2wins87

Seems to be a bit of reaching for college pitching going on. Could be interesting what high school pitching and bats are left in the second round.

I like it!

I have a feeling they are more in on the college bats. I guess I'll say Lee, but I really could see it go either way. Their model may really love a 17 year old JuCo player too.

I think I want Parada now, but I have to think I'll be happy with whoever they take. Hopefully not another big surprise.

A switch hitting power bat is interesting, but I also think it can be more risky for him to really hit as well as projected when he has two swings to keep dialed in, so yeah, much more happy with a shot at an up the middle bat.

Right, I think we should be prepared for a scenario where the Twins don't take whoever falls too. They guy(s) that fall to the bottom might not be all that highly regarded by the Twins either. Still, I doubt the Twins were going to be in on Rocker so it seems to be setting up pretty well to get someone they like.

Fangraphs updated their draft board this morning as well. A couple of notable guys outside the consensus on their board are Collier down at 9 and Green down at 11, with Neto up at 5 and Horton up at 12.

Povich doesn't have the highest ceiling. He's got a solid floor though. As a lefty that can get into the mid 90s, it seems like he ought to be valuable as a reliever at the very least, though it certainly looks like he could be a solid mid rotation starter too. For highest ceiling I'd probably still go with Canterino, if he can ever stay healthy. He has a great starter's mix, which makes it hard to give up on him potentially being a starter. But since he hasn't stayed healthy, odds are he will end up in the bullpen. I'd also take Festa for ceiling over Povich. He's been sitting mid to upper 90's as a starter and easily puts away high A hitters with both his slider and change up. I'm looking forward to seeing how those pitches hold up against AA hitters. CES sticking at 3B is probably still doubtful, but that's no reason not to keep giving him reps there. Javier has been hitting quite well for over a month now. Given how long it's taken him to get here though, he's now older than his average competition and he still has a ways to go. By all means give him a challenge at AA, but when the 40-man roster crunch comes at the end of the season, it still seems very unlikely he'll be among those that need to be protected.

Not that I have inside information or a perfect memory of drafts, but I think the strategy of trying to push a player down in the draft is pretty tricky and probably hasn't really been executed effectively very often. The Mets have $4.78 million allocated to their first pick at #11, and the Cubs at #7 have $5.7 million allotted. If they wanted to push one of the consensus top 7 down they would have to be offering them well over $6 million, since the player would otherwise see their floor value at around $5.7 million, and they would also probably have a decent chance at going a slot or two higher as well. So if the Mets went over their first pick slot by $1.5 or $2 million they would have to either make it up by signing lesser guys to below slot deals later in the draft, or if they can't manage to save enough money they start losing picks in future drafts. It sort of defeats the purpose, especially in the MLB draft where good players routinely come out of later rounds and high picks still bust quite a bit. The Mets' #11 pick is actually a compensation for not signing Rocker at #10 last year, so they actually have another 1st round pick at #14, giving them a unique opportunity to try something like that this year. They could get an underslot deal in place at #14 with someone that doesn't expect to go until late in the 1st round otherwise, and use the savings to up their offer at #11. In most situations it can be a lot trickier when the team is trying to save money on 2nd and 3rd round picks that have smaller slot values and smaller gaps between where the player could reasonably expect to go otherwise. There is always a lot of talk about bonus pool manipulation because it can be fun to speculate, but I think when it comes down to it, most teams have ended up going pretty straightforward with their picks most of the time, going with their favorite of of the still available picks. There are a few good examples of creative strategies but I don't think it actually happens that much.

Also Wallner is 6'5". I think there might be more tall catchers in professional baseball now than ever before after Sandy Alomar and Mauer proved it's possible to be tall and a good defensive catcher, but I would guess that there is still more of a challenge for a tall guy to learn to use his body effectively behind the plate. Guys like Mauer, Alomar, and Wieters had tons of reps to get there, and I doubt it would go well generally for a guy trying to do it for the first time in AA. Not to mention the wear on the player from playing at catcher which can have an adverse effect on their offense. If the idea is to turn him into a catching prospect, they would most likely do better just trading him for the best catching prospect they can get in return.

I was going to say something similar. Against a team with multiple aces we draw the bottom of the rotation, which probably means the bats will go silent. Probably we are taking too much away from a few good outings against good pitchers and a few bad outings against worse pitchers, but I still have to wonder. Is there more focus put on advance scouting for the better pitchers? Do the worse pitchers pitch to the hitters' weaknesses more and the good pitchers pitch to their own strengths more, which leads the advance scouting to be more effective against good pitchers? Is it just random luck? Probably mostly the last one.

Parada falling out of the top 7 seems like maybe the ideal scenario for the Twins. Unfortunately it has seemed less and less likely as the summer has gone on. I doubt there's more than a 5% chance of him being avaiable. That's probably on the high end.

Even his K rate has been creeping down. Under 30% in June, and under 25% through the first third of July. I think promotions might take a bit longer than we would hope since draft prospects won't be signing until the middle of next week at earliest, and probably start to get assignments the week after that. The promotions I'm most looking forward to: Wallner to AAA, Festa and Povich to AA, CES to AA, and Hajjar to A+. I also think Canterino needs to move quickly to AAA when he returns. It sounds like he should be close.

Seems like a very plausible draft. Generally pretty safe to assume that this front office will load up on college arms on day 2. Like others I hope that one of the consensus top 7 will fall to the Twins. Barring that I think I'd prefer Neto over Cross. He'll need more offensive refinement but I like his bat-to-ball skills as a foundation, and of course I like his positional and defensive value. I'm a big fan of going for high school pitching upside in the second round, and I could even see maybe doubling up with the comp pick if they are able to have enough money to sign two. Maybe an underslot deal with someone like Cole Young in the first round would allow that to happen. That would be an interesting upside over safety play. Probably not very likely but fun to speculate. Of the college pitchers, Johnson and Zobac sound the most like the Twins types based on your descriptions, but looking at how past drafts have gone they'll probably take a few under the radar guys and we probably won't know what they've actually gotten with them until a year or even two later once the development team has had some time to mold them a bit.

There was an interesting tidbit from Dan Szymborski's bust article prior to the season where he noted ZiPs projected a big uptick in his walk rate based on his first strike percentage from last year. So it was actually predictable by at least one of the public projection systems. At this point he has a pretty long track record of not being very effective. Maybe there are some components of a pitcher that should be better. But maybe his pitches also just don't work as well as they should, maybe he's lost some control or the conviction to throw strikes early in counts. At this point, he seems like more of a project than a useful pitcher, and based on his track record going back at minimum 3 years, it seems like wishful thinking to say he should be better than this.

They could definitely use a starter to solidify their top 3 or 4 playoff starters. I'm sort of reluctant to pay the price for all of these guys who will be under control for at least one more year. All of them will require giving up some very promising player. I'd be interested in Syndergaard as a rental if the Angels decided they are sellers. They are a mess of an organization so they probably should, but I'm not sure if they will. There are some peripheral numbers that have dipped from his pre-surgery performance. He could still be working back to his former self though, and the Angels aren't known for being great at getting the best out of pitchers.

I think I've been less down on Martin than others, but I think there's a pretty good argument that Steer should be viewed as more valuable than Martin at this point. Both are guys who's biggest plus is the ability to make lots of contact. Steer has managed to turn the contact into solid power while Martin hasn't, and has maybe struggled with the quality of contact while trying to add power too. Defensively, Martin still has better tools but with his inconsistency their overall defensive values seem pretty equivalent right now. Martin has speed and age on his side, but he's only a bit more than a year younger than Steer, so there's not a ton of time to catch up. I'd sort the others between them a bit different too, but given the relative similarity in their likely MLB positions and closeness of their development developmental timelines I think they make good guide posts for whatever mental valuation model you want to make. At this point, I think Steer comes out on top by a bit. It's more a testament to Steer's positive development than anything else, but I think I'd be more reluctant giving him up in a trade than Martin.

Here are the 10 #5 overall picks taken in the years before Gordon: 2013 - Jackson Frazier 2012 - Kyle Zimmer 2011 - Bubba Starling 2010 - Drew Pomeranz 2009 - Matt Hobgood 2008 - Buster Posey 2007 - Matt Wieters 2006 - Brandon Morrow 2005 - Ryan Braun 2004 - Mark Rogers So 2 star players, 3 solid regulars, 2 replacement level role players, and 2 guys with brief MLB careers, and 1 guy who didn't even make the majors. If Gordon has a career as an above replacement level role player that will be right around the median for the slot or a bit above it. The MLB draft is the biggest crapshoot in sports. The Buster Poseys are actually the outliers for a #5 pick.

I actually think Martin will be a better second baseman than outfielder so still getting reps at SS isn't a bad thing for that eventual move.

Former #1 overall pick who had an ok stint with the Rays before bouncing around a bit. He is now 32 and hasn't played in the majors since 2019. He's emergency SS depth.

I don't think he's filling, or will fill, the role that Lewis will hopefully play. His role is super utility, and he's a quite good in that role. Personally I've liked what I've seen from him at the MLB level pretty much the whole time. While not what was originally envisioned, it's not actually even a particularly bad outcome for a former #5 overall pick. His aggressive approach keeps him from being a regular, but he's got the bat speed to hit major league fastballs and the hands to hit major league breaking balls. He's a bottom of the order guy that pitchers can't just take for granted.

I think I like Neto best for the college position players that are likely to be available at #8. The big leg kick and lack of power doesn't seem great, but it's kind of reminiscent of someone we've seen a lot of lately: Steven Kwan. I don't think the bat-to-ball skill is quite on the level of Kwan's, and the level of competition he's faced is mostly a bit lower, but a guy that can play good defense at short and make a lot of contact is always still pretty valuable.

It's not about the decision it's about the decision maker. Rhubarb, peas and carrots, ROCCO!!, rhubarb, rhubarb, SPREADSHEETS!!, peas and carrots...

I think they could definitely use Winder as a long reliever. They need somebody to be a long reliever to keep the rest of the bullpen more fresh right now. There was some weird maneuvering with Winder optioning him to AAA after his last rehab start in order to use him as a 27th man on Tuesday. He also has to remain in AAA for 10 days from his option date (ignoring the 27th man appearance) before being called back up. He hasn't been scheduled for another AAA start yet, and I think he could be added back to the 26 man roster either today or tomorrow. It would be Bundy and Archer's turns through in the rotation coming up Monday and Tuesday, either of which might be ideal times to have a solid long reliever available. I think we could see a move replacing Minaya or Cotton with Winder. He probably ought to be penciled into the rotation next year but I see the long relief role as the most valuable spot he can be in right now.

I kind of felt this earlier this year and now I'm more convinced it might be true. For all his "experience" I don't think Pagan is good at big situations. It seems like he was always trying to throw perfect pitches as a closer/set up guy. He's seemed to be way better at just attacking hitters and getting them out when he's been put in low leverage situations. It also just could be that he's not that great and it's just happened to have shown up in the worst possible situation. IDK