2023 Amateur Draft - Non-Drafted Free Agents

 OK, so it is common knowledge that some guys who aren't drafted are signed after the draft.  It is rare that any of these guys would make the majors but sometimes they do develop and become major leaguers or, at least, good prospects.  I don't know if you remember but we had a good one years ago: Jim Kern.   He was signed as a non-drafted free agent and made the majors, even pitching a complete game in his first ML appearance.  Eventually he settled in and became a reliable relief pitcher so it does happn.

But how often could it really happen, right?  In the early days of the draft there were so many phases and times of year guys were drafted teams could draft well over 70 guys.  So how many good players could be left after that?  When they cut the draft back to once a year and 40 players that still meant that 1200+ players were drafted.  Even with the draft cut to 20 rounds this still means over 600 players are drafted.  Plus, given that non-drafted free agents usually get small bonuses, how many quality players who weren't drafted could be enticed into play professional ball as opposed to going to college and get developed so, in 3 years, their draft bonus payday could go through the roof.  Gambling on yourself.  I get it.

But what happens if we stack the odds, give these non-drafted free agents their best chance ever. 

Well, the best chance of that happening occurred in 2020, the pandemic season.  The draft had only 5 rounds and there was very little chance to see guys in person so guys who were 5th to 10th round talents and who might have made a big jump didn't get a chance to show out.  I mean, guys make the majors all the time between the 5th and 10th rounds, right.  Sure, the chances go down after the first round but even at the 10th round the normal chances of a guy making the majors is 5-10%.  

So quality prospects could have still been available after those 5 rounds and some ingenious team could have found a way to sign these guys, right?  Diamonds in the rough who would sign cheaply to get their pro career started.  You could even use any left-over money you had from that drafts bonus pool for your team to sign these guys.  

But did teams do that and were they successful doing that, as measured by those players being among their team's best prospects 3 years later?  

So I took a look at the 2020 NDFA class and here is what I found:

• About 170 college and HS players signed in 2020 as non-drafted free agents
• 7 of those players were, at the beginning of 2023, among their team's top 30 prospects as rated by Baseball America, the highest being #3 for the Red Sox, Wilmer Flores, with the next highest being #4 for the Cubs, Matt Mervis.
• 12 additinoal NDFAs from 2020 were listed among the other prospects on the BA depth charts for those teams, meaning they were likely within their team's top 50 prospects before this season began.

7 out of 170 is about what you would expect or maybe a little more than if you looked at 10th round picks over the years.  So the hypothesis that teams would have been able to pounce on guys who weren't picked in the 5 round draft dosen't appear to have happened.  The fact that almost 90% of them don't appear on prospect lists tells me that the guys who signed as non-drafted free agents were likely the same type of guys who normally sign those contracts in any year: college players who don't want to play in college any longer and are just looking for a chance to play pro ball and high school kids who never really wanted to go to college and were willing to take the small bonus and promise that their college education, down the road, would be paid for by the team they signed with, kids with very little chance of increasing their eventual draft bonus if they stayed in college another year or three.

Nice thought but it didn't happen and if it didn't happen after a 5 round draft the guys who sign as NDFAs in even a 20 round draft will never be anything more than just organizational players.

Who did the Guardians sign as NDFA in 2020, you may ask: Jaime Arias, Joe Donovan and Alonzo Richardson.  These guys all still stand a very, very outside chance of making the majors and have all their their moments playing in the minors but one key is that they GOT that chance, a chance that might not have occurred if they had not grabbed for that brass ring when they did.  Good luck to the 3 of them and the rest of the 170 kids who chose to grab for that ring in a very sad, scary and dangerous time.  

Good luck to ALL the Guardians' NDFAs in 2023 as Jim Kern could tell you, magical things can sometimes happen if you just give it your all and get a few breaks along the way.