Draft so far

Let's go over what has happened so far.

• There was a run on college seniors in the second half of the top 10 rounds.  Teams like Toronto, New York and Boston took their share with Toronto taking college seniors in rounds 4-10. This is what I said the Indians should do, drafting cheap guys in rounds 6-10.  Instead, the Indians took only two college seniors.
• A number of teams took flyers on guys in rounds 11-15, understanding that by drafting sure sign guys in the back half of the first 10 rounds they might have some money left over to sign these guys.  The Indians didn't draft any high profile players in these rounds, instead focusing on relative unknowns who didn't rank in Baseball America's top 500 prospects.
• The Indians took guys who COULD be tough signs (HS and JUCO guys) in rounds 2-5.  This makes little sense as, unless they know these guys will sign for slot or below, there is very little way that with $4.5 million in their budget that they can sign all these guys.  Plus, that budget goes down by the slot of the draft pick if they fail to sign one or more of these guys. 

I'll crunch the numbers later today but by my calculation the Indians could wind up over $5 million or 10% over slot if things work out.  This would cost them $500,000 and loss of their first draft pick over the next two years.  Unless some of these HS and JUCO guys after the first two rounds had under slot deals in place, we could be in trouble as I think Brown might cost us $500,000 more than slot.   We will make up $200,000 with Wendle and Lee but, looking at the rest of the guys, including Naquin, I don't see how we make up that other $300,000 and, in fact, we may actually LOSE ground Lovegrove, Baker, McClure, McAdams and Hamrick want anything over slot. 

It also says that we will be drafting very lightly from here on out with few or no flyer picks.  We also have lost the opportunity to get quality college seniors as an inordinantly high number of them have already been selected.

Let's hope the Indians' draft strategy works.  It's not like they have a history of being thought leaders in how to conduct a draft so my hope is tempered by history.