Thoughts for a Sunday evening

 (1) Baseball at its purest:

I can only imagine how maddening it is for other teams with huge pockets in the AL East to have to compete with Tampa Bay.   I think when they beat the Guardians on Saturday they had something like 4 players who entered the game with sub .200 averages and another 4 under .250.  They are just well-managed and well-prepared.  They get more out of less than any other team in MLB.  

As I was watching the game today I saw the Guardians beat them at their own game.  Two of our sub .200 hitters (Hedges and Call) played instrumental roles in the victory.  We used the opener to close to perfection.  We got more for less with bunts, bloop hits, working counts and taking walks and, for the most part, playing good defense.  

We did all this with the youngest roster in the majors and one of the smallest payrolls.   

I hope that we can become the same kind of thorn in MLB and, in our case, the AL Central, that the Rays are in the AL East.   

However, I hope we can surpass them with the addition of proven star players and get back to makng the playoffs and, hopefully, winning WS championships in the not-to-distant future.  

(2) The trade deadline

I still haven't seen any proposed deal for any group of Guardians' prospects/major leaguers.  I hope that whatever deal we makes only hurts our farm system in ways in which we can easily recover AND where we don't get robbed.   Fair trades are great and, actually, necessary for teams like the Guardians.   Hopefully most fans should know be now that this team should never 'go for it'.

Trading prospects like Battenfield, Pilkington, Tena, Martinez, Noel, Planez, Palacios, Lavastida, Fox and most of the pitchers we drafted last year makes sense, tradng the rest of our top 30 doesn't make sense.  Trades like we should make should be made to remove excess prospects and clear the log jam in our 40-man roster that will continue with the guys we have to add this coming winter.   It will also allow us to add guys who can help us this season like Curry and Gaddis and even Bo Naylor, guys we SHOULD be protecting this winter, and give us chances to see and sort out guys like Brennan and Benson instead of trying to trade them before we truly know what we have.

I want us to make trade(s) between now and Tuesday but they need to be smart trades that help us in the present and in the future, keeping us from losing guys in the Rule 5 and helping us to get our minor leaguers reps in the majors to sort out what we have going forward.  B

But let's not overpay with prospects just because we have a bunch.  Use these resources judiciously to make our major league team better and don't be afraid to do multiple prospects for one uber prospect trade, if that trade gives us a star in the making.

(3) Whether we realize it right now or it hits us in the future, it is a golden age-like time to be a Guardans fan. Enjoy Francona, enjoy this team and wish the FO luck in what will come over the next two days..

Draft budget - final numbers and analysis

The Guardians had a draft budget of $9,980,900 for the 2022 draft.

The Guardians spent, counting the $35,000 overage they paid their 19th round pick Geo Rivera, Jr., the Guardians spent $10,476,200.

That is an overage of $495,300 or 4.96% over their draft budget

They will owe MLB 75% of the overage or $371,475

They should NOT lose a draft choice next year as that penalty would only kick in if they went over 5% above their draft budget.

However, counting the penalty, the Guardians, in total, spent $10,847,675 on this draft.  

Analysis:

Look, this draft was considered a weak draft. Their first 3 picks were, a guy considered a high risk pick with lots of red flags (unorthodox swing that required him to sell out to be able to turn on velocity making him susceptible to slow stuff away, poor performance early in the season against Florida St. and a broken foot in April making it impossible to tell if the Florida State series was an aberration or whether it was due to his unorthodox hitting motion), a righty college pitcher with an average, at best, fastball and a left-handed college pitcher with a little bit below average fastball.  After that they went with a series of college lefty outfielders without power, more pitchability pitchers and two high school pitchers who you have to consider flyers.  Before the two high school flyers (Humphries and Zibin) none of these guys were deep discount guys, meaning their draft status would allow us to gve them a very low bonus for their draft slot.  That's good because most of them only got small reductions from what they were slotted to get.  That leaves us with Humphries (who got $420,000 above what his draft slot was worth) and Zibin (who got $1,048,000 above his draft slot).  They were rated by MLB as the 128th and 131st rated prospects in the draft.  That means, in essence, they had 4th round talent.  However, their bonuses represented what you would pay 3rd (Humphries) and 2nd (Zibin) round talents.

So, in summary, in a weak draft year, not only did the Guardians not draft the proper guys (in my opinion) they way overpaid for the guys they did draft, costing a small market club to throw $371,475 down the drain in penalties.  

The problem with people, anyone actually, who think they know more than the system is that they generally don't.  Most people who try to buck the system and go with picks that are way different than what would be expected, usually fail miserably on those picks.  When they do all that and don't address the needs of the farm system AND overpay causing their team to lose money in penalties as they are executing their 'strategy', they are actually damaging the farm system that they are being paid to help.

Look, the great thing for these draft gurus is that we won't know for years whether they were right or wrong.  By then, they will generally be in new jobs but the team will, potentially, feel the impact of a bad draft for years.  Now, as I have said before, this wasn't a terrible draft.  Gett Humphries and Zibin makes the draft better simply because more 4th round talent was added.  But the Guardians way overpaid for mediocrity in my opinion.  And the great thing about my opinion is that it is just that: one person's opinion.   

I wish the Guardians luck with this draft as I want it to be successful as that is the only way a small market club can compete.  I just think they could have, and should have, done MUCH better and not had them pay nearly the amount that they did!

One final thought.  I said I thought that the Guardians were in trouble with their budget when the rumor came out (eventually substantiated) saying they were giving Zibin $1.2 million.  But I gave them credit for year after year finding a way to make this all work so they wouldn't go over budget and still sign all their guys.  I guess I gave them too much credit because Zibin's bloated bonus almost did them in.

Why is it?

 The Yankees get Benitendi and give up basically no top prospects.  

The Mariners get Castillo and give up their #1, #3 and #5 prospects plus one additional prospect.

I get it.  Different players, different years of control. 

But the Mariners gutted their farm system for 1+ years of Castillo.  

Imagine what it SHOULD cost to get Soto or even other players who have real value.

This type of panic buying makes me want the Guardians to sit out this trading deadline...unless they can bundle a couple of their very good prospects to get one great one.

Draft Signings Post

 OK, it has been reported by Guardians Prospective that tomorrow all 21 of Cleveland's draft picks will be in Goodyear to sign their contracts.  

Any time you can sign all of your draft picks that is a good thing.  The Guardians are, in my opinion, geniuses at drafting guys who can fit within or below the draft bonus slots and still be able to sign quality draftees to overslot bonuses.  As always, it will be interesting to see how the jigsaw puzzle of available bonus pool dollars and draftees' bonus expectations will fit together.  I imagine that, looking at the draftees, we can expect our 3rd-7th and 9th round picks taking bonuses below the slot for their draft position.  We might see slightly over slot bonuses for our 11th and 19th round selections and significantly overslot bonuses for our 8th and 10th round selections.  All the rest of our picks I can see coming in at or slightly below what was expected with DeLauter and Campbell being lower and Messick and the rest of the picks being at slot value, with the exception of our 15th and 17th round picks who appear to be college seniors.  we might have saved money there to apply towards signing a couple of undrafted free agents. 

So, while I totally disagree with the premise of the players drafted in this draft, I applaud the Guardians for getting all these guys signed.

The next question is will any of these guys actually play this year?

Pre-deadline post

 Given that we are not trading for rentals (yeah!) here are some random thoughts as we approach the trade deadline:

Franmil Reyes - Look, we are between a rock and a hard place with this guy.   Look at all the chances they gave Oscar Mercado.  Let me be clear: addition by subtraction doesn't work here.   If you want to do addition by subtraction with Reyes you just send him to Columbus.  According to FanGraphs he still has two options remaining.  If he gets his game together he gets his game together.  In the meantime you give his ABs to someone who needs them.    

Sean Murphy - The darling of the media right now as far as being acquired by the Indians, the rationale AGAINST this move is that it appears Bo Naylor is almost ready.  Yes, handing the keys to the kingdom to a rookie seems fool-hardy until you imagine how much it will cost to pry Murphy away from the A's.  I just don't see paying that much for a mediocre major league hitter just because the average major league catcher is hitting about or below the Mendoza line when your answer is in AAA and should be available next year.  Even if he isn't available, there have to be better options than shipping a bunch of prospects to Oakland for Murphy.  Now, if Murphy could be had for Peyton Battenfield, Richie Palacios, Bryan Lavastida and Josh Wolf, I am on board.  Basically, 4 second tier prospects.  

Brian Reynolds - In March I would have said yes, but now I would say no.  Murphy is almost as good a hitter at a more important position.  Given our current outfielders, I just don't see Reynolds and his yeat-to-year roller coaster stats coming to Cleveland.   At the same time, if he had gone to the Yankees I think he would have turned into a star.  I just don't see us having the winning pct. or hitters around him to make a dent in being a .250/20 HR guy.

Juan Soto - I keep going back to him.   Looking at the player packages that are being proposed for his two biggest suitors (St. Lous and San Diego) I think we can exceed that without destroying our system.  And let's be honest, we need to move some PROSPECTS off this 40-man roster.  Murphy would help the offense and have longer tenure here AND likely be cheaper than Soto but Soto is a generational player.   Just ask yourself, would you rather have Andres Gimenez or Juan Soto?  Gimenez is a sometimes all-star, Soto is a perennial all-star.  As much as I love Gimenez, who 'moves the needle' but with help from ALL of his teammates, Soto moves the needle by himself.

Look, something HAS to be done with these prospects before the trade deadline.  If we can get Murphy for quantity rather than quality I am on-board.  If we can get Soto without giving up any of our core major league pieces I am on board, withing reason.  If we can trade guys like Noel and Tena and get one quality prospect like Jordan Walker from St. Lous, I am on board with that.  Anything that keeps the young talent coming and clears up roster space.

Roster, Draft Signings, Trade Deadlne and Rule 5 thoughts for a Monday

 As we approach the middle of this treacherous road trip against good teams I wanted to take a few minutes out to discuss the roster, trades possibilities and the upcoming Rule 5.

Rule 5 

Peyton Battenfield, Xzavion Curry,  Hunter Gaddis, Joey Cantillo and Peyton Battenfield were locks for me in my last post on this issue.  Still feel the same way and it may be a moot point as I think all three of them have a good chance to be called up before the end of the season.   As far as position players Bo Naylor is clearly going to be protected.  So that is where we WERE about a month and a half ago.  Since then the following things have happened

• Will Brennan has continued to hit
• Will Benson has really turned it up and is looking like the 5-tool guy we drafted
• Gabriel Rodriguez is now playing every day and even though he is hitting 6th or 7th (not where your top prospects would likely hit on a A ball team) he is putting up solid numbers with a lot of multiple hit games.
• Aaron Bracho, so far below the Mendoza line he couldn't even see it, is actually starting to hit.  Although he won't dent .250 by the end of the season, his second half numbers may make him interesting to teams looking for value.   Depending on the shrewdness of our FO, Bracho might be left exposed to the minor league portion of the Rule t.
• Micah Pries and Trenton Brooks keep hitting, continuing to prowl around the edges of Rule 5 World.
• Alexfri Planez is still raking and hitting long, long HRs.  If he could follow Noel's path by getting to and performing well at AA this year, he might be in contention for a roster spot this winter.

So now it looks like we would be fools not to roster an additional 7 guys by the roster freeze deadline in November (Benson, Brennan, Naylor and the above 4 pitchers).  That should put some strain on our 40-man this winter although I can easily see a path for Cody Morris, Curry, Gaddis, Naylor, Brennan and Benson on the 26 man roster next spring.  However this would likely cause up to trade some prospects now or in the off-season and maybe at the deadline.

Trades

Look, teams have holes.   But I don't believe that there are many teams in baseball that have holes they could fill if guys with surprisingly bad offensive numbers just return to their average from past years AND, even if that doesn't happen, see those holes being filled next year by guys on their AAA team.  The latter, in the long-term view, is the way to go instead of trading prospects for rentals for the short term gain at the expense of the long-teram future of this club.   Trading for Sean Murphy of Oakland instead of promoting Bo Naylor (and maybe losing Naylor in that trade) seems to make no sense.  The same is true with Andrew Benitendi, Wilson Contreras and other rentals.

Except for the Juan Soto trade I have long asked for and is not become hot topic #1 among Cleveland baseball writers and broadcasters, I just don't see a fit that betters this team in the future while relieving a glut of prospects now.   One key to the Guardians trading for Soto is taking on a bloated contract like Patrick Corbin's.   No team needs Patrick Corbin and his performance per salary but the Guardians, but would you really rather have Konnor Pilkington now or Patrick Corbin every 5th game?  

Current Roster

A lot of roster decisions are based on availability of reinforcements on our 40 man.  I doubt if Gabriel Arias had not broken his hand if Ernie Clement would still be on this team.  Clement, along with Francona trying to stretch Shaw to 2 innings, cost us the second game on Saturday which, of course, almost guaranteed us a split of the series with Cease pitching on Sunday.  We had it in our hands and we let it go.  I am not saying Arias could have made that play but I am saying that we were supposed to live with Clement's lack of offense (he hasn't had an extra base hit since May 1st!!!).  But the guy is costing us on defense.  But Arias is not available as he is still trying to recover from his injury and so we are limited at what we can do if we want to rest Jose Ramirez.  Owen Miller started off 2021 very hot at AAA and then cooled off when he was brought to the majors.   This year he started off very hot in the majors and then experienced the same cool down he did in 2021.   Will he rebound in the remaining games?  We will see but even if he does he is extremely replaceable with his 0.3 WAR and -0.9 career WAR.

Draft Signings

When your draft choices do well out of the gate it does 2 things for your organization (1) it increases your prospect resources to help guard against the impact of injuries or sudden lack of development of other prospects, the overall effect being to keep your farm system strong, eventually allowing quality replacements to come up to the majors and (2) it increases faith that prospects at higher levels of the minors can be traded as there is someone to replace them on your organizational depth chart.

So far we have seen one signing (Dylan DeLucia, 6th round, $9,200 under slot) and one projected signing (Jacob Zibin, 10th round, $1.05 millon above slot).  It would be great to sign Chase DeLauter and get him to the AZL to see if he is truly helathy and get his development underway.  If we have a good, powerful bat in the minor league outfield mix it might facilitate us trading a bat for an important piece sometime in the next year.  So many first rounders have already signed that all I can figure is that we are trying to lowball DeLauter due to his injury and to save some of the money to sign Zibin.

Time will tell as we have less than a week (August 1st) to sign all of our draft picks of lose them.   Surely more have signed but the Guardians tend to announce signings in bunches.  

Post-draft odds and ends

 (1) On the Barnsby zoom call after day 2 he and Paul Hoynes talked about a new rule in effect.  For those of you who remember the draft used to have a rule where a team could draft a player going to or returning to junior college the next year.   They would retain his signing rights until right before the draft the next year.  This rule was called the draft-and-follow rule and teams like the Guardians employed it extensively when they had to find 40 or more guys to draft in what was an expanded draft at the time.

Barnsby said, on prompting from Hoynes, that there was a new rule this year where if a guy currently at a junior college after his freshman season decided to return to junior college for his sophomore season that the drafting team retained his rights until the next year and that they could sign him for up to $225,000.   Don't know any more about that rule than that but the one JUCO kid they drafted (Ellerts) would not be eligible as he completed his sophomore year in JUCO and would have had to move on to a 4-year school.

(2) The good people over and Cleveland Guardians Prospective tweeted out that we apparently have a $1.2 million deal in place with our 10th round pick Zibin.   In these cases the deal isn't formalized until the funds are available once the other bonuses in the top 10 rounds have been agreed to and contracts have been signed.  If you did it any other way, especially for a 10th round pick like Zibin, you would be really screwed if you couldn't sign all of your earlier picks because each pick you don't sign in the top 10 rounds causes you to lose that slot amount from your bonus pool.   The only way to come up with the $1 million overslot money for Zibin is to give some or all the draftees in rounds 1-9 underslot money.   That is why these handshake deals, if done, are kept on the down low so that it doesn't poison negotiations with other draftees.   In fact, I have heard, though don't have any substantiating evidence, that a-wink-and-a-nod deals like this have been killed if they were leaked like this one has been.  

Just sayin', if the kid or his family or friends leaked this information that kid will likely be heading to college this fall.  He may be headng there anyway now if there is any truth to this rumor, no matter who spread it.  If a scout told this kid that this was a done deal when it really wasn't, then that is bad for and on the scout.

While I would love to get Zibin and Humphries signed, I just don't see this year where we have the money.  Normally, as in the case of Kumar Rocker and some of the other head scratchers from the first round this year, pre-draft deals are cut for up to half of the slot value of that bonus.  That gives the drafting team serious coin to spend on overslot deals with later draft picks.  Looking at our draft there are not of lot of headscrathers and guys were drafted around their prospect ranking, telling me there won't be a lot of excess bonus money, at least not in the first 3 rounds where bonuses are high.  

Even if we shaved off 10% of the bonuses for every guy in the first 9 rounds that would barely get it done.  And when you consider that the first three guys we drafted were drafted almost EXACTLY in the slots corresponding to their ranking, the 4th guy was slightly higher than their ranking, the next two were both draft eligble college sophomores (who still can be drafted two more times) folled by one college junior, one college senior (bonus slot $161,000) and 3 high school kids, I just don't see how all of them fit into the first 10 rounds if we give Zibin a bonus $1 million over his slot.

Hey, the Guardians are great at figuring this stuff out, so much so that I have seen them pull rabbits out of their hats every year since the slot values and penalties came into being, but, even with their magic, I don't see how this one will work out.   Time will tell but my guess is that someone stuck their foot, or cyberfoot, in their mouth on this one.

2022 Guardians draft analysis

How did the Guardians do in the 2022 first-year player draft?

As with all drafts, this is a tough question as you don't know how these players are going to develop.  Still, even with that, let's dive in.

Scott Barnsby repeatedly said that the Guardians take the best player available when they make a pick. However, there have to be a number of caveats to that comment:

• There has to be some measurement that determines why that player is the best player available at that point.  Cleveland is a heavily antalytics-driven team.  So I think it would be safe to say that "best player available" is based on what they consider important traits.  To me Clevleand favors the following traits
• Hitters should be left-handed
• Bat-to-ball skills are favored over power
• College is favored over high school
• Speed is favored but should not nearly be the most important skill a player has.
• Position players should have position flexibility.  By that I mean that all outfielders should be able to play centerfield and have the flexibility to play left and right.  Infielders should be able to play second, short and third or some infield and some outfield.
• Pitchers should have good K/BB numbers and should be 'winners'.  This is more important to them than pure 'stuff'.  Late round picks should have one dominant pitch in addition to good K/BB numbers as they are looked at as relievers.
• There is no consideration to what is in the farm system right now.  That is, the analytics drive the selections in one direction (e.g., left-handed hitting position players with good bat-to-ball skills)  which, by definition, tends to overload the system with similar players.  
• Defense is favored if a catcher is drafted, although so few catchers are drafted that the sample size for that presumption is really small.  Aside from catchers, defense is not nearly the most important tool that is looked at (at least not in the last few years).

Using these tools, drafts can be very odd-looking for a team like the Guardians.   In 2021 the Guardians drafted 19 pitchers.  My presumption now is that they couldn't find a position player who met the above criteria and they could find a plethora of pitchers who met their pitching-based selection criteria.

This draft which, by the way, was rated as a weak draft class, had position players with traits that the Guardians valued or, at the least, no other player at a given slot had tools/traits that overwhelmed the Guardians analytic-driven hitter preferences.   That is why you saw (counting Furman who likely will be moved to the outfield) 6 college left-hand hitting outfielders, 5 with almost no power.

So, in considering all of this, I have the reason why I differ so much from the Guardians.  I simply value different traits AND I do let the composition of my farm system dictate which player I think is the best player available AND I take into account whether I think the front office can turn our excess at one position type into players (e.g., power-hitting corner infielders) who we don't have in our system.

Simply put, I don't like the Guardians' draft for the above reasons. It takes 3 singles to score a run and only one HR.  You can bat .250 and get 9 runs a game on HRs.  You have to bat .500 to get 9 runs a game on singles.  It's simple math to me.

It is not a bad draft on paper and, assuming that they sign all their high-profile players, it is sufficient fodder for their player development staff to generate major league players or prospects to be used in trades to fill long-term and short-term needs.   I just don't see anyone coming out of this draft who will be in the Guardians top 10 prospects next year nor anyone with any significant upside, i.e., overall 55 or 60 grade players.   It was a very boring draft to me and didn't address our need to infuse hitting catchers, power-based college corner nfielders and power-hitting right hand-batting outfielders into our system, with the usual sprinkle of college pitchers.  Those position players were available in this draft and highly rated.

It should be noted that some people (not counting Jim Callis who loved this draft for the Guardians) rating these drafts don't think much of the Guardians' picks.  Just like me, they are not considering the picks terrible but very few 'experts' seem excited about any of the picks.  Just this morning I read a Callis article about third day picks that were interesting and ZERO Guardans' selections were mentioned in the 30-or-so picks highlighted.  That tells you something.

So, as I said previously in draft posts and other posts, the Guardians front office is on the hot seat.   We just don't need dozens of left-handed hitting singles hitters who can play all three outfield positions.  The player development system has to morph some of those guys into power hitters or the people who make trades have to turn them into other assets or we will start losing good players to the Rule 5, 6-year minor league free agency (see Oscar Gonzalez, almost) or having to DFA them without getting any benefit out of them.  And the only way that can happen is if other organizations have the same analytics preferences as the Guadians do, which I have not seen so far.

I give this draft, overall, a grade of "C" based on who they picked, who I think they needed to pick and who was available at the time.  This grade only counts the first 10 rounds.  My sense is that they did not do as well in the last 10 rounds as they usually do, bringing me to give picks 11-20 a grade of C, also.

Time will tell who is right and even if Barnsby and staff are right, it only works if the FO can trade our excess for equal value in what we need.

Cleveland Guardians' 2022 Draft Summary Stats

 Here are the stats from this year's Guardians draft

college outfielders - 5, all hit left-handed, 1 (DeLayter) is a power hitter.  The rest are contact-first guys who possibly could play all outfield positions (thisn Steven Kwan as upside). Selected in rounds 1,3

college middle infielders - 2 (4th, 13th round), one hits left-handed, one switchhitter).  Both are contact-first hitters.  The swtchhitter profiles as a secondbaseman and the lefty may end up in the outfield.

catchers - 1 (HS, round 16)

High School pitchers - 3 - two rated in the top 150 2022 draft prospects by mlb.com

high school position players - 0

college corner infielders - 0

college pitchers - 10, 3 in the last 3 rounds of the draft.

Over/under drafts (defined as being drafted 20% higher or lower than their draft slot would indicate (based on mlb.com top 250) - only applies for first 10 rounds.)

overdraft (drafted too early) - 4 (Furman, Lipscomb, DeLucia, Santos)

underdraft (drafted later than expected) - 2 (Humphries, Zibin)

Interesting picks in terms of potential:

DeLauter (potential top 5 selection at beginning of year before a couple of bad games and season ending injury in April)

DeLucia (big game pitcher for NCAA champion, Ole Miss)

Santos (big fastball)

Humphries

Peterson (Friday starter)

Zibin

Ellerts (big guy, huge K numbers)

Jasiak (Friday starter but hurt most of year with shoulder injury)

Rivera (big fastball)

Draft Day 3 Blog - Into the Unknown Which is Day 3

 If there is one comfort in the Guardians 3rd day draft the last couple of years it is that they will find some college pitchers who turn into intriguing (generally relief) pitching prospects.   Not so much with hitteers.  This was obvious when MLB listed all the success stories of rond 11 and beyond draftees playing in the all-star game today.  No current Guardians player or significant position player prospect came that late in the draft except for Bryan Lavastida.  

So we dive into the 3rd day looking for what I am always looking for from this organization: college pitchers who can become prospects or minor contributors (e.g., Tanner Tully) to the major league team.

Here goes:

11th round - Guardians select Magnus Ellerts, 6'5" RHP sophomore Florida Southwestern Junior College.  

Ellerts is currently playing in the Cape Cod Summer League and has struck out 21 in 12 innings so far with a 2.86 ERA.   From what I read his fastball sits at 93 and can touch 96 mph. 

12th round - Jack Jasiak -6'1"  RHP, pre-season All-Amercan, University of South Florida - He is a red-shirt sophomore and their Friday night starter who was injured most of this season.   So there may be some hidden value there (see Zach Plesac) if the Guardians can get him to sign.  He played in the Cape last summer.

13th round - Tyresse Turner - SS - USC - Good OB skills, hits for average.  Junior so might not sign.

14th round - Pres Cavanaugh - LH hitting OF - UNC Greensboro - Another LH outfielder with no power and good OB skills.  I am starting to sense a pattern.  

15th round - Adam Tulloch - LH pitcher from Arizona State - Totally ineffectve this year in college.  He played in the Cape and it looks like our scouts spend a good deal of time there.

16th round - Logan Clark - catcher Taft HS, in California - Committed to CSU Bakersfield

17th round - Angel Zarate - LH Hitting outfielder, U. of North Carolina - Leadoff hitter, good bat-to-ball skills, takes walks. Not much pwer.  Hmmm, stop me if you heard this one before. 

18th round - Zach Jacobs - RHP UC Riverside - hardly pitched in college this year but, wait for it, he is playing in the Cape this summer.

19th round - George Rivera Jr., RHP, Walters State CC - Big bodied (6'3", 260 lbs) pitched in relief.

20th round - Shawn Rapp, LHP, U. of North Carolina - Pitched in middle relief this year for UNC.  Some Ks but lots of hits, walks and HRs for a college pitcher transitioning to pro ball.  Maybe they see something there.  

More thoughts about today and an overall summary of the draft later today.

I am calling the front office out

 I know,, blogger, out on the edges of the internet.  No one will listen anyway.

But it is time!

We have prospect excess.   We are in process of, for some reason, doubling down on the strengths of our excess in this draft.  

This organization needs quality catching depth and corner infield power hitting depth at the lower levels of of our system and a power hitting outfielder at the top of our system or early in their major league career and controllable relief pitcher help at the major league level.

We have depth in the minor leagues.  It's time to make good, even trades to get what we need as we won't be getting that from this draft.  

Time to make good trades, Guardians front office.  We have a window with our starting pitching and bullpen.   We need to compete while the window is open and beyond.

End of post.

How Succesful Have The Guardians Been With International Signings/

I read that one of the reasons for Cleveland's draft strategies was that they were using their international signings to get hitters while using the first year player draft to get pitchers.  I don't  believe anything is ever that simple but it did make me think so I looked back at international signings.  Those players are listed below.

Looking at that list, if you exclude the unbelievable (and likely aberrational) class of 2017/8, international signings don't seem to be a significant path to major league players or even top level prospects.  Yes, we gave away Yandy Dias and Willi Castro, traded away Yainer Diaz and Jhon Torres, but even including those guys it doesn't tip the scales.   From this data it looks like we are not getting much out of the international market because we always sign quantity over quality, tending to stay at the bottom edge of quality when we decide to sign players from the top of the international pool every year.  

Here is the list of significant players we have signed in the past few years.

2013/4

Yandy Diaz

Yu Chang

Willi Castro

2014/5

Oscar Gonzalez

Francisco Perez

2015/6

Jose Fermin

Luis Oviedo

2016/7

Marcos Gonzalez

Tahnaj Thomas

Jhon Torres

Carlos Vargas

Yainer Diaz

2017/8

George Valera

Aaron Bracho

Jose Tena

Alexfri Planez

Johnkensy Noel

Jerson Ramirez

Brayan Rocchio

Wilfri Peralta

Marlin Made

Victor Sotedelo

Victor Planchart

Richard Paz

2018/9

Gabriel Rodriquz

Junior Sanquintin

Angel Martinez

Jose Baez

Dayan Frias

2019/20

Jose Pastrano

Luis Durango

Day 2 summary and overall thoughts of the Guardians' 2022 draft so far

SPOILER ALERT - If you are a diehard Guardians fan and your Monday has been a bummer, stop reading right now because this post is not going to be the ray of sunshine your dreary day needs.

OK, now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let's talk about the Guardians draft so far.

Coming in the Guardians SHOULD have had the following objective: balance out your farm system - this would involve getting an offensive catcher or two, a couple of power hitting corner infielders and a few college outfielders, preferably hitting right handed.  Sprinkle in a few college pitchers and your first 10 rounds should be done.

The Guardians, however, appear to have had a different set of objectives.  Draft lefthanded college hitters and college pitchers early and then finish the 10 rounds with some HS pitchers.  Here are their selections in the first 10 rounds:

1.16  Chase DeLauter, LH hitting outfielder, James Madison.  De Lauter has some power but there were warts to his game.  he was hurt in April and didn't play after that.  His hitting setup is controversial and some scouts think it will make him susceptible to velocity as a pro.  Basically, although DeLauter is not a terrible pick here, there are more question marks about his game than should be present for the 16th overall pick.  That is why at least one source gave this pick a "C" grade.

1.37 Justin Campbell, RHP, Oklahoma St.  - Just like the college pitchers selected right after William last year, Campbell has upside.   No problem with draftng him if we didn't have other needs.  But with similarly skilled players in those areas of need available when we took Campbell, we should have filled those needs in my opinion.

2.54. Parker Messick, LHP, Florida St. - Stuff is similar to Campbell's.  He, like Campbell, will benefit from the Guardians' pitcher development program.  Still, we didn't need another pitcher at this point after all the pitchers we grabbed early last year.

3.92. Joe Lampe, LH hitting OFer, Arizona St. - The one thing we have in our system is leadoff-caliber LH hitting outfielders, like 9 of them between the majors and the high minors!  Yet our first salvo today was to pick Lampe.  It makes no sense given what we SHOULD have been targeting.

4.121. Nat Furman - LH hitting 2Bman from UNC Charlotte - At pick 121 the Guardians decided to stop drafting rated prospects.  Furman is another on-base, slap hitter type with no power.

5.151 Guy Lipscomb, Jr - Another LH hitting, unranked by MLB college outfielder.  Again, good on-base skills.

6.181 Dylan DeLucia - unranked RHP, Ole Miss

7.211 Javier Santos, unranked, short HS RHP

8.241 Jackson Humphries, a HS LHP ranked as the #128 prospect in the draft by MLB.

9.271 Austin Peterson, unranked RHP from Connecticut

10.301 Jacob Zibrin, a HS RHP ranked the #131 overall prospect in this draft by MLB

Analysis -  If you thought Day 1 of this draft for the Guardians was an unsexy yawner, Day 2 was worse.  The Guardians, on day 2, missed the mark as badly as they did on Day 1.   They drafted more LH hitting college players even though we have a bunch already.  They drafted 3 HS pitchers at the end of the first 10 rounds, 2 of whom were highly rated, in an era where colleges can assure these kids that their NIL money will be close to or surpass what their bonuses would be if they signed AND that they would likely get bonuses as large or larger in 3 years.   I can't say, yet, that this draft is a disaster as I don't know if it will be.  What I can say is that it, so far, was ill-conceived.  Whether it was also poorly executed will be seen by how many of these guys we can sign AND stay inside our budget. 

So that we can put this away in the time capsule and pick it up in 5 years,  here is how my draft would have played out if I was the guy running the Guardians' draft:

1 -  Daniel Susac, C, 

1C - Cayden Wallace, 3B/1B Arkansas

2 - Carson Whisenhunt P, East carolina

3 - Dominic Keegan, 1B/C Vanderbilt

4 - Luke Gold, 2B Boston College

5 - Noah Dean, LHP, Old Dominion

I think my draft gives the Guardians players to balance their farm system without sacrificing quality.   What the Guardians did: Piling more on to strong areas of their farm system and capping it off by drafting HS players that will be difficult to sign.  

I have faith the first 3 rounds of their draft won't be a disaster and, knowing the Guardians, the other college picks won't be terrible.  However, when your organization depends on player development and not signing free agents, you can't miss on your draft picks.

Review of the 2021 Draft

 Let's look back on this draft and see how the pitcher-dominant draft by the Guardians looks now:

Summary - Overall, some really good performances so far (Williams, Fox, Bibee) make this draft look great.  In addition, there are lots of guys who are trending in the right direction but who the jury is still out on due to injury or uneven performance.  Only a couple of guys appear to be flaming out which, for a 20 player draft a year later, is pretty good in my book.

1st round - Gavin Williams (23) - He has been better than expected, in my opinion. You can't ask for more out of the 23rd pick in a draft than Williams has given us.  This is even more dramatic when you see it has been done at high A and AA.  Projecting this out, without hiccups along the way he could be in Cleveland and productive by the all-star break next year.  That would be unprecedented for the Guardians but appears possible.

2nd round - Doug Nikhazy (59) - He started off this season VERY bad but his last few performances have been outstanding.  He may be hurt now and that may change my opinion but the pick looks solid right now.  If he could make it to AA and show some effectiveness by the end of the season that would up the value of this selection.

Comp. Balance B - Tommy Mace (69) - Mace has had an up-and-down season.  Pitching at Lake County for a whole season we should get an idea of what we have with him.  We will see what the second half brings and if Mace can stay healthy.

3rd round - Jake Fox (95) - This pick has looked good as Fox was, by necessity, pushed to low A this year and has more than held his own as a hitter, building on his Complex League season in 2021 after he was drafted.  As the first position player drafted by us last year (and only one of 2, total) this pick is definitely a win right now.

4th round - Ryan Webb (125) - If this pick got a grade right now it would be "Incomplete" as Webb had TJ surgery.   All signs look good right now although we must consider that he is older than his competition at this point.  Time will tell on this one but I and I am sure the Guardians, have high hopes because...

5th round - Tanner Bibee (156) - This pick has been a huge win with Bibee performing well AND getting his fastball up to 98 mph.  The fact that these results were achieve mostly at Lake County and have translated to Akron (AA) is even more encouraging.

6th round - Aaron Davenport (186) - Davenport has been so-so this year.  The good news is that he more than on K an inning and that he is pitching at high A.  This pick is still in play, in my opinion, having the potential to be a 'win' down the road.  

7th round - Jack Leftwich (216) - Leftwich started the year at Lynchburg where he was overaged for his competiton.  The good news is that he recently got out of there and is pitching at Lake County where he is age approprite.  So far so good for Leftwich as this pick, as well, is in play to eventually be a 'win'.

8th round - Rodney Boone (246) - Like Leftwich, Boone had good numbers at low A and has moved up to Lake County where he is holding his own.  

9th round - Will Dion (276) - Dion is pitching at low A Lynchburg.  He started off the season well and, while still pitching well overall, has tampered off a little bit.  He is a little old for his level and he needs to move up to Lake County to see if his stuff, as a short LHP,  plays against older competition.  His fastball appears a little short, no pun intended, for success at upper levels and that may be why he hasn't been promoted. 

10th round - Franco Aleman (306) - Alemen, based on his current season, looks like a miss.  Even if he is, it is a 10th round pick.

11th round - Hunter Stanley (336) - Incomplete at this poijnt

12th round - Connor Kokx (366) - Kokx looks like an organizational guy at this point. Some flashes but following the Escobedo line.  Not different than his projection at the time he was drafted.

13th round  - Davis Sharpe (396) - Sharpe has been just that, performing well in relief at both low A and high A.   Again this pick is looking like it might be a win.

14th round - Trenton Denholm (426) - He is still in Lynchburg and is getting hit around a bit.  Right now, given his age and his mediocre performance, this pick does not look good, at least right now.  Of course, anything you get out of a 14th round pick is a bonus.  The point is that these guys should not be at Lynchburg unless they are working on stuff because, as college pitchers, you can't tell a thing and they can't develop effectively beating up on less experienced competition.  All they do in those situations is make highlights that their family can paste in the scrapbook. 

15th round - Alaska Abney (456) - Abney is at Lake County and is scuffling a bit.  Still, he is at Lake County and striking out more than a guy an inning so there is hope there.

16th round - Zach Pettway (486) - He has not pitched much this season and is still in the ACL so this pick must, by definition, get an incomplete.

17th round - Tyler Thornton (516) - Thornton has scuffled at Lynchburg this year but has been much better lately.  Too early to give up on him as he is a little underage for low A.  Still up in the air on this one but some potential is there.

18th round - Tommy Ventimiglia (546) - This has been the biggest disaster of a pick so far as Ventimiglia is really bad on this ACL team.  I mean Rick Vaughan bad.   Time will tell if this is due to coming back from injury or if he just flames out at the lowest level of professional ball.

19th round - Reid Johnston (576) - Johnston is having success at Lynchburg but is overage compared to his competition.  Like Dion, his real ability, as a 23 year old, will only be measurable once he gets to Lake County and Akron.  As long as he stays at Lynchburg his performance will continue to be a mirage.

20th round - Jake Miller (606) - Miller looked OK at the outset as an overage pitcher at Lynchburg.  He has not pitched in a while and an injury will set him back and make much harder for him to have an effective pro career.  But, as a 20th round pick, any pro success is a victory.  Right now, though, we will give this one an incomplete.

Draft picks for Cleveland Indians/Guardians in rounds 3-5 for the last 10 years

As we get ready to start day 2 of the 2022 draft, here, for comparison, are our picks in rounds 3-5 of the last 10 years.  Not trying to draw any conclusions except that scouting matters and, as I recall, none of these guys were guys who were ranked significantly higher than where they were drafted.  

Year    Round     Pick

2021    3              Jake Fox, HS Ss

2021    4              Ryan Webb, college pitcher

2021    5              Tanner Bibee, college pitcher

2020    3                Petey Halpin. HS outfielder

2020    4               Milan Tolentino, HS infielder

2020    5                Mason Hickman, college pitcher

2019    3                Joe Naranjo, HS first baseman

2019    4                Christian Cairo, HS SS

2019    5                Hunter Gaddis, college pitcher

2018    3                Richie Palacios, college SS

2018    4                Adam Scott, college pitcher

2018    5                Steven Kwan, college OF

2017    3                Jonathon Rodriquez, HS outfielder

2017    4                Ernie Clement, college SS

2017    5                Austen Wade, college OF

2016    3               Aaron Civale, college pitcher

2016    4                Shane Bieber, college pitcher

2016    5                Connor Capel, HS outfielder

2015    3                Mark Mathias, college SS

2015    4                Tyler Krieger, college SS

2015    5                Ka'ai Tom, college OF

2014    3                Bobby Bradley, HS firstbaseman

2014    4                Sam Hentges, HS pitcher

2014    5                 Julian Merryweather, college pitcher (now with the Blue Jays)

2013    3                Dace Kime, college pitcher

2013    4                Kyle Crocket, HS pitcher

2013    5                Sean Brady, HS pitcher

2012    3                Kieran Lovegrove, HS pitcher

2012    4                D'vonne McClure, HS outfielder

2012    5                Dylan Baker, HS pitcher

Day 2 Draft Blog

 As you know, I was not happy with what the Guardians did yesterday.   They drafted to what are already strengths in their farm system, left-handed hitting outfielders and college starting pitchers. They failed to draft to weaknesses of their farm system, catchers who can hit (only two in farm  collegesystem, Naylor and Lavastida), corner infielders with power (only one in system, Noel), right-handed hitting outfielders with power (only one in our farm system, Planez).

Who's left to draft

In my first day summary post I pointed out that this is an unusual year.   Eighty picks have been made and 68 of them were ranked 80th or better and 77 of them were ranked 123rd or better. All 80 picks were used on players ranked in the top 200 of the draft.  That is, I think, historic.  So there is not much left to pick from in terms of highly-ranked prospects who went undrafted the first day and fit our needs. Let's look who is left:

Prospects ranked 11, 46, 57 (catcher), 60, 74 (catcher), 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 89, 90, 92, 94, 100, 102, 103,107, 109, 110, 114, 118, 119, 120, 121 (catcher), 122, 125 are high school prospects.  As I mentioned in a previous blog the NIL money that colleges can offer players now will likely impact these guys making it more likely they will go to college.  11, 46 and maybe 57 are most at risk as they would likely have been drafted by now if teams thought they were worth the bonuses their talent and what they could make in NIL money would demand.  Plus, HS kids drafted at this point are high risk as far as making the majors at all and usually require a longer development path, even if you can meet their budget demands.

Prospects ranked 60, 71, 72, 81, 86, 88, 93 and 101, 111, 112 116, 117 and 124 are all college pitchers

 The players left in the draft who fit what Cleveland needs

Nate Gold, 2B, Boston College (ranked 87th best prospect)

Dominic Keegan 1B/C, Vanderbilt (ranked 97th) - Power hitter, questionable defense

Tyler Locklear 3B/1B , VCU (ranked 98th) - Good power, average hitter, questionable defense

Nolan McLean 3B/RHP - Oklahoma State (#113) - Good power, questionable hitting, defense.  

So, what we are looking at in terms of position players are really Gold and Keegan with Locklear and McLean.

Our best hope is that Keegan stays around until we pick at 96.  After that, look for more college pitchers and college guys who might not be ranked, including college seniors and maybe a HS flyer or two.

I don't want to use the word bleak but if Gold and Keegan are unavailable when we draft in the 3rd and 4th rounds, we are looking at having to take guys who, if not pitchers, are not really very good prospects and, if they are, likely will be difficult to sign...assuming we can find guys who fit what our system needs.

More to come...

Round 3 - The Guardians drafted Joe Lampe, a college OFer from Arizona State.  He is a leadoff hitter type.  Yet another left-handed hitting outfielder without power.   Obviously looking at Kwan and Tom, the Guardians like to draft ths type of guys.   However, you can see that Kwan and Tom do not have base-stealing speed.  

Keegan, Locklear and Gold are still on the board entering the 4th round.

Round 4 -  The Guardians picked Nate Furman a left-handed hitting, contact-only second baseman from UNC Charlotte.  This is the first guy not listed in MLB's top 250 prospects.   Typical Guardians pick.  Interesting that the A's selected another UNC Charlotte hitter, a third baseman, power-first guy.  It will be interesting to see if Furman or the thirdbaseman, McCabe turn out to be better.

Keegan gone to Tampa Bay.   Keegan playing two positions that the Guardians are short on, first base and catcher.  Really disappointed given the players the Guardians drafted.  Luke Gold still available.  Note that both Keegan and Gold bat right-handed.   I don't know why the Guards focus on LH hitters.  But they do.

Round 5 - The Guardians select Guy Lipscomb, Jr. a left-handed hitting outfielder from Belmont University.  Speed guy, contact guy, another LH hitting outfielder without power.  Not listed in MLB's top 250.  Their second pick in a row not in the top 250.  

Gold gone 4 picks before the Guardians selected.  About 50% of 5th rounders this year were in MLB's top 250.  

Round 6 - The Guards picked Dylan DeLucia, a RHP from U. Mississippi.   He was not listed in the MLB top 250.  His fastball is 89-95, so a little substandard and his secondary stuff is not that solid yet.  He has one thing going for him: He was a hero in the post-season this year.   

The Twins got Jorel Ortega who I really liked in the 5th round so loved him at this pick but alas, he wasn't available and the Guards probably wouldn't have picked him since he hits right-handed.  He apparently had more extra basehits compared to strikeouts this year.   I don't know, except for the handedness, why they didn't take him in the 5th round.

NOTE: See a lot of college guys pitching in the high 90s, low 100s getting drafted.  Not that I want to draft more pitchers but when we draft one, wouldn't you think, with our pitching development system, that we would go for velo first and then teach command/control and secondary stuff?   I would.  I also might have looked for college relievers who are polished.

The Guardians have not drafted a catcher on the second day and, for me, that is a good thing.  Defense-first catchers should not be first or second day picks.   They needed Susac in the first and Keegan in the 4th to balance their system.  Heck, they neded a right-handed hitting outfielder to balance their system and they needed so power-hitting corner infielders to balance their system.

So far, second day is even less sexy and more disappointing than the first day, for me.

Time for a 5 minute break before we go to Round 7.

Round 7 - The Guardians pick Javier Santos Tejada, a 6'0" RHP from Georgia Premier Academy HS.    Not surprisingly, he was not in MLB's top 250 draft prospects

Round 8 - The Guardians select Jackson Humphries, a 6'1" LHP high school pitcher.  He was ranked 128th on MLB's top 250 prospects so you can consider this the HS flyer pick I was talking about.  My guess is that they can shave some money off early round bonuses to scrape together a bonus for this guy.  Still, the fact that no one has drafted him up to this point tells me that he likely is strongly committed to go to college and is likely to get enough NIL money to keep him from signing.  Time will tell, however, and maybe we can steal a 4th round talent in the 8th round here.

Round 9 - The Guardians select Austin Peterson, a college RHP from U. Connecticut

Round 10 -  The Guardians go dipping in the HS flyer pool again, this time to draft Jacob Zibin, a 6'4" RHP  from TXNL HS.  Again, the concern here is that flyer picks on HS players may not work this year because, in addition to strong college commitments, these kids know they can make NIL money close to what the pro teams are paying them as bonuses AND take the chance of improving in college to get an ever bigger bonus in 3 years. 

That's it for now. I will have a summary available tonight.

Draft Daily Recap - Day 1

 Keeping in the vein of the daily draft blog, I will also post a daily summary.  So here goes:

Guardians -

The Guardians selected:

Chase DeLauter, OF James Madison University (selected 16th, rated 18th)

Justin Campbell, RHP, Oklahoma St. (selected 37th, rated 36th)

Parker Messick, LHP, Florida State (selected 54th, rated 54th)

If I had been running the Guardians draft I would have selected:

Daniel Susac, C, Arizona (16, actually drafted 19th, rated 12th)

Cayden Wallace, 3B/1B Arkansas (37, actually drafted 49th, rated 31st))

Jud Fabian, OF, (54, actually drafted 67th, rated 52nd)

Analysis:  Here is what I have learned over the years.  All teams say they draft the best available player in each round.  The problem with that statement is that, especially in the early rounds of the draft, there is generally not that much difference between players when it comes your turn to draft.  If the idea is that the player you draft WILL make the majors and be impactful and no other player at that point will make the majors and be impactful, then I get it.  I just don't think that is true, especially in the early rounds. 

Here is something that I hope will be shown to be false in the future.  It certainly is true now:  The Guardians have shown no ability to turn prospects at one position into prospects of equal value at another position.  Nor have they been able to turn prospect excess into quality, controllable major league talent at positions of need. 

If you can't do that you have to draft so your farm system is balanced, as long as you don't sacrifice quality.  The Guardians did not do that in this draft, selecting 2 college pitchers in the first three picks after drafting 19 pitchers in last year's draft.  Even their first round pick was not the best fit for need when a guy of equal or better talent at a position of need in our farm system was not drafted.

You can say what you want about the Guardians draft but it was not on point.  Their system has one or two catching prospects yet they passed on Susac to draft a college outfielder who was not that much better than a number of other available college outfielders.   They passed on a corner infielder with power (we have one in our system, Noel).  They passed on a right handed hitting colleg corner outfielder in the 2nd round to draft another college pitcher.  Not one who had dropped who was a good bargain at that spot but, rather, one of about equal talent to players they didn't draft at that spot.

The Guardians draft so far was not sexy and it was not on point.  It has no unusual upside and did not address organizational needs.   It simply brought us MORE college pitching (after about 18 college pitchers drafted last year) and another left-handed hitting outfielder when we already have Kwan, Jones, Palacios, Valera, Benson and Brennan.

The draft so far wasn't a disaster, defined as overdrafting guys by hundreds of spots to take a flyer on some guy who only the team thought was worth the overdraft (see Cody Bunkelman, for example).  But it wasn't what this organization needed and it failed to draft quality prospects to address the needs the organization has: catching, corner infielders with power, outfielders with power who hit righthanded who also have good OB skills and can play defense, even when those players were available.  

Look, drafting the best available player only is relevant when other, available players were significantly less talented than the player you drafted at that slot.  That was not the case here and that is really disappointing.

Overall View of First Two Rounds

This is, to me, a historic draft so far.  There have been 80 selections so far.  Of those, 68 were ranked in the top 80 prospects, 77 were in the top 123 ranked prospects and all 80 were in the top 207 of ranked prospects.  The top prospects left in the draft are, in order, ranked 11th and 60th.  No guys drafted so far were unranked.  That is unusual. Very unusual.

In summary, the rest of the draft is largely devoid of guys who have dropped who can be snatched up in later rounds.

What does this mean for the Guardians?  It likely means drafting more college pitching, who are signable, and drafting lower level prospects who, like Brennan, may be 2-3 tool guys.  And given the run on power-hitting players (see overdrafts of Ivan Melendez and Xavier Isaac) we likely will be left with good hitting, no power outfielders (see Kwan, Palacios, Brennan), defensive catchers and good fielding infielders (see Ernie Clement, Yordys Valdes, Christian Cairo) without power in addition to the above-mentioned college pitchers.  So, we are kind of screwed here.  We know that we are likely to not get an impact college bat, we have shown we can't really develop raw HS bats so we are left where we were left last year: drafting college pitchers.  The Guardians may thrash around and take guys like Korey Holland who are lottery tickets as they are very raw.  But their inability to develop guys like that will cause those to be wasted picks (which I think was a good part of the reason for drafting mostly pitchers last year).

I don't know how the rest of this draft will turn out but if I was the Guardians, I might start looking for trades to turn this farm system around.  And I might put in some money to sign quality international, veteran free agents this year, guys who are relatively young and can come in and help the ML team in short order.

First day draft blog

 OK, the draft is on.  I will be updating this post the rest of tonight each time the Guardians make a pick.  The updates will contain thoughts about those picks and the state of the draft after each round (first, supplemental first and second) 

FIRST ROUND

Guardians - Chase DeLauter - Look, I was on Daniel Susac at this position because the Guardians have exactly 1 (Naylor) and 1/2 (Lavastida) catching prospects in their ENTIRE minor league system,  Basically, for me it comes down to this.  I like DeLauter and he fits with what the Indians covet (strikezone control and athleticism) and what they need (power).  However, if you make one assumption: guys rated roughly the same have the same chance of success, then you pick the guy who has the clearest path to the majors.  For the Guardians, that would be Susac, who can impact both sides of the ball at catcher.  DeLauter would have to be much better than Susac given the guys he has to climb over to make the majors and I don't think he is.  In the end it is how this pick will impact the major league roster down the road.  I think Susac fills a hole a catcher, a hole I don't think will exist in our outfield in a few years.  Nevertheless, the DeLauter pick is not horrible and is OK for the spot they were drafting (no overdraft here).  I just think it was the wrong pick, given who was available.  Just my thought.

Rest of the first round - Literally every draft has surprises in the first round.   Big surprises, not just shuffling of deck chairs.  The first round started early with Rocker going to Texas.  The only thing I can think is that they were getting him cheap to save money for other picks.   Cade Horten at 7 is, to me, more of the same.   I think Cubs like Horton and know they can save some money here and get another top prospect later.  When I saw Gabriel Hughes go at 10 to Colorado I felt for the kid.   Here he is waiting his whole life and he goes to a team whose stadium location eats pitchers for dinner.   That being said, I think this is an overdraft but the best of the 3 overdrafts up to that point in the first round.  As we move down to the later parts of the first round, starting at Boston's pick, the pundits draft rankings are becoming meaningless.  From 20-30 only 3 guys with first round credentials were even drafted with the average overdraft number (difference between MLB draft rankings and where the player was drafted) was about 35 spots ABOVE where the guys were ranked.  This is just totally amazing to me.  Could all these teams be trying to save money?  Absolutely.  But I do find it hard to imagine that that Tampa Bay at 29 could have liked Xavier Isaacs (who I liked as the Guardians' FOURTH round pick) enough to draft him there when they were aware that 6 of their competitors (7 counting Texas with the Kumar pick) were already making picks to save money to sign guys who slid.   There just couldn't be that many guys who were first round talents who were going to slide, right?

More to come after the supplemental round is completed.

COMPENSATION AND COMPETITIVE BALANCE A ROUNDS

Guardians - Justin Campbell, P, Oklahoma St. - Campbell is a solid pick at this point and one of my suggested options if Cayden Wallace, 3B from Arkansas wasn't available.   Campbell is a solid pitcher but his stuff doesn't seem to say that he is much better or much more needed than corner infielders with power, something that hardly exists in our farm system.

So Campbell was a solid selection here if he can increase his fastball average to more than 92 mph.  But I still would have rater had Wallace and his power potential, even if we have doubled down on power hitters in college by selecting him after DeLauter.

Rest of these rounds - For those teams who may have been trying to save money in round 1, none of those teams drafting in these rounds seemed to draft guys who have fallen except for Colorado in their drafting of Jordan Beck (36th spot, 23rd ranked player).

SECOND ROUND

Guardians - Patrick Messick - LHP - I don't know if they were counting on Wallace to get to them or if they had other college hitters in mind who they think will be there in round 3 and later, but Messick was a safe pick and one I mentioned.   If we had not drafted 19 pitchers last year, almost all college pitchers, I would have been OK with this pick.  And there is nothing wrong with this pick.  Messick fits the bill of pitchers the Guardians like, albeit that he is a little short for my liking. His fastball velocity only sits at a below ML average 91 right now but if he can add velocity he could be a good one.  It is just, following the selection of Campbell, a really non-sexy pick, Messick represents another non-sexy pick and not one that matches the needs of this organization.

The real upside here is that the Reds took Logan Tanner one pick after we selecdted Messick.  We dodged a bullet there, in my opinion!

Rest of 2nd round - We started to see some of the teams, like TB, SF and Houston who may have overdrafted earlier, start to use some of what will likely be budget excess to  pick up guys who have dropped..  This is the round where you generally start to see wild deviations from what teams value compared to what prospect listings value.   The thing here is that, except for a couple of cases, that didn't happen in the second round at the level it normally happens.  My guess is that since we had so much of that in the first round teams went safe or picked up guys who had dropped into the second round to make up for earlier overdrafting (done likely to save budget).

Pre-draft mock draft - Round 2

 As tonight's draft segment will include the first two rounds, including competitive balance picks and compensation picks, I am going to do the same analysis I did for our first round and Competitive Balance A pick.

To refresh, the last mock draft post contained 'wins' and red flags picks for our first two picks.   The Guardians would be good if they could draft Daniel Susac, Zach Neto, both college hitters, or Dylan Lesko.  Gabriel Hughes, a college pitcher, would be a safe, slight overdraft and guys like Logan Tanner, Kummar Rocker, Justin Crawford would be red flag pickers for me with our opening pick.  'Wins' for our competitive balance pick would by Cayden Wallace, a college infielder, Hughes, if he is still available or other college pitchers Justin Cambell, Cooper Hjerpe or Carson Wisenhut.

Our second round pick is #54 overall.  

Looking at the possible results for our first two picks, we are likely to have either two college hitters or one college hitter one hitter and one pitcher.  So we could go either way, hitter or pitcher, without unbalancing our minor league system.  Handicapping this pick is difficult because, besides the pool of players rated to be in the group considered for this pick, two additional different types of players converge at this point: players who are more highly rated than this slot and players that teams rate much more highly than the media.  

So let's look at who would be good picks, focusing JUST on guys I expect to be available here, not considering the two other groups mentioned above that are not really predictable:

Catcher - Dalton Rushing (good hit tool, #50 overall prospect, MLB.com) and Logan Tanner (good defensive tools, #41 overall rated prospect) are the two best college catching prospects after Susac.  Either would be a good pick here.  If the Guardians think they can improve Rushing's defensive tools then drafting him would be a win and I see some Bryan Lavastida in him.  If they just want a guy likely to at least end up as a major league backup, Tanner is their guy, although, as said before, he reminds me of Austin Hedges in terms of his ability to hit.  If somehow Daniel Susac is selected at #16, it is unlikely we would double-down by using this pick to select another college catcher.

Infield - Cade Doughty, a college infielder, would be a 'win' here.   The available college infielders here who slot at this level is limited.  I like Luke Gold but he slots more like a 3rd round pick.

Outfield - There are a number of good college outfielders here.  I expect the Guardians to go the college route here as their development of HS hitters drafted early is really, really suspect.  Spencer Jones and Jud Fabian (my favorite), would be 'win' at this slot.  

Pitcher - Looking at the picks available at this slot, college pitching and some HS pitchers look to be the strength here.   If the Guardians see the draft playing out as I see it, and they have already selected a couple of college hitters, I could see them going for a college pitcher here.   Parker Messick, Adam Mazur, Jonathon Cooper (who reminds me of Gavin Williams or Cody Morris or Peyton Battenfield) or Drew Thorpe would be good fits here.   If the Guardians want to start more slowly and back up their development of pitchers a year or two, any HS pitcher who dropped or guys like Jackson Cox or Walter Ford would be a 'win' at this point.

That should be it for the first night of the draft.  More tomorrow morning to recap tonight and handicap the second day of the draft.

Deadline deal proposal: St. Louis Cardinals

 With or without a Juan Soto trade, would you make this trade with the Cardinals?

Guardians get: Tyler O'Neill and Zack Thompson

Cardinals get: Amed Rosario

As O'Neill is still a possible flash-in-the-pan candidate Thompson softens that blow a little bit.

One point.  This would create an issue for the Cardinals in that now they have Edman, Gorman and Rosario for two positions (SS,2B).  So maybe we expand the deal to:

Guardians get: Tyler O'Neill and Nolan Gorman 

Cardinals get: Amed Rosario, Richie Palacios, Bryan Shaw and Peyton Battenfield

May seem a little light for the Cardinals but Palacios fits their system, they need bullpen help and Shaw is solid and they are a little light at starting pitching depth which they likely will need down the stretch.

What would you trade for Juan Soto?

 OK, market is open for Juan Soto.  

What would you trade to get him?

Looking at Washington's minor league system it is bleak.  Looking at their major league roster it is even more bleak.  

These guys are looking at a long rebuild.  Josh Bell and Nelson Cruz will be free agents.  Stephen Strasburg is just a aalary drain.  

This team needs ML-ready prospects and lots of them.   

When you look at the farm systems of contenders who might trade for Soto only the Dodgers and Mariners have farm systems as good or better than the Guardians and, truth be told, only the Mariners have a deeper farm system than the Indians.

So, while Soto will likely end up in LA or NY after the 2024 season, I don't think it is a given that he will end up there now.

Soto is making $17.1 million this year and he has two arbitration years left, meaning he is likely to make Jose Ramirez money for the next two years.

So, what would a deal for Soto look like and what should we/would we trade?  Here is a proposed trade

Indians get: Soto, Bell, Paulo Espino, Srasburg, Carl Edwards, Jr.. and Matt Cronin

Nationals get: Nolan Jones, Owen Miller, Gabriel Arias, Stephen Kwan, George Valera, Jose Tena, Konnor Pilkington, Tommy Mace, Nick Mikolajchak and Luis Durango.

Basically we are eating Strasburg's remaining salary as he will likely never pitch again.

Final pre-draft mock draft - Warning or celebration signs?

 Ok, about 60 hours from the start of the 2022 first year player draft.   

So, I thought I would do this one a little bit different.  Drafts are so fluid that it is hard to decide whether a particular pick was a win or a loss, depending on who was available at the time.  We won't truly know for years but, at least at the time of the draft, we will have an idea.   

To give some historical context, when the Indians drafted Beau Mills (13th overall, 2007) I knew instantly they did not maximize the value of that pick.  First round selections right after Mills in that draft came guys like Jason Heyward, JP Arencibia, Devin Mesoraco and Rick Porcello.  

In 2019 the then Indians took Christian Cairo and Yordy Valdes, both light-hitting, slick-fielding middle infielders in the 4th and 2nd rounds of the draft, respectively.   Neither has really panned out at all at this point, clearly matching the floor predicted for them at the time they signed.

Yes, lots of guys bloom late (Nolan Jones, Will Benson), guys are astute picks among several available players of about the same skill level (Triston McKenzie, Gavin Williams, Logan T. Allen) and reach towards their ceilings predicted at draft time and some guys picked in the first few rounds overachieve (Shan Bieber, Aaron Civale).  We can never tell on draft night which they will be.

But we can look for warning signs like the ones seen for Mills, Valdes and Cairo.  We can also look for areas where we have potentially made huge misses recently (e.g., high school hitters) and areas where we have drafted overachievers (college pitchers).   We can also look for areas of need (catching, left-handed pitching, power hitting corner infielders) and see if the Guardians have considered those areas when making a pick.

With all that said, let's jump into my final pre-draft mock draft.

First round (16th overall)

Catching - Kevin Parada will be gone, but if Daniel Susac falls to the Guardians they need to draft him.  He is an offense-first college catcher and a good value at this pick so he would be a 'win' at this spot.  Not drafting him would be a real question mark, especially depending on who they actually would draft.  However, if the Guardians pick Logan Tanner, a defense-first catcher at this point, that is an extreme negative for me. 

Infield - Zach Neto is a win with this pick.   Jett Williams, given how bad the Guardians are with developing HS hitters and the fact that he is 5'8', 

Outfield - Justin Crawford raises red flags for me given that we don't do a good job of developing HS bats.  Only Chase DeLauter moves the needle for me here but I think there is too much risk of total failure compared to the reward of his high ceiling for me.  Any other college outfielder will either be gone or would be an overdraft (big negative) for me here.

Pitching - Dylan Lesko, despite his TJ surgery would be a win for me. However, picking Kumar Rocker would be a big negative.  We tried that with Brady Aiken and look how that worked out.  Kumar is a sucker bet and picking him would raise big red flags for m. Picking a college pitcher like Gabriel Hughes at this point is a 'safe' pick and I feel the Guardians would be leaving talent on the table unless they sign Hughes to an underslot deal to save money for later picks.

Supplemental First Round Pick

Catching - Again, Logan Tanner is a huge reach for me here.   There will be plenty of talented players available at other positions that we don't need to draft for need here because, to me, Tanner screams Austin Hedges.  You don't draft a college guy without a bat this early and expect that he will magically develop one, especially as your minor league system isn't know for developing bats where they weren't before.

Infield - Cayden Wallace is a good solid pick here.  I might gamble with Tucker Toman here except that our system is so bat at developing guys like Toman.  

Outfield - I am not enamored with a college outfield bat here, given who will be left.  I think drafting the best available college OFer here would signal drafting for need instead of drafting the best available player.  I think our true second round pick would be a good place to go for a college outfielder.

Pitching - Assuming we don't go for pitching at 16, there are lots of good college pitching here.   Justin Campbell, Cooper Hjerpe or even Carson Whenhut, if available, would all be solid picks here.

As I think these are the only picks the Guardians will have the first night of the draft, I would double back after the picks of July 17th and see who is left before I do my second day mock draft.

The Killer B's - When can we expect to see them in Cleveland?

 Looking at the Columbus Clippers lineup today it took me back a few years.   In my youth, at this point in the season we would be about where Kansas City is now'

As a fan at the time I would have been looking to the future.   Excited about the draft that had just happened and looking to our AAA team for any hope in the last 70 or so games in the season.

Which is why it got me to reminisce about what mighta/shoulda/coulda been to the guys whose last names begin with B in the lineup in today's 7-0 win against Indianapolis (Pirates' AAA team).

So, in remembrance of my youthful years, let's look to the Columbus roster and think who would have been a candidate in the 70s to be called up at or around the all-star break.  

Will Benson - In those olden years, a relatively young first-round pick tearing it up at AAA would have elicited all sorts of calls from fans to be called up.  I mean, the guy is showing signs of being a 4-tool guy with the hit tool being the only one in question and, if we use 2022 statistical logic, his walk rate plus BA makes his hit tool look pretty good.  His current line of 16 HRs, 16 doubles and 16 stolen bases PLUS his mnor league-leading 68 walks for a still relatively young guy would have had the fan in me salivating to get him to the majors...NOW.  The only issues with calling Benson up right now are (a) he hits left-handed and (b) he is not on the 40-man roster.   Who would you send down, who would he replace in the lineup and who would you DFA to add Benson to the 40 man when you are looking at having to add Carlos Vargas and Cody Morris back to the 40-man roster very soon when their 30 day rehab periods expire?

Will Brennan - You gotta feel for guys like Brennan.   I have long said that Antonnetti and Chernoff are not very adept at turning our minor league depth into minor league or major league controllable quality.  The one and only time I can recall them doing that was with Oscar Mercado and look how that turned out eventually.   Brennan deserves a chance and at maybe a third of the franchises in baseball he would have had that chance already.   Unfortunately the Indians are backed up with left-handed hitting outfielders currently or in the recent past raking at AAA (and continuing to rake in the majors).  Brennan should be getting his chance but, like Benson, needs some of the ML logjam to clear off the 40-man to get his chance.

Peyton Battenfield - Potentially the most likely on this list to get a callup if Civale's injury is serious or lingers, Battenfield is probably as or more ML ready than Konnor Pilkington.  I don't want to make too much of his start against Indianapolis today as it was a day game after a night game (generally favoring pitchers) but the thing I am focused on here is look how good he did with his stuff plus a major league quality catcher (Sandy Leon) to maximize his effectiveness.  Don't discount the possibility that Leon was targeted to catch Battenfield today to get a first-hand, spikes-on-the-ground scouting report on Battenfield today just in case Civale has to go on the DL.   Like everyone else listed in this post, Battenfield would have to be added to the roster with someone else DFA'd or put on the 60 day DL. 

 Trenton Brooks - Like Alex Call, a callup of Brooks would be a feel-good story for a career minor leaguer but as a left-handed hitter and mainly a first baseman, he doesn't have an obvious path to being called up.  I would like to see him get his cup of coffee but unless Josh Naylor goes on the 60-day DL (let's hope not!) I don't see that happening.

So there you have it.  This is not your father's Cleveland baseball team.   Guys like the ones mentioned abov just don't get called up because we are competitive in the season, competitive at the positions they play and we have such a young, stacked 40-man roster that DFAing someone is not like DFAing Kirk McCarty, Tanner Tully or Justin Garza.   Aside from a couple of career minor league relievers whose roster spots are already spoken for with guys coming off the 60-man, without a trade we literally don't have room for anyone but Battenfield and only in the case where Civale would be out for a long time.

When you have to call up Alex Call just because he hits right-handed you know that left-handed hitting outfielder and first baseman will have trouble getting called up.   Effective starting pitchers?  Well, regardless of their handedness, you can never have enough pitching!