markos

Does anyone know how much slot money the Twins have left, assuming both Stewart and Eades sign for slot? And how much can they go over before they hit the 5% limit?

I think Eades is a junior, so he will have a little leverage with the fact that he can go back to college next year.

This from Dave Cameron today: LINK: Analyzing Draft History | FanGraphs Baseball This is in reference to the BA article I linked to earlier.

This from Dave Cameron today: LINK: Analyzing Draft History | FanGraphs Baseball This is in reference to the BA article I linked to earlier.

There is also this from Baseball America: Top 100 Draft Flashback: What Does It All Mean? - BaseballAmerica.com [TABLE=class: table-striped, width: 610] [TR=class: header-row] [TD=bgcolor: #076392, colspan: 11]PITCHERS • TOP 100 PICKS • 1989-2008 DRAFTS [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: subheader-row] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7]Position[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7]Source[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Signed[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Graduate[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Graduate%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Impact[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Impact%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #BAB8B7, align: right]Top 5 [/TD] [/TR] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]RHP[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]HS[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]275[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]90[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]32.7%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]31[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]11.3%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]198[/TD] RHP 4YR[TD=align: right]367[/TD] [TD=align: right]136[/TD] [TD=align: right]37.1%[/TD] [TD=align: right]55[/TD] [TD=align: right]15.0%[/TD] [TD=align: right]207[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]LHP[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]HS[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]113[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]37[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]32.7%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]17[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]15.0%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]157[/TD] LHP 4YR[TD=align: right]146[/TD] [TD=align: right]70[/TD] [TD=align: right]47.9%[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [TD=align: right]14.4%[/TD] [TD=align: right]140[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]HS[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]388[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]127[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]32.7%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]48[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]12.4%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]355[/TD] [/TD] 4YR[TD=align: right]513 [TD=align: right]206[/TD] [TD=align: right]40.2%[/TD] [TD=align: right]76[/TD] [TD=align: right]14.8%[/TD] [TD=align: right]347[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9]TOTAL[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]901[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]333[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]37.0%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]124[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]13.8%[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: right]702[/TD] [/TABLE] Graduate = 30 MLB games • Impact = 5 career WAR • Top 5 = WAR sum for five best Beyond this data, I feel that baseball has completely changed how they handle young pitchers in the last 10 years, which is why I think that even studies like this over-sell the risk of high school pitchers. The over-use of pitchers is still rampant in college.

This is a rather interesting article from BA about success/failure rates of Top 100 draft picks during the past 20 years. Top 100 Draft Flashback: What Does It All Mean? - BaseballAmerica.com Scouting/player development has changed a lot in the past two decades, so I'm not sure how meaningful the results from the early 1990s are. However, it does provide some interesting information. Additionally, this is an analysis of the top-100 picks in each draft, so these trends may not apply to the elite talents picked at the top of each draft. Some takeaways: 1) College pitchers have a slightly higher probability of success than high school pitchers. In particularly, college left-handers are one of the safest picks for at least making it to the majors. 2) College position players have the highest probability of success, with 3rd basemen having the highest likelihood of all positions of both making the majors and being an impact player. (Kris Bryant anyone?) 3) High school position players are the riskiest draft picks, specifically HS outfielders. Lots of other good nuggets of information.

Those are his 2011 stats from when he was a sophomore. Here are his stats from this past season: Kohl Stewart (St. Pius X High School) Baseball Stats - MaxPreps 40 innings, 13 hits, 16 walks, 59 SO and 0.18 ERA. (1 earned run allowed all season). MaxPreps isn't the most intuitive about finding the correct seasons for players. I made the same mistake yesterday looking at Reese McGuire's stats.

A month ago when draft talk started to heat up, I thought the Twins would draft Meadows. He just fit their mold - toolsy prep player - that they have repeatedly drafted over and over in the past decade and longer. And if there is one thing they like better than toolsy prep position players, it is polished college right-handed pitchers. They have avoided taking college position players and high school pitchers, so I assumed that the top of their draft board went something like this: 1) Appel 2) Gray 3) Meadows 4) Frazier 5) Bryant 6) Kohl Stewart I have been shocked - shocked!! - that the Twins have been linked to Stewart so often in the past few weeks. Personally, I will be very disappointed if they draft someone outside of the Appel, Gray, Bryant, Stewart group; however, if they did, I would still guess it is Meadows.

I agree 100%. Floating the Moran rumor is just shaking the tree, and now they are seeing what drops. I'm fairly confident the Twins tried this as well with their McGuire rumor. The McGuire rumor allowed teams to figure out who might be available if there is an extra $1-2 million or so available. The Moran rumor raises it to $4 million.

In Law's mock draft, two other high school pitchers (Phil Bickford #8 and Trey Ball #10) selected before Stewart. I'm not sure if this is a significant adjustment in Law's opinion of Stewart, or just a quirk of a mock draft with the Twins able to select Gray.

As the calendar flipped over into June, Meyer had his best start of the season. Crediting a mechanical change, he dominated everyone in the Bowie Baysox lineup (well, everyone except Brandon Waring). Meyer pitched 6 1/3 innings, and punched out 10 Baysox batters, with only 2 walks and 2 hits allowed. The great: Meyer faced 22 batters and struck out 10 - 45% of the plate appearances ended in a K. The good: Only two walks and two hits allowed. (Both hits and a walk were to Brandon Waring) The bad: He allowed a home run, his 3rd of the season. Season stats: Meyer's season stats (in 11 starts): 61 IP, 25 ER, 53 H, 27 BB, 73 SO, 3 HR 3.69 ERA, 2.82 FIP 1.31 WHIP 10.77 K/9, 3.98 BB/9 Meyer's ranking in the Eastern League: SO - 2nd (74) K/9 - 2nd (10.77) FIP - 4th (2.82) K% - 6th (27.7%) Batting Average Against - 8th (.225) To expand on Jokin's comment about batters squaring up the ball against Meyer, I dug through the game logs and counted only 12 extra base hits against him so far this season, with the following breakdown: 2B - 8 3B - 1 HR - 3 Using this, I was able to determine that batters have the following triple-slash against Meyer: .225/.307/.308 This gives them an OPS of about .615.

<sad face> I guess I'm not following a historic night. <sad face/> Regardless of the pitch count and ball deception, it looks like Meyer is pitching very well tonight, so that is exciting.

Is anyone else following the New Britain - Bowie game tonight on MILB.com? Currently, it shows that Alex Meyer has completed 5 innings, but has only thrown 33 pitches with not a single pitch called a ball, and has 8 strikeouts. This is almost beyond belief.

Mention of Meyer during Mike Newman's chat on Fangraphs: [TABLE] [TD=class: chat_time, bgcolor: #CECECE]12:51[/TD] [TD=class: chat_desc, bgcolor: white]Comment From Dan Alex Meyer’s numbers – go/ao, 2 HR allowed, 63K/54.2IP, are fairly eye popping. If he can get his BB rate down to a more acceptable level, are we looking at a potentially dominating pitcher? [/TD] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TD=class: chat_time, bgcolor: #CECECE]12:53[/TD] [TD=class: chat_desc, bgcolor: white]Mike Newman: The stuff is there for him to be a 2/3 starter, but command/control is always the question. It’s great to dream on pure stuff, but he still needs to refine some. One can’t say a pitcher will dominate until this happens. [/TD] [/TABLE]

This is one of the major problems with these comparisons. This could be mitigated by comparing pitchers based on the BA drafting ranking rather than their actual draft position. This would eliminate some of the signability influence that makes draft position unreliable. But this adds a new problem as some of the elite high school pitchers ended up going to college each year. How should a Gerit Cole or Matt Harvey be counted? They were each identified as one of the best high school pitchers but ended up going to college. Should they also be considered successful high school prospects, just college, or both? An interesting study would include those players in the high school success/failure list.

I agree with you, though they may have decided to play their hand early in order to signal to a bunch of high school players that there will potentially be a lot of money available later in the draft, as to keep their signing demands high. This would potentially increase the number of good players they would have available in the second round and later. This has always been the biggest risk with signing someone under-slot with the plan of spending that money later - there is no guarantee that there will be players worth the extra money once your pick comes around again. Now with the Astros (and to a less extent the Twins) publically saying they are willing to save money for later, any player with leverage (high school or college junior) slotted to go in the last half of the first round could make demands for more than they usually would (say around $2.5M+) and make an extra $500K. It is obviously a risky game to play (for both the team and the players), but the more good players that drop, the better the chances the Astros could snag 2 or 3 of them in the later rounds.

Two comments relating to the risks of high-school pitchers, but long story short, I don't think drafting the best high school pitcher is any more risky than drafting a college pitcher. First, if you look at the list of right-handed college pitchers selected in the top-5 in the same timeframe, the results aren't that much better: Mark Prior, Cubs, 2nd, 2001 Dewon Brazelton, TB, 3rd, 2001 Bryan Bullington, Pittsburgh, 1st, 2002 Kyle Sleeth, Detroit, 3rd, 2003 Tim Stauffer, SD, 4th, 2003 Justin Verlander, Detroit, 2nd, 2004 Philip Humber, NYM, 3rd, 2004 Jeff Niemann, TB, 4th, 2004 Luke Hochevar, KC, 1st, 2006 Greg Reynolds, Col, 2nd, 2006 Brad Lincoln, Pit, 4th, 2006 Brandon Morrow, Sea, 5th, 2006 Stephen Strasburg, Was, 1st, 2009 Gerrit Cole, Pit, 1st, 2011 Trevor Bauer, Arz, 3rd, 2011 Kevin Gausman, Bal, 4th, 2012 Kyle Zimmer, KC, 5th, 2012 The second point is that if one looks at the high school pitchers drafted in the top-10 (not just top-5), there are a lot of good names. Colt Griffin, KC, 9th, 2001 Zach Grienke, KC, 6th, 2002 John Danks, Tex, 9th, 2003 Homer Bailey, Cin, 7th, 2004 Clayton Kershaw, LAD, 7th, 2006 Jarrod Parker, Arz, 9th, 2007 Madison Bumgarner, SF, 10th, 2007 Zach Wheeler, SF, 6th, 2009 Jacob Turner, Det, 9th, 2009 Karsten Whitson, SD, 9th, 2010 Archie Bradley, Arz, 7th, 2011 Max Fried, SD, 7th, 2012 Analyzing the results of players based on their draft position is error prone on several levels, and one of the more important reasons is that the signability rather than the talent of a player often impacts their draft position, particularly prior to the current CBA. So it isn't always a fair assertion to say that the first high school pitcher drafted in a given year was actual the best high school pitcher. When comparing the drafting Stewart to previous drafts, it is important to look at how the consensus best high school pitcher performed, rather than those that were drafted highest. I would like to research this question a little further, but I don't have the time right now. Taking both lists together, I don't see any clear-cut evidence that high school pitchers are a riskier commodity than college pitchers. All pitchers have a lot of risk, so I don't think it makes any sense to skip on Stewart and instead draft a second-tier college pitcher like Shipley just to avoid risk.

Thanks for posting all the relevant updates. This is great info.

Alex Meyer had his 10th start of the season on Memorial Day, and again put in a sub-par performance. He lasted only 5 innings and gave up 4 runs in those innings. The good: 5 strikeouts in 5 innings. Only 2 hits allowed. The bad: 4 walks. 95 pitches in only 5 innings. 1 home run allowed. The ugly: Meyer started the game off with 3 straight walks, and allowed a run to score on a wild pitch. His ERA is creeping awfully close to 4.00, and his BB/9 is now over 4. Season stats: Meyer's season stats (in 10 starts): 44.2 IP, 24 ER, 51 H, 25 BB, 63 SO, 2 HR 3.95 ERA, 2.80 FIP 1.39 WHIP 10.4 K/9, 4.1 BB/9

Thanks for the clarification. Feel free add any info you hear/read about Meyer to this thread.

I know it is conventional wisdom that HS pitchers have high bust rates, but do you know when that research was done? I feel like the past decade has had very few high school busts (at least top-10 picks), and instead COLLEGE pitchers are riskier, possibly due to overuse by college coaches. The way pitchers are developed in the minors has changed dramatically in the past decade, and I think that high school pitchers are a safer commodity than they were in the past. I don't have any thorough data to back this up, but I'm curious what others think about this.

The report is on Baseball Prospectus, and it can be found here: Baseball Prospectus | Eyewitness Accounts: May 24, 2013 The report was filed by BP scout Chris Mellen based on Meyer's May 5th start. Almost every major prospect guru has said that Meyer's potential as a front-line starter depends on improved command/control and development of a serviceable 3rd pitch. Additionally, they almost all say that if those two things don't develop, he will probably end up as a high-leverage asset in the bullpen because his stuff is so good. This most recent report is different only because this scout decided that Meyer's command and control will never reach the point where he can be an effective starter - I'm sure other scouts have different probabilities. For what it's worth, BP had one of the lowest rankings of Meyer to start the season (#88), where as BA (#59), Law (#61), Sickels (#63), and Mayo (#40) seem a lot more optimistic. Speaking of starting pitcher busts, here is an interesting comparison of Meyer with Perkins at the same age and level: Meyer: 10.70 K/9, 3.40 BB/9, 0.40 HR/9, 3.10 ERA, 2.63 FIP Perkins: 10.05 K/9, 3.45 BB/9, 0.84 HR/9, 3.91 ERA, 3.49 FIP

The actual report was filed by Chris Mellen, who is a recent addition to BP. I've tried to dig up some older reports to get a feeling for his style, but I didn't have much luck. He appears to have been a scout for a Red Sox prospect blog prior to working for BP.

There is a recently posted scouting report from Baseball Prospectus. Unfortunately, subscription is required; however, here is a snippet from the summary: This report mirrors fairly closely some of the feedback given by members who have seen Meyer this season, though it is rather disappointing to see him dismiss Meyer's potential as a starter.

I agree with everyone else that in the real world a Mauer trade would never happen. That being said, I would entertain an offer from Boston that included Xander Bogaerts and Matt Barnes.