2023 Amateur Draft - Day 3 Results and Some Thougts About How They Will Use Their Bonus Pool

 Today the Guardians picked 10 players in the last Day of the 2023 amateur draft.  To put their last 10 round draft today in perspective, let's look at the players the Guardians picked in rounds 11-20 in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022.  

Round: 2018 pick, 2019 pick, 2021 pick, 2022 pick 

Round 11 - DeGroat, Mikolajchak, Stanley, Ellerts

Round 12 - Ponticelli, A. Hernandez, Koxx, Jasiak

Round 13 - Marman, Pries, Sharpe, T. Turner

Round 14 - Holland, I. Freeman, Denholm, Cavanaugh

Round 15 - Lavastida, Benton, Abney, Tulloch

Round 16 - Cardenas, J. Jones, Pettway, L. Clark

Round 17 - Jenkins, Escobedo, Thornton, Zarate

Round 18 - McCarthy, Waldron, Ventimighlia, Jacobs

Round 19 - Duplantis, K. Kelly, Johnston, G. Rivera

Round 20 - Miednik, Enright, J. Miller, Rapp

From the list above bold=made the majors, strikethrough = no longer in the organization, underline means HS draftee.

In summary, in these 4 years we drafted four HS players, 2 pitchers and 2 position players, all of whom signed.  The other 36 were all college players with 30 being college pitchers and 6 being college position players.  Clearly the Guardians drafted college pitchers predominantly in these rounds who they turned into relievers (mostly) and, in these drafts, drafted ZERO college catchers (1 HS catcher) in these rounds.  Three of these players have already played in the majors and I would think that a number of other ones will have the chance.  

I think the reason for this is that they know the college pitchers who will sign and they know the likelihood of a HS player signing is low and only draft those who they likely already have a pre-draft deal with.  

So that brings us to this year's draft. In rounds 11-20 the Guardians drafted:

1 college catcher, 4 HS pitchers, 4 college pitchers, 1 college outfielder.

This is somewhat stunning for the Guardians to do this type of drafting as in the past they have never drafted more than 1 HS player in any of the previous 4 years and only 2 pitchers in 4 drafts.  Now they drafted 4 HS pitchers in one draft.

With the draft lasting only 20 rounds the Guardians have put a premium on only drafting guys they can sign as they have signed all 40 guys they have drafted in these rounds over this period. 

Possible explanations could be:

• There were no college pitchers left they wanted to sign and so 2023 represents a one year aberration in their late round philosophy
• They were planning on having money left over from the first 10 rounds to sign some HS flyers 
• They realized how under-represented HS players with, likely, more upside had been in their previous drafts (if you can actually sign them)
• Due to the new rules they were not planning on signing all 20 draftees this year

By 'the new rules' I mean that the Guardians had some latitude in not putting players on their minor league reserve lists during their draft year.  That was the players could be signed but not assigned to a team.  Most teams totally fill these reserve lists every year  and addition of too many draftees could mean having to cut existing minor leaguers mid-season to accommodate the new draftees.

So which one or combination of these (or other reasons) did they have for moving more towards HS pitchers?    I don't know but I have a hunch, and it is based on the players they drafted in the first 10 rounds.

I may be totally wrong but, for the first time in the last 4 years, they may not spend their bonus pool in the first 10 rounds and, instead spend a significant amount of their draft budget on over-slot signings of guys in rounds 11-20.  Let's look at the players they drafted in the first 10 rounds with me estimating what I consider the bonus they should obtain vs the slot:

1. Ralphy Velazquez  Slot bonus: $3.38 million, projected bonus: $2.9 million, difference: $480,000

2. Alex Clemmey  slot bonus: $1.4 million, projected bonus: $1.7 million, difference: $-300,000

2C.  Andrew Walters  slot bonus: $1.27 million, projected bonus: $770,0,000, difference: $500,000

3. CJ Kayfus slot bonus: $725,300, projected bonus: $525,000, difference: $200,300

4. Cooper Ingle slot bonus: $526,200, projected bonus: $350,000, difference: $176,200

5. Christian Knapczyk slot bonus: $371,000, projected bonus: $340,000, difference $31,000

6. Tommy Hawke slot bonus: $295,000, projected bonus: $320,000, difference $-25,000

7. Alex Mooney slot bonus: $231,300, projected bonus: $700,000, difference: $-468,700

8. Jonah Advincula slot bonus: $191,100, projected bonus: $191,100, difference: $0

9.  Jay Driver slot bonus: $174,300, projected bonus: $174,300, difference: $0

10. Matt Wilkinson slot bonus: $165,300, projected bonus: $200,000, difference $-34,700

So, if I have done my math correctly, we should have $559,100 left over from our draft budget.  If you want to go over your draft budget you could add another $436,835 (5% over budget) to that for a grand total of $995,935.

Essentially, in my opinion, we could easily have close to (or even over) $1 million to play with to sign late round draftees.  Remember, each player drafted after round 10 can be signed for up to $125,000 without it counting against a team's draft bonus pool.  This would mean that we could, using the above figures sign 2 of these late draftees for $500,000 or 3 for $400,000 or 5 for $300,000 and still have a little left over after signing these guys at each of those values.  

The Guardians have shown a desire to sign all of their draftees once MLB shortened the draft to 20 rounds.  Since they drafted so many HS pitchers after the 10th round and so few (for them) pitchers in the first 10 rounds, I think their plan is sign some or all of these 4 HS pitchers drafted late for overslot bonuses.

So, there it is.  My thought about what the Guardians plan to do with the draftees after the 10th round.  I doubt they sign all of their top 20 draftees for the first time in the last 5 full drafts (not counting 2020), but I think they will come closer than you would imagine for drafting so many HS pitchers after round 10.  I am in no way saying this is what I would do but, then again, there is no way I would have ever put together the first 10 rounds of this draft in as stupid, almost comical way as the Guardians did, especially on the heels of the overspending and bad results from the 2022 draft.