2018 MLB Draft Day Discussion

[jimbomill]

Aaron Judge has done OK so far.

Excellent point

[Squire]

Woah... this draft is nuts already. singer still there

[Squire]

Singer, Libratore still there at 13

[Squire]

This draft gets less watchable each year

[Squire]

Starting to think the Rays and Royals forced Liberatore and Singer down to them using their extra picks/pool space

[julio]

This draft gets less watchable each year

The draft made sense when it was a conference call, with 30 seconds between picks. The current circus is by definition annoying - there simply isn't enough real information to justify all the time they waste between picks. They have nothing to say - and after a while, that becomes painfully obvious.

Wednesday afternoon won't be too bad - once all the "made for TV" rubbish is behind us for another year.

[Squire]

Tampa Bay gets both Liberatore and McClanahan and Nick Schnell. Good for them.

[Squire]

Kansas City and Tampa Bay did way better with their multiple picks than I could have imagined, that's great for those franchises.

[schooldoc]

RHP Ethan Hankins, who was once considered a top-5 prospect in this draft before an injury shortened his season, goes to Cleveland at 35 with our Carlos Santana pick. So, file that one away.

[zambonir]

Well, I have mixed feelings about the Santana signing tonight, but not the Arrieta signing. So we would have lost that pick regardless I guess.

(Though, it's not actually the Phillies' pick that Cleveland got right?)

[julio]

(Though, it's not actually the Phillies' pick that Cleveland got right?)

That's correct - it doesn't work that way. We forfeited pick #46; Cleveland's comp pick was #35. If we had not signed Santana, but had signed Arrieta, we would still have forfeited the pick - which would have been #45 if Santana had not signed with somebody else; Cleveland wouldn't have had a comp pick unless Santana was signed by somebody. If we had not signed Santana, we would have picked again at #81 in the third round - tomorrow.

[zambonir]

I am, at this point, assuming the Phillies would have signed Arrieta (or even one of the other guys) regardless, though we'll never know how much "well, we already gave up the 2nd-rounder" factored into their willingness to sign him. Similarly, they might have signed a pitcher first and still decided to get a bat for the same reason.

This is very much of-the-moment thinking but since it is the draft and the Phillies look like a WC team at best and the core first and second-year players look like they may need more than one season to truly develop, I do wonder if giving up two picks for two short-termers when the team may never draft this high again was correct. That said, they can probably replace that lost depth when and if they move a 2B or one of the OFs. Or heck, if they traded Santana at the 2020 deadline.

[kmc1019]

It so irks me that the perennial baseball powerhouse of a franchise in St Louis is somehow granted a Competitive Balance pick.

I am glad to see the Royals and Rays come out with a bunch of talent last night.

[Squire]

Seriously....what a haul for Tampa Bay yesterday, Liberatore and McClanahan and then 3 appropriately ranked players before the end of the 2nd round. I like Singer more than most so I thought KC did great. The Cubs really do go off the board and the Mets are a little goofy too.

[julio]

[andyb]

Fangraphs recap. They think Bohm might be "a bit" under slot.

Day One Draft Recap | FanGraphs Baseball

[schooldoc]

Also interesting to see the "Best Available" list. Phils likely to look at those college pitchers.

[el-pietro]

Keith Law suggesting that to make the draft more interesting all picks should be tradeable. I would love to see that. But if it had been possible, what would people here have done last night? Take Bohm at 3 or try and trade down to pick up a couple of players to make up for missing picks in rounds 2 and 3?

The slotting would have to be solved in that scnario as trading down would in theory give the Phillies less total slot money to use for those lower picks.

[andyb]

Slots just stay with picks when they are traded. If you trade $4 million in slots and receive only $2 million back in lower picks the assumption is that you would be receiving something else to make the trade worthwhile.

The draft would be much more interesting with trades. Not sure I would have traded down if I were the Phillies, but getting Liberatore plus a pick in the 30-40 range might have been enticing to me. What if we were able to trade down to get Machado? Possibilities are endless.

[julio]

Keith Law suggesting that to make the draft more interesting all picks should be tradeable.

This is very wrong, IMHO.

The point of the draft is not to be "interesting." Draft picks are not tradeable, because the point of the draft (that is, the point apart from depressing signing bonuses!) is to equalize talent, to keep the game competitive. Make all draft picks tradeable, and suddenly a team with nearly infinite resources (say, hypothetically, the New York Yankees) can use those resources to make "an offer they can't refuse" to a team with limited resources (say, the Athletics or the Royals). Under the current system, draft picks (excluding the competitive balance picks) cannot be "bought." Change this, and cash-strapped owners in smaller markets will start selling picks to wealthy teams - and the game will become more unbalanced. Do we really want a 21st century version of the St. Louis Browns?