.25 million in slot savings.

Again, you are just making assumptions to fit your narrative, including that the contract numbers are agreed to. I am not saying they are not and the contract leverage players have is more limited, not every draft pick signs in the top rounds. And, the other issue were you are wrong is it does matter where you draft them because you are correct, you get a total draft pool. But, as I have pointed out, if you need $3 million to sign Enlow, if you draft him at #37 it only requires you to save $1.2 million in other picks. If you draft him at #76, it requires you to save $2.5 million on other picks. If you don't think that makes a real difference in your draft, then you simply do not understand what is going on.

Dude, your assumption is that you can sign Leach for $1 million versus the slot value for the first pick of the 2nd round, #37 overall, of $1.8 million. If Leach signs for closer to the slot value for pick #37 then the TOTAL amount of signing is going to be much higher. Lets say he signs for $1.4 million, midway between your $1 million and the slot value for #37. That means it takes $4.4 million to sign the two players and you need to get those dollars by squeezing your picks drafted in rounds 4 - 10, and beyond. And, as I have stated, you can't have it both ways and say that they significantly reached for Leach to save money at the top of round 2 and he will sign for slightly higher than 3rd round money. So, then, why not just take Enlow at #37. Sign him for $3 million using the $1.8 million slot and $1.2 million savings from drafting Lewis. You take the risk of losing Leach, but why risk losing Enlow, the guy you will sign for way more money? THe optimistic thing is maybe they can get Enlow for less than $3 million. After the 2nd round very few players signed for anywhere close to that in 2016, but most of the HS guys taken that signed above slot were drafted before round 3. Looks like some of the picks after round 4 are money saving picks, but we will see.