Reading through draft-related articles on the net brought up a couple of things:
1) Competitive Balance A picks are more valuable than I thought or are they?! The recent trade between the Braves and the Royals. The Braves got the Royals Comp Balance A pick (#35 overall) for three prospects. One was Drew Waters listed as the Braves #1 prospect on MLB pipeline although MLB Trade Rumors was not too flattering about his potential. The next was a the Braves #16 prospect, a low upsdie righty Andrew Hoffman and the 3rd appears to be a throw-in, 3B/1B CJ Alexander.
I don't know what to make of this. On the surface the Braves got another pick and increased financial flexibility in the 2022 draft and only gave up suspects in return. On the surface of the other side the Royals got a top (albeit tarnished) prospect, a middling pitching prospect (you can never have too much pitching) and an older suspect from the Braves, saving the bonus they would have had to pay for a guy who might not have been on their ML roster for 3-5 years and who wouldn't have been THAT great of a pick, as far as upside or current value (being #35 overall in the draft). Basically they got a guy in Waters who is close to ML ready who likely would have the same downside and maybe more upside of whoever the Braves pick at 35.
It appears the Braves have given up on Waters and want to reset their timeclock on prospect development with this trade as whoever they draft won't have to be protected on the 40 man for a number of years. Plus they could lowball the bonus for this spot in the draft with the dollars they save giving them flexibility to sign other guys with above-slot bonus demands.
The Royals rolled the dice assuming Waters could use a change of scenery.
Still, this is an interesting trade as it makes you think about how much these picks are worth.
THOUGHT: Could the Guardians reset their prospect clock by trading some of their excess for a competitive balance pick or two? It is an interesting concept if they have excess although it is hard to believe that trading a clost-to-the-majors guy like George Valera for a draft pick makes sense. Maybe if you trade Jose Tena and Bryan Lavastida for such a pick it makes sense.
2) NIL could change the face of this draft - Look, bonuses are locked in. Teams are not likely to go overslot, at least not dramatically, to keep a kid from going to college or even, returning to college in the face of that kid being able to make significant NIL money. Could a kid's NIL money be worth $500,000 during his 3 years in college? I doubt it for baseball but it is worth considering. If a kid can even make $250,000 in college would it be worth it for him to sign for 3rd round draft money? I don't think so. But what do I know? And HS players with good scholarships signing for $125,000 as a pick after the 10th round? I think that would be much less likely in the era of NIL than it was before.
My gut tells me that less high school players will be drafted and almost none after the 10th round. I think teams will go for the sure thing college players although some teams may use the strategy of going all in on their first round HS pick and then sign cheap college seniors to fill out their first 10 rounds.
3) Hurt pitchers - The Guardians have done a good job signing hurt college pitchers (e.g., Zach Plesac) and then rehabbing and developing them. At the same time for guys like Ethan Hankins and Lenny Torres this has shown to be a slow process if they get hurt once you draft them. Could they select one or more of these hurt pitchers getting them at a high, but discounted cost. Maybe double-down witht his kind of guy at 16 and 37? This might make more sense given the influx of pitching they got in the 2021 draft. I don't know if the Guards will go that direction but it is something to keep an eye on if you could get someone a little cheaper at 16 due to injury and then use that excess bonus money to overpay for slot but still underpay for pre-injury ranking by taking another hurt pitcher at 37.
4) Possible elimination of the ML Rule 5 - This didn't make it into the collective bargaining agreement this time around but I would not count it out as being added soon. I think a lot of teams will see this year how unfair it was during 2020 as prospects lost a year of development although their Rule 5 and 6-year minor league free agent clocks kept moving. While this may be more obvious with Latin players who are signed at 16, I think teams will see the advantages that elimination of at least the ML portion of the Rule 5 could have on their draft. I think that the needs of the many (prospects) will outweigh the needs of the few (prospects who get drafted in the ML Rule 5 and can actually stick and have a career). I think the ML Rule 5 will disappear soon.
Now, if a team thinks the ML Rule 5 draft will disappear, they might be more likely to take a chance on a guy that might be slow developing due to injury, conversion full-time to one position (e.g., guys being converted to catcher or two-way college players being converted to pitchers) or guys who they just think are very raw. If they don't think the ML Rule 5 will disappear maybe those guys don't get selected or at least not before the 10th round where the loss of their player down the road due to slow development won't exactly kill a team's draft.
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