2024 Draft - Part 38 - Put-It-In-The-Time-Capsule Post - My mock financially compared to the Guardians

 OK, I have given you my mock compared to the Guardians.  Here they are:

So, there you have it.  My draft spent $17,500 lesss than the Guardians and got the players I wanted.

So, put it in the time capsule and I will see you in 5 years.

Enjoyed writing about the draft and hope you all enjoyed reading about it.  I truly hope the Guardians innovative strategy works and produces stars in Cleveland that will keep giving fans exciting memories and moments to cheer about for the next decade or more.

Trade Deadline Post - My Thoughts

 Let's start off by saying I am a prospect hugger.  Can't help it because I don't trust this front office to get equal or needed value back in trades.  I just don't.  Plus, I have been a hardcore baseball fan for almost 60 years and, during most of that time, prospects were the only thing to cling to if you were a Cleveland fan.

So, as I looked at trades leading up to the deadline this year, I wondered what the Guardians would do.  Now, the Guardians have RARELY made a bad deal when they were buyers at the deadline because, frankly, they hardly are ever buyers at the deadline.  They tend to be neutral or sellers.  

Still, historically, their last big WS run was catalyzed by the acquisition of Andrew Miller.  At the time I thought it was a high price to pay for a failed starter, non-closer reliever.  I just didn't see it. However, obviously, I was wrong.

So, here I was, waiting for the first shoe to drop and then the second and so on.  And the Guardians didn't disappoint, sort of.  Let's take a look at the two trades they made and the trade deadline, itself, for context.

Lane Thomas Trade

First the Guardians trade three prospects, Alex Clemmey, Rafael Ramirez, Jr. and Jose Tena for 1+ years of Lane Thomas, a RHH RFer with speed and some power from Washington.  I had already suggested trading for Thomas last winter after his career year.  I thought this price for Thomas in a down year for him was too steep.   However, as I thought about it, it probably wasn't that steep.   You see, the prospects we traded had warts, maybe some of the biggest warts in our system.  Here is my assessment of those prospects:

• Jose Tena - Tena has broken out this year at AAA.  The only issue is that this is in Columbus and a hitter's power is generally not nearly as good as it appears when he plays for Columbus.  Plus, Tena does not pass the eye test or the analytics test as far as defense goes.  To me, his range at SS is limited and I really don't see him fitting at 3B or 2B.  So he is the typical eye candy prospect who looks much better than what he will turn out in the majors. 
• Alex Clemmey - I have already commented that it looks like Clemmey will be a longer-term development project than I anticipated when he was drafted in 2022.  He is far from refined in either command or control and, if he doesn't fix that, he will struggle to move up the minor league ladder.  The potential is there and thus the high prospect rating but I see him as developing slowly
• Rafael Ramirez, Jr - He has struggled mightily on offense and defense this year at Lynchburg.  He seems unrefined on both sides of the ball and, to me, is the biggest of lottery tickets at this point.

So we gave up three prospects for Thomas but the two at Lynchburg were high ceiling, low floor prospects and the one at Columbus was a low ceiling, high floor utility infield type.  So, in hindsight, this was exactly the type of trade we should have made and Thomas was a gamble but, in our window of competitiveness with our ML team, none of these guys were likely going to impact the Guardians ML team in any significant way.  Whereas, Thomas can impact the team during that window.

Alex Cobb Trade

Cleveland traded for starting pitcher Alex Cobb who has not started a game this year due to injury..  Cleveland sent Jacob Bresnahan and a PTBNL to San Francisco.  

How this trade turns out will depend on whether and how Cobb pitches, which may be tied to the quality of the PTBNL San Francisco eventually receives.    

SUMMARY OF CLEVELAND TRADES

Cleveland traded a couple of recent HS graduate starting pitchers who are or were becoming good prospects.  This was after drafting FIVE HS starting pitchers in the 2024 draft.   I am sure this year's draft had a lot to do with who Cleveland felt they could trade as up to 9 HS pitchers, including Clemmey and Bresnahan could have been ready for the ML team at approximately the same time and this would have created real problems in protecting these players from the Rule 5 when they were eligible.  Plus, both Clemmey and Bresnahan were at the peak of their value in the organization at the time they were traded and, frankly, Tena was, too.  

REST OF THE TRADE DEADLINE ACTIVITY

As with all trade deadlines, some players were overvalued and some were undervalued.  Some veterans were traded for suspect minor league prospects and some were traded for more substantial prospects.  As is usually the case, there was generally no apparent rhyme or reason for why certain veterans and certain prospects involved in these trades were rated so highly by the team that traded for them.  An overview of the deadline deals leads me to believe that this year was neither a seller's or buyer's market.  It was just a typical (in the past 3 years) deadline trading period.  So no one should have expected the sellers to make a killing in their trading.  

The only thing I will comment further on is that relief pitchers seemed to bring a good return in this period.  I think we may have missed an opportunity to trade Scott Barlow, Nick Sandlin, Eli Morgan or Peter Strzelecki or even James Karinchak.  I think we have a large excess of relief pitchers and could have traded some of that depth for a good prospect haul, based on what other teams were getting for their relief pitchers.

In closing, I think the Guardians improved their team at the deadline.  On the other hand, I am not sure if these moves moved the needle on their competitiveness this year.  Thomas gave them stability and a RH bat in RF.  Cobb gave them the hope of a solid starting pitcher down the stretch if he is healthy.  The addition of these two guys means that major leaguers will lose their jobs and maybe even be DFA'd.  One should always include these players in the cost of obtaining new players like Thomas and Cobb.  

And, pending the PTBNL announcement, the cost in prospects did not seem to damage the farm system.  So, in that aspect, it was a successful if not bountiful deadline deal period for the Guardians.  That should not be surprising to fans as Chris Antonetti said before the trade deadline, that the players who were on the team at the time would largely be the ones who will be on the team down the stretch.

Let's hope he is talking about CURRENT ML players AND current ML-ready prospects as I think we have not yet reached our final roster as we haven't seen Manzardo a second time or Brito the first time, or any of the AAA or AA pitchers that are having great years.  

2024 Draft -Part 37 - Final Thoughts, Opinions and Comments On The Guardians Draft

 OK, the dust has settled on the Guardians draft this year and here is what I know and what my opinions are:

• The Guardians signed all 21 of their draft picks.
• The Guardians did that by spending their whole draft budget and almost all of their $916,517 5% overage, currently leaving only $33,517 left of that overage.  
• The Guardians spent more money on this draft than any other team has ever spent on a draft. Clearly, part of that is from having the #1 overall pick AND the 10th pick in each round in a year where escalators made this this richest draft, slot value-wise, in baseball history, beating last year due to those escalators.
• The Guardians, using that budget and with the aid of Travis Bazzana signing for $1,620,000 under slot, they ended up signing FOUR players for over $2 million (Bazzana, Doughty, Cozart and Oakie) and signed another (Mobley) for $1,800,000.
• Unlike a lot of other teams this year who signed some of their draft picks for as low as $1,000, the Guardians signed every one of their draft picks for at least $25,000 and actually signed 7 of their 3rd day picks for the maximum allowable without being counted against their draft budget, $150,000.  I haven't checked all the bonus numbers from this and previous drafts but in my memory, for the Guardians, to spend this much total money on 3rd day picks WITHOUT having ANY overslot signings is very unusual, if not unprecedented. 

So, that's what I know.  Here are my opinions on this draft.

1. Chris Antonetti said that they really didn't know who they were going to select 1-1 until about 20 minutes before the draft.  People may think that was because they didn't know if they wanted to take Bazzana.  I don't think that was it at all.  I think what they wanted to know was whether they would be able to spend effectively the bonus pool excess created by Bazzana's bonus would give them when taken in conjunction with their 5% overage.  I think they had a strategy but it was a complex one that involved finding out, on draft day, how many overslot signings they could afford and who they could draft to spend that money.

2. I think it was Mike Tyson who said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.  I think, like every team in every draft, the Guardians had a plan that fell apart pretty early in the draft.  I think they were looking for a pitcher they thought they could get either Ben Hess or Kash Mayfield (or both) with their CB-A and 2nd round picks but both those guys were gone, so they went with Doughty and then Cozart, the latter to infuse a little slot/talent appropriate catching into their system.  With the money they saved by paying Doughty and Cozart almost slot they could start, on Day 2, to spend their bonus excess for overslot signings of stud prospects who fell due to bonus demands.  They first drafted Oakie and then used the homework they did to find guys they felt the market had undervalued either because of lower upside or injury.  In this way they could save more money for two more overslot bonuses at the end of Day 2.

3. They had done their homework, both on this draft and historically, and KNEW that there were two ways to spend excess bonus pool money: draft-eligible college sophomores and high school pitchers, both of whom historically, would require overslot bonuses.  When the sophomores they wanted weren't available, they pivoted to a group, quality HS RHP, who are always available throughout any draft IF you are willing to pay for them.  Two reasons they are always available is because they require overslot bonuses and HS RHP are one of the most risky groups to pick becasue they have a very high failure rate compared to most other types of players in a draft.  All they had to do, and they did it well, was identify which HS pitchers could be enticed to forgo college and which ones were absolutely going to college.  The beauty of knowing which ones would sign for huge overslot bonuses and roughly how much it would take, allowed them to come up with Sullivan and Mobley, with Mobley being the most difficult to sign.  They knew they could sign Sullivan but they had to make sure that they would have enough left for Mobley.  Once they did the math they let Mobley know they wanted to draft him and verified what it would take to sign him.  Then they could do the math to make sure the guys they drafted with the rest of their day 2 picks would give them enough money to sign all these overslot RH HS pitchers.

4. On Day 3 all they had to do was make sure that all the guys they drafted would sign for $150,000 or less, including Jacob Remily, the last HS RHP they selected in 2024.

5. The Guardians also knew they had a very deep minor league system.  They had already been releasing players of the type (e.g., Joe Naranjo) who they normally wouldn't release mid-season.  They knew that they would have to add all these draft choices to their 165 which would probably cause them to release even more valuable prospects from the bottom of that 165 group, prospects who they weren't ready to give up on.   For that reason, they didn't break their tradition of signing very few non-drafted free agents although this year they had a little more excess bonus money ($33,516) than they normally had.  So they only signed one college pitcher and no college catchers as NDFAs, the latter being a group they have gone to in the recent draft just to give their young pitchers experienced catchers to throw to as they break into professional baseball.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

When the dust settled the Guardians were left with 4 highly rated HS pitchers who likely would have each been more highly rated (like Doughty was) if they had been deemed signable for slot value based on their ability.   The rest of their draft, except for Cozart, was incidental although the Guardians, as they always do, will likely find valuable role players among the pitchers they drafted.  I think their confidence that their college pitcher development system and ability to rehab injured college pitchers was still a huge strength of their development system and went to that strength.   In the end they drafted 11 college pitchers who are developmental or rehab projects and signed another as their only (so far) NDFA.  

In conclusion, I think the Guardians executed an effective and intelligent, albeit risky, plan to focus on HS pitchers since they had an excess of money.  If it was me I would have focused more on college sophomores for my post-Bazzana picks but the Guardians went with a group, HS RHP, whose availability would be much less in question and, frankly, a group whose ability more matched their bonus demands than draft eligible sophomores, using Alex Mooney as an example who burned them in 2023 and was responsible for them not having the funds to sign Marohn and Heuer from that draft.

Will the Guardians' strategy be successful?  It's hard to tell but they got a lot of highly ranked prospects from this draft, getting #1, #36, #42, #46, #80, #118, #147 and #245 in the first 300 picks in this draft. That is extreme value, in my opinion.

Last question that comes to mind for me: How does this draft impact the top-to-bottom integrity of our prospect pipeline?  This is the one place I think this draft failed.  Instead of injecting pitching into the middle (i.e., high A) level of the Guardians development pipeline, it added more pitchers to the bottom of the pipeline to go along with Humphries, Bresnahan, Zinn and Zibin.  Adding Doughty, Oakie, Sullivan, Mobley and Remily to this group means that we will have NINE very young pitchers who, if they are successful, will all get to the major leagues about the same time.  At the same time, we have very few pitchers at Lynchburg and Lake County who look like they are likely to become ML pitchers, with most of our priority pitching prospects now being at AA and AAA.  So the strategy employed this year created a hole in the pitching pipeline without adding hitting A or A+ in our hitting pipeline.  

Redundancy is important up and down the pipeline and having your pitching pipeline all of sudden become bottom heavy without adding to the hitting pipeline at upper levels may create a problem for the Guardians in the future of the same type they have with their MIFers right now at AAA and the majors.  Their just may not be enough repetitions to find out early enough which guys are keepers and which guys are not going to make it as starters and need to be moved either in trade or to another role in the system to fill a different need.  

I HATE the expression that you don't truly know what you have in a draft for 5 years because it is often used to cover up an obvious (to me) bad draft that is obvious to me at the time of the draft. However, I think, in this case, for the 2024 Guardians draft, this is EXACTLY the case.  Let's hope in 5 years the extreme promise of this draft will be realized with a new pipeline of young guns in our pitching staff.

Therefore, my grade for this Guardians draft is a B+ with the obvious chance to move all the way up to an A+ if their pitching development system can do its usual magic.

2024 Draft - Part 36 - What Happens If Draft Disaster Strkes?

 Ok, you are the Cleveland Guardians.  

• You have the largest draft pool EVER for a ML draft.
• You have signed your #1 pick to a savings of $1,620,000 under slot. AND you got the guy you wanted.  
• In addition, you have an additional $914,000+ in your 5% overage (something you have done every year since this system was initiated) that you can spend without losing a draft pick.  
• You also lowballed a number of college players who you might save an additional $500,000 on, all told.

With this excess in mind, the Guardians' draft is set up for them to make a run at 4 high profile HS pitchers they selected in the first 10 rounds.  Those 4, Braylon Doughty (#36 ranked draft prospect), Joey Oakie (#46), Chase Mobley (#80) and Cameron Sullivan (#118) will not come cheap and, by my calculations, could all be signed if their bonus requirements are reasonable.

My estimates have Doughty ($100,000 over his slot value), Oakie ($1.1 million over slot), Sullivan ($575,000 over slot) and Mobley ($1.1 million over slot).  I have projected that they will have enough bonus money, at these amounts, to sign all 4 of these HS pitchers.

But what happens if the worst happens: One (or more) of those top HS players don't sign?  The Guardians will be left with a whole bunch of bonus + 5% overage excess money that they really can't spend on their remaining draft choices.

Why?  Because the rest of the draft is made up of college seniors, juniors and 1 HS pitcher, none of whom, except for Jacob Remily, a HS pitcher drafted in the 16th round, are likely to require overslot bonuses.

But, you could have all this bonus pool money left.  What do you do with it?

Before we get into that, there are a couple things about the draft and bonus pool money:

1. You can't take it with you.  Any money you don't spend is just lost.  You can't use it for international signings or bank it for next year.  It has to be used on signing draft-eligible guys and it has to be used by August 1st of this year.
2. If you go over your draft budget you pay a penalty.  The Guardians, since this penalty was instituted, have always gone right up to the limit of losing a draft choice and not worried about the penalty.
3. Any player who was draft eligible for the 2024 draft but who was NOT drafted, is eligible to be signed (no draft-and-follows).  These players are referred to as non-drafted free agents or NDFAs
4. NDFAs can sign for up to $150,000 without counting against the draft bonus pool.
5. And, finally, you can't trade slot money to another team in exchange for players or future draft picks.

So, the only choice, if disaster strikes with the HS pitchers above,  if you want to use your entire draft budget and overage, is to sign draft eligible guys who were not drafted, like Cade Smith from the 2020 draft.  Here are some thoughts about who you might sign who could require larger than $150,000 bonuses to sign:

1. In my mock draft I had the Guardians picking Mason Koch (11th), John Bay (9th), Pierce Coppola (10th), Matt Willadsen (19th) and Owen Boeresma (7th).  None of these guys were drafted so they are still eligible to be signed.  You could likely sign a number of these guys for the overslot money you wouldn't spend if one of the top 4 didn't sign.

2. In the MLB Pipeline draft rankings there are always highly-ranked HS seniors who were not drafted due to some combination of a strong college commitment and high bonus demands.  The top 15 remaining prospects from those rankings are HS players.  It is possible that one of those players could be enticed to forego their college commitment if they were offered enough although each of them has likely already been offered large amounts (likely >$1 million) already and turned it down so the odds of this happening are very low.

3. There are a number of MLB Pipeline-ranked college players who weren't drafted.  Given the Ryan Prager situation this year (Angels 3rd round, turned down being signed to return to school), a number of these guys, like Prager, are betting on themselves having good years in college next year and being drafted very high next year.  To soften the blow of losing that professional bonus this year, those guys are likely to make a lot of NIL money in college next season and likely have prime roles on their college teams.  Nevertheless, guys like Jalin Flores (116), Jared Jones (119), Harrison Didawick (125), Zach Stewart (134) and Anthony Silva (137) are college sophomores who went undrafted as did college juniors Hunter Hines (174), Jonathon Vastine (188), Bobby Boser (235) and Jay Woolfolk (250).

4. There are also many summer leagues both for college players (e.g., the Cape Cod Baseball League) and even some HS players sprinkled through other notable college summer leagues around the country.  Players have been signed as NDFAs from those leagues in the past.

It also should be noted that using a large bonus excess on multiple players might cause more minor leaguers to be released as the Guardians were likely keeping spaces open ONLY for their draft choices and any NDFAs they have already signed.

Looking at Baseball America, it is interesting that no NDFAs for the Guardians are listed yet.  That could be because, just like last year, they will have a draft signing ceremony in Goodyear tomorrow and any NDFAs will be part of that ceremony.  It could also be because of the new cap on US minor league players they don't have room for any NDFAs this year.  

I guess we will find on this Sunday.

We will also find out at that time whether they were able to sign all their draft picks.  If not, the time between then and August 1st could be very interesting for the Guardians as they could possibly be the team with the largest draft bonus pool ever who had the largest amount of bonus pool money left over at the end of the signing period.

The Guardians are really good at drafting signable players and using their who budget.  Let's hope they do both this time and maybe surprise us with a couple of quality NDFAs, as well.

2024 Draft - Part 35 - July 20th Draft Thoughts (UPDATE)

 1. Bazzana signing for $8.95 million really helps us get enough money to sign other draftees.   By my calculation we now have banked $1,925,400 from our under slot signings plus another $916,516 that we have in 4.999% overage for a total $2,841,916.

2. Assuming we sign all of our other top 10 round picks and that any overage for Doughty would be made up under slot amounts for our remaining picks in the top 10 rounds, hers is what we would have left to pay our other 3 HS pitchers we selected in the top 10 rounds:

Oakie - $2,000,000 bonus (=$906,800 (slot) + $1,093,200 overage)

Sullivan - $875,000 bonus (=$297,100 (slot) + $577,900 overage)

Mobley - $1,350,000 bonus (=$183,600 (slot) + $1,166,400 overage)

This would leave us about $4400 from our overage = 4.999% pool so any other savings that we would apply would have to come from under slot signings of guys remaining in our top 10 round picks and Doughty not requiring an overslot bonus.  Obviously if he would come in for $100,000 under slot that would help us to save money for picks in rounds 11-20.

The thing about this is if we don't sign Mobley, we would have over $1.1 million that we would have no use for as we didn't draft any flyers in rounds 11-20 that would require over slot bonuses.    

So, not only are we set up, financially, to sign all these guys, if we don't sign them they lose out of a lot of money and we lose out on having, on paper, one of the best drafts in Guardians' history...the classic lose-lose scenario.

3. We released Ethan Hankins yesterday.  That could just be the tip of the iceberg because the minor league limit of total players a team can have is probably already full, meaning one goes on, one comes off at this point.  Whether Hankins was released because Bazzana was assigned to Lake County is unknown...but it sure appears it might be.  Really a shame for Hankins as he had a great arm and just couldn't stay healthy.  I hope he finds his dream somewhere else.

4. Interesting that Antonetti was on the broadcast on Saturday (I only saw it today as my area was blacked out) saying that the strategy all along was to pick a lot of HS pitchers.  I would love it if that had, indeed, been the strategy all along.  Clearly, history tells us that there are always stud HS pitchers available in the draft.  The issues with HS P, especially righthanders, is that they are costly and are one of the riskiest groups to draft as their failure, and dramatic failure (never even making it to AAA) is close to the worst for a group of drafted players.  So, if you have a lot of money and are willing to accept that risk (Antonetti acknowledged that risk and implied that Cleveland was accepting of it) it is a solid strategy.  None of us will likely ever know what factors (e.g., bonus demands of sophomores like Dakota Jordan) played a part in the pre-draft strategy or if the 'strategy' just evolved as certain players the Guardians wanted disappeared ahead of where the Guardians wanted to draft them.  Clearly, I substituted Jordan for Doughty and Mobley and added some college pitchers that I had in my pre-draft mock.  

2024 Draft - Part 34 - The Annual Fruitless Exercise Of Making A Mock Draft To Compare To The Guardians Draft

 OK, time to put this down on 'paper' and put it in the electronic time capsule that is the internet to be opened in 5 years and, likely, laughed at.  Historically, I am really bad at this although, this year, I think I might have FINALLY got it right...until I look 5 years from now, LOL.

Let's hope that people are laughing at me and not the Guardians 5 years from now.

Since I did my mock differently this year, putting in some placeholders instead of player's names, if my mock is consistent with the Guardians then I use their player.  If my mock identifies a player type and the Guardians didn't select a player at that type at that point in the draft, I tried to pick that type of player who was actually picked later in the draft.  For context, if a player was actually selected in the draft later than my mock, I include, in parentheses, the slot that player was actually taken.  The only time I will not use my mock is if my pick in a round has already been picked or, in some cases later in the draft, if my pick was never drafted and then I will try to pick who the Guardians picked.  When possible and I have just identified a TYPE of player, I always try to stay true to that type (like draft eligible soph in the same round or close to it.  Like in round 20 where I picked a D&F guy that was picked right after Cleveland's 20th round slot.

OK, so here goes.

Pick    CLE Pick (rank)        My Mock (pick where the player was actually selected) (Ranking)

1-1        Bazzana (1)                 Bazzana(1) (1)

36        Doughty  (36)               Luke Holman (77) (45)

48        Cozart (42)                  Bryce Cunningham (53) (63)

84        Oakie (46)                  Oakie (84) (46)

113      Schlesinger (147)      Dakota Jordan (116) (34)

146       Major (245)              Matt Ager (174) (135)

175        Favors                      Bridger Holmes (192)

205      Sullivan (118)            Sullivan (205) (118)

235       Szak  (NR)                Sam Garcia (college senior) (245) (NR)

265        Matson (NR)           Micah McDowell (college senior) (514) (NR)

295        Mobley (80)            Kyle Robertson (316) (182)

325        Howe  (NR)            Howe (325) (NR)

355        Heppner  (NR)       Heppner (355) (NR)

385        Thompson (NR)     Yoel Tejeda Jr. (413) (NR)

415        Cessarini  (NR)       Cessarini (415) (NR)

445        Whittaker (NR)       Whittaker (445) (NR)

475        Remily  (NR)          Remily (475) (NR)

505        McGuire (NR)         McGuire (NR)

535        Martinez (NR)        Owen Boeresma (ND) (NR)

565        Schuelke (NR)        Schuelke (565) (NR)

595        Waily  (NR)            Dawson Price (JUCO D&F, 596) (NR)

In summary, the Guardians drafted 8 guys who were ranked in the MLB Pipeline top 250, 4 were ranked better when they were drafted (underdrafts), 2 were ranked identical to where they were drafted and 2 were ranked lower than where they were drafted (overdrafts).  In my mock draft 9 drafted players were ranked, 5 were underdrafts, 3 were overdrafts and 1 (Bazzana) was identical. 

The real difference between my draft and the Guardians was that I focused more on known college junior pitchers & took two less HS pitchers (didn't take Doughty or Mobley) knowing that I had to sign Dakota Jordan to an overslot bonus.  I did take a draft eligible soph pitcher (Tejeda) later in the draft and the 20th round D&F that I said I wanted to take.  And, of course, in my draft I took ZERO college catchers as all the good ones who could hit (except Ryan Campos) went early in the draft.  The Guardians took 2. 

2024 Draft - Part 33 - Analysis of The Guardians 2024 Draft

People who don't want to hear anything negative will say that you can't judge a draft for 5 years.  While there is a lot of validity in that, that validity is only important if you draft looks sub-optimal on the surface.  You don't really ever hear or read people saying "Wow, what a good draft on paper for the Guardians but don't get too excited because you won't be able to tell for 5 years if those picks are going to turn out to be winners".  The latter thing is what people SHOULD be saying about this draft, which looks good on paper but could easily crumble like a house of cards and, certainly, isn't going to provide as much talent to the majors in the next 3 years as it could have based on the competitive window for our major league team.

So, on that note, here is a detailed summary of my opinions on the Guardians' draft:

Background - The Guardians had the largest bonus pool in the history of the draft.  They also, because of that, had the largest 4.999% overage amount in the history of the draft, with any spending above that level costing them.  In actual money, this number is $19,250,500, give or take a few pennies.  So they had a lot of money to spend.  

If you follow the dynamics of the draft as closely as I do, historical trends jump out at you.  

• Watching a draft unfold live and knowing the prospects, makes you immediately aware that picking prospects is an either/or proposition.  By that I mean if there are 3-4 prospects you are trying to decide among at a particular slot, the guys you don't pick will GENERALLY not be available the next pick you make.
• There are, GENERALLY, only a finite number of super prospects (ones who immediately would become one of your farm system's top 5 or top 10 prospects). You will be lucky to get TWO of those guys in a draft.  There is one exception to this rule and that is...
• Super prospect HS pitchers generally are available at any point in a draft, especially in the first 10 rounds.  The reasons why are simple: these kids have tons of leverage and generally require well over slot bonuses to sign...AND...RH HS pitchers are one of the riskiest groups to draft.
• On a different note, every scouting department should go into the draft with a strategy. It should have lists of players fitting their strategy so it shouldn't matter if one or two are selected before you pick.  A good scouting director should NEVER create a plan that could fall apart if 1-2 guys are picked before its your turn.
• Speaking of draft strategy, no Cleveland writer that I am aware of wrote about the draft in terms of our competitive window.  Our key players will reach free agency in the following years:
• Jose Ramirez - after 2028
• Andres Gimenez - after 2029 (club option for 2030)
• Steven Kwan - FA after 2027
• Tanner Bibee - FA after 2028
• Gavin Williams - FA after 2029
• Sam Hentges - FA after 2028
• Josh Naylor - FA after 2025
• Emmanuel Clase - FA after 2028 if team options exercised
• Trevor Stephan - FA after 2028
• Triston McKenzie - FA after 2026
• Everyone else - FA after 2030 or beyond

It is pretty obvious from this listing that our competitive window could conceivably end after 2028.  So, drafting players who will reach the majors by 2026 (college players) should have been a higher priority than drafting players who will reach the majors in 2028 or beyond (HS players).  So, everything else being even close to equal, drafting college players should have been our priority to maximize the likelihood of success during the window.   Now I know one could argue that you could just trade prospects away for ML pieces or prospects closer to the majors but a prospect's value doesn't really get high until they are close to the majors...and that is especially true for HS pitchers.

PLAYER- BY-PLAYER SUMMARY

OK, long-winded background but really important to the discussion below.

1-1 Travis Bazzana - Look, this pick, like any pick in any draft, could blow up in your face for any number of reasons.  Still, this pick looks absolutely, positively, like the most appropriate pick for this organization that, literally, I have seen in following their draft for 40+ years.  Saying it was a no-brainer doesn't do it justice.  Could it fail?  Yes.  Could some of the guys we passed on become better major leaguers than Bazzana?  Absolutely.  But, on paper (there's that phrase you'll hear again and again), this was by far the easiest and best pick in this draft at 1-1 the Guardians could have made.  Plus, he should easily get to the majors and impact the team during our competitive window.  I give this pick an A+ 

36. Braylon Doughty - This was a solid pick as he was rated 36th and was drafted 36th.  Still, was it the right pick?  In my opinion, when someone is writing one of those articles in 5 years saying what a draft should have looked like, based on how the players developed, Doughty would still likely be in slot 36.  He has some upside, but not huge upside from where he is now, at least from what I have read. Look at it this way: if Doughty reaches his expected potential, he would likely be 20% better than college pitchers like Luke Holman and Bryce Cunningham (both available at this slot) and it will take him 2-3 more years to get to the majors meaning Doughty will likely not impact our current competitive window.  Plus, it is likely that Holman and Cunningham would have come in a lot cheaper than Doughty and likely been able to impact the ML team in some positive level during our competitive window. So I give this pick a B

48 - Jacob Cozart -  In a vacuum, how can you complain about this pick?  He was the 42nd ranked player in the draft and we got him at 48 and we don't have, really, any catching depth in the minors.  He is a good defensive catcher with some power AND he is a college player, meaning he is safer than drafting a HS catcher with the same skill set.  The problem is that this is a mediocre pick where we had the chance to go for a higher upside pick, especially a college pitcher.  Yes, he is overwhelmingly likely to be a ML catcher, but not a star, just a .220 hitter with 15 HR a year and good defensive metrics if he succeeds.  You need more than that in slot 48, especially in this draft where quality college starting pitchers, and multiple of them, were still on the board.  In addition, Cozart's profile gives me vibes on 2 guys who have Guardians' ties.  The first, Javi Herrera, was drafted in the 2nd round at the exact same slot (48) in the 2003 draft.  He was a well-regarded college catcher for the Vols whose hitting in college was only mediocre but he showed power potential.  He never made it to the majors and that was due, in large part, to the fact he never developed as a hitter.  The second player that comes to mind is Austin Hedges.  Austin was drafted in the 2nd round (82nd pick) of the 2011 draft. Hedges was a HS catcher with good power potential and good catching skills.  Cozart could be a cheap piece makng the majors in the near future but, unless his hitting improves dramatically and he maintains his college power AND defensive prowess, he is unlikely to impact the ML team in its current competitive window.  A college starting pitcher would have been MUCH better here.  I give this pick a D+.

84. Joey Oakie - If they can sign him for a reasonable bonus, this is a classically good selection at this point in the draft, given his skill set and the fact that the Guardians should be flush with excess bonus pool money.   Use of bonus money for Oakie is very appropriate since, as I said above, the 1st and 2nd round quality players in a draft who slide to lower rounds are almost always HS pitchers.   The only downside to this pick is that Oakie is not likely to even get to the majors until 2028.  I give this pick an A if his bonus doesn't preclude us from signing Sullivan or Mobley later.

113. - Rafe Schlesinger - He was drafted 113 and was the 147 ranked prospect.  While that's not terrible, he has a lot of reliever risk associated with him.  A look at the players drafted very soon after him is:

• Dakota Jordan (#34) -College OFer - High ceiling/low floor athlete - very expensive as a sophomore
• Greg Ziel (#89) - RHP Miami 
• Tyson Neighbors (#85 - RHRP - Kansas State

Any one of these guys would have offered a much better prospect to Schlesinger.  There is an axiom in the draft that teams like who they like.  Schlesinger may turn out to be a better player but these other three guys, at least, were better prospects at draft time.  All three of the alternatives would make the majors during our competitive window, just like Schlesinger - I give this pick a C-

146 - Aiden Major - Major was listed as the 245th best prospect.  It is entirely possible that he was drafted here to save money to give to Oakie.  If that is the case and they can sign Major for 7th round money ($300,000) then maybe this would be a steal.  However, if he signs at slot this seems like a bad value for this draft slot.  Tristan Smith and Connor Foley, both draft eligible sophomores, would have been $1 million signings here if we wanted a better quality college pitcher at this slot.  I give this pick a C unless they can sign him for $300,000 or less, then it goes up to a B-.

175 - Caden Favors - Favors is a college senior and a cheap signing.  If his signing is for senior level money (<$50,000) to save money for an overslot signing,  it makes sense.  I give this pick a B- if they can save $300,000 on this pick, a C if he signs for $175,000 and a D if he signs for $250,000.

205 - Cameron Sullivan - Sullivan is a HS pitcher and the 118th ranked prospect in the draft.  This is a great value at this spot as long as the bonus is $1 millionor less. No matter what the bonus is, Sullivan will not be ready for the majors in our competitive window, lowering the grade I can give this pick.  As a HS pitcher he does not fit into our window of competition.  I give this pick a B+ if his bonus is $1 million or less and a B- if the bonus is $1.5 million or more.

235 - Donovan Zsak - He was not rated in MLB Pipeline's top 250 prospects.  As a draft-eligible sophomore, you would guess that Zsak would command a higher than slot ($223,000) bonus.  However, he isn't highly rated enough to command over $300,000 and any amount over that lowers his value.  The worst scenario here is if he fails to sign at all which means that looking at losing $233,000+ from our bonus + overage pool, making it harder to make other overslot signings like Oakie, Sullivan and Mobley.  As a sophomore college pitcher, he fits into our window of competition.  I give this pick a B- if they can sign him for $175,000 and a C- if they have to pay him $300,000 or more.  

265 - Sean Matson - He was not rated in the top 250.  I don't like the Harvard pipeline idea as it hasn't really worked for the Guardians in the post (most recent example, Jay Driver). As a college junior pitcher he fits into our competition window.  However, he would have to sign for $150,000 or less to be a bargain and help us with other over slot bonuses.  I give this pick a C+ if he signs for less than $150,000 or a D+ if he signs for slot or over slot as his talent doesn't really support that.

295 - Chase Mobley - Mobley, a HS pitcher and the #80 prospect in the draft, was, by far, the biggest bargain of our draft if he signs.  If he does not sign, his hit on our draft budg + overage is only $192,000.  In theory that loss would not hurt our signing of Oakie and Sullivan.  However, it might make it so we either can't use all of our bonus pool effectively as we didn't draft any late flyers worthy of large bonuses.  If we do sign Mobley, it almost certainly eliminates any over slot bonuses in rounds 11-20.  As a HS pitcher, he would not impact the ML team in our competitive window.  I give this grade an A if we sign Mobley and it doesn't stop us from signing any of our other picks in the top 10 rounds.  If we don't sign him I give this pick a D- as it would then qualify as a ridiculous gamble that wasn't well researched.

Picks in rounds 11-20 - I will do a piece later on relative to our success vs other teams in the majors in terms of picking quality players in these rounds.   Historically, we have been good picking non-ranked players in these rounds and still coming up with value.  I give these picks, combined, a B just on the basis of how good we have been in the past.  I reserve the right to change that grade after my research on the subject.

OVERALL GRADE FOR THIS DRAFT

 If we sign all the players in this draft I give it an overall grade of B+.  This grade will be based on the quality gained from taking Bazzana (A+) but, also, the risk of taking so many HS RHP, no matter how highly they are rated and the lack of drafting high quality college arms.  If we fail to sign ANY of our "underdraft" (i.e,, ranked better than their draft slot) HS pitchers, the overall grade goes down to a B as we will have wasted a chance to get a quality prospect AND probably drafted lesser quality prospects to make money for a signing that didn't happen.  If we fail to sign 2 or more of underdraft HS pitchers, the overall grade for this draft goes down to a C+ (despite drafting Bazzana) because we will likely be left holding a lot of bonus money and have gotten much less talent than we should have with some of our other picks in order to save money to pay for over slot bonuses that, at that point, would not have happened AND we have nowhere to spend that money as our late picks won't require a large bonus.  The only think we COULD possibly do is go back to guys who weren't drafted at all (NDFA) and try to entice them with our large amount of bonus money we have left over.  Although I don't know that it has ever been done that way, I think draft rules would allow for that.

I would love to give this draft an A but so few of these draft picks will have as large an impact on our competitive window as it could have been had we used a different strategy where we drafted exclusively, in the first 10 rounds, quality college players without signing any college seniors or bargain college guys through round 10.

It will take a lot to go right for this draft to turn out as good as it looks on paper.  It would take only a small amount to go wrong for it to be an inefficient draft and only a little more to go wrong for it to be a bad use of the largest bonus pool in draft history.

My perception is that our draft people did not really plan to sign this many HS stud pitchers.  I just think they did not have the proper fail safes in place when a couple of the guys they wanted to draft were drafted before them.  

In part 34 I will give you who I would have drafted, much of which is based on my pre-draft mock drafts.  As you will see in that post, it was highly possible that we could have pulled off a good that had a better chance to impact the ML team in our competitive window and STILL came in under budget AND with some intriguing guys.

2024 Draft - Part 32 - Day 3 Results and Initial Thoughts (To Be Updated During The Day)

Day 3 is never that exciting and it is even less exciting if you don't have any, or much, bonus pool money left.  Heading into day 3 I think it is generally recognized by the internet draft and draft bonus pool 'experts' that they have exhausted their bonus pool + overage amount of $19.2 million. 

But there is still talent out there on Day 3 as evidenced by Guardians previous drafts where they got, in rounds 11-20, Jacob Bresnahan (2023), Magnus Ellerts and Shawn Rapp (2022), Hunter Stanley and Trenton Denholm (2021) and Matt Waldren, Kevin Kelly and Nick Mikolajchak (2019), among others.  There is talent there just waiting to be mined!

So, in my mind, day 3 should have been drafting college pitchers and hitters who would sign for $150,000 or less and maybe, as I have been saying for a while, a guy who plans to go to a JUCO this fall who we can sign to a bonus all the way up to next year's draft.

The guys that came to mind from my research were:

Mason Koch, RHRP, Soph, Creighton (in transfer portal)

Micah McDowell, OF, Senior, Oregon State

Owen Boerema, RHSP, Senior, Kansas State

John Bay, RHH OF, Senior, Austin Peay

Pierce Coppola, LHP, Junior, U. of Florida

Matt Willadsen, RHSP, Senior, NC State

Let's see who we ended up with:

Round 11 - Garrett Howe - SS - Samford U.  - A senior sign, more walks than Ks, OPS 1.054, 23 SB.  Definitely his breakout season this year as he established career highs in almost every category. 

NOTE: While we all look at draft budgets, remember the dollars spent in rounds 11-12 are still dollars.  Don't be surprised to see the Guardians draft more college seniors today than normally to save some money on the last day.   It's not money against their draft pool I am talking about.  It's just money.

NOTE: Trey Gregory-Alford (#105), my pick in my first mock draft to fall significantly and for us to take, finally went in the 11th round to the Angels.  Rounds 11 and 12 are where teams tend to pick guys their strategy may not have allowed them to select in rounds 1-10.  

NOTE; In round 11, there were 2 players ranked in MLB Pipeline's top 200 draft prospects, 10 college seniors, 12 college juniors, 6 high school players and 2 JUCO players.

Round 12 - Sean Hepner - RHP - U. British Columbia - Another senior sign, with control issues, he may fit the mold of some of the other max effort college pitchers they have selected earlier in the dratt.

NOTE: 4 MLB Pipeline top 250 players were selected in this round.

NOTE: 17 college juniors, 6 college seniors, 1 JUCO player and 6 High School Players were selected in this round.

Round 13 - Bennett Thompson - C - Oregon - A college junior, he also played 1B and RF. He appears to be an organizational catcher (like Johny Tincher last year) looking at his stats.  College catchers are sought after in this organization to help our young pitchers develop.  

NOTE: One MLB Pipeline top 250 player was selected in this round.  As we get to round 13 and beyond, generally less MLB Pipeline top 250 prospects get drafted.  Generally, but not always, when a team takes a flyer on a HS player who has dropped do we see those players selected.  This is also when you see teams start taking college position players to act as organizational players to fill out their minor league rosters.  I was wondering how this would go with the new 165 player roster limits.  I anticipated a lot of college catchers and college pitchers going in the teens to fill out rosters with less college infielders and OFers beccause those skill sets can and are provided a lot by international signees.  

NOTE: Round 13 had the first college sophomore selected on Day 3. I was hoping the Guardians would go to this well on Day 3.

NOTE; 21 pitchers and 9 position players were selected in this round.

Round 14 - Ryan Cesarini - OF - St. Joseph's University - Another college junior, Cesarini is a bat control guy with some speed.  Frankly, I don't know what it is that Micah McDowell hasn't been selected. He seems, statistically, to be far superior to a number of college OFers selected on Day 3 and he hit close to .400 for Oregon State this year.  Maybe he has said he doesn't intend to play pro baseball?

NOTE: Tanner Witt, of the baseball family Witt, who I wanted to pick in the 10th round in 2023 after he didn't pitch last year, was finally drafted in the 14th round by the Mets.  I still like him and wish the Guardians had taken a flyer on him..

Round 15 - Connor Whitaker RHP - Florida State U. - A college junior, his stats look mediocre except for the fact that he appears to have excellent control.

NOTE As we head to the break, the Guardians appear to just be drafting organizational players.  We have only had 2 college pitchers selected with the other 3 being position players.   It appears that this year they are more about organizational filler players than in previous year.

Round 16 - Jacob Remily - RHP - HS - Hawaii - Just like in previous years, the Guardians are selecting a HS pitcher.  Don't know if this is a backup plan or if he really wants to just turn pro and the Guardians are offering him slot or $50,000 above slot.  Interesting that we are 6 picks in and only have 2 pitchers on Day 3.  Maybe they have enough organizational pitchers in their system backlogged after the last 3 drafts.  Looking at the LC and Lynchburg rosters, that may be the case.  Still interested to see if they go for any draft-and-follows (who don't count against their organizational max number of minor leaguers). who they have until next draft to sign.

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NOTE: As I am thinking about guys who have been selected on Day 3 in previous drafts and had successful ML careers, Albert Pujols came to mind. Just then, the Cardinals drafted another junior college third baseman, Deniel Ortiz.

Round 17 - Logan McGuire - RHP - Georgia Tech - Another college junior, he had an 8.91 ERA this season.  Hmmmm.

NOTES:  Under the heading of "I didn't know this could happen", The Royals selected a 19 year old, Dane Burns, a 19 year old without any college affiliation.  The only pitching that Baseball Reference notes for him is pitching 5 games of summer ball this year in the New England Collegiate League.   I guess if you never went to college after HS you can be selected at any time.

NOTES: The Marlins selected Micah McDowell from Oregon State. He was one of my favorites.  He played with Bazzana, hit .382 with an OPS of 1.182 and he wasn't worth the Guardians selecteing him?  I don't get it. But obviously other teams felt the same way as the Guardians did!

Round 18 - Izaak Martinez - LHP - UC San Diego -  A senior, he had a 1.85 ERA this season.

Round 19 - Cam Schuelke - RHP - Mississippi St. - A senior, he had a 4.32 ERA this season.  More importantly, he has pitched well in the Cape Cod League the last 3 summers, including this year.

Round 20 - Cam Walty - RHP - Arizona - A senior, I wonder if Francona had anything to do with this selection as that is where he lives and I am sure he goes to a lot of Arizona baseball games.  Walty was a SP there and was a command and control guy, walking just 13 and striking out 75 in 90 IP with a 3.29 ERA.

FINAL DAY 3 THOUGHTS - After Day 1 and Day 2, I expected Day 3 to be very boring as they likely weren't going to take any flyer or even interesting picks, but it came in under my very low expectations. I expected at least 1 if not more Draft-and-follows and I got none.  I expected maybe one sophomore but they did not select one.  They did draft some pitching which is always good, although I am a little worried as college juniors are not close to guaranteed to sign if they are drafted late.  That's why it is good that our last 3 college pitchers were seniors.  Also disappointed we didn't draft McDowell from Oregon State which would have been such a slam dunk after drafting Bazzana.  I mean, the guy hit .382 with an over 1.000 OPS playing good college competition. I am also disappointed that we didn't land Mason Koch, Owen Boerema, John Bay, Pierce Coppola or Matt Willadsen but, since no one else drafted them, it just reinforces that I have no idea what to look for in a pro prospect.  Obviously it is the Guardians who are scouting these kids and I am sure their due diligence told them that each of them had one or more tools that they could build from or refine to possibly make them ML players.  I hope that is true and I wish all of these guys the best of luck in their professional careers and that I can, one day, see them playing for the Guardians.  That's it for now.  Have a good day and a restful sleep tonight.

2024 Draft -Part 31 - The Sun Has Come Up On The Third Day Of The Draft

 OK, after a night to think about it here are my thoughts: 

• The Guardians' stated goal entering the draft was to collect as much talent as possible.  I think, in their own way, have done that.  Here's how
• They were able to draft 4 outstanding HS pitching prospects in the first 10 rounds. 
• They have the most bonus pool in MLB draft history meaning that they also have the largest 4.99% overage of any team in history.  
• One of the raps against drafting HS pitchers is that they want large bonuses to keep them from going to college.  NIL money has just increased that perception.

If the Guardians have found a way to identify the RIGHT HS pitchers and know their bonus demands well enough, they should know that they have enough money, thanks to the huge bonus + overage pool they have, to sign these guys.  If the Guardians drafted these guys I have to assume they can sign them all.  I have to believe them because, as I said in Part 30, if they can't, this draft could fall apart like a house of cards and create one of the worst disasters in Cleveland draft history.

So, assuming they have drafted signable guys, they have, in sort of an unorthodox manner, accomplished, so far, their stated goals. They have more and, higher ranked top 50 and top 100 prospects in the first 10 rounds than in any previous Guardians draft, dating all the way back to 2017.  

They have accomplished, in their own way, their stated goal, IF they can sign these draft choices.  And we still have one day and 10 picks to go.

So, while I curb my enthusiasm for Day 3 with the knowledge we have used a lot of our bonus pool + overage budget already and there may not be any top prospects (or even HS flyer picks) picked on Tuesday by the Guardians, who they do pick, if they do it judiciously with college pitchers and position players who are talented and will sign for reasonable bonuses, they could have created the best group of prospects they have ever collected in one draft.  Then it will be a race to see if they can develop them.

Now, I am not saying I would have gone this direction and Cleveland tried this in 2001 with disastrous results but they were novel in their approach and used their unusually large resources in the best way they could have been used.  Let's hope it works because Cleveland needs this to work.

2024 Draft - Part 30 - Initial Thoughts About Day 2 of the 2024 Draft

1,  Regarding the HS school pitchers from today:

• If they can sign them all, great.  But it is a big risk.  They took this gamble last year with Mooney and I think they got screwed when it took a larger than expected bonus to sign him, meaning they didn't have the bonus pool excess to sign HS pitcher Heuer and Marohn.  
• Also, doesn't that mean we can't exactly gamble on day 3 as we likely won't have extra money and we likely would end up like we did in 2023 if we do.
• Has anyone considered that they don't have a very good record developing HS pitchers.
• How about the years that current Guardians players are signed through:
• Ramirez - 2028
• Clase - 2028
• Gimenez - 2029
• Bibee - 2028 (FA)
• Williams - 2029 (FA)
• Kwan - 2027 (FA)
• Josh Naylor - 2025 (FA)

****Likely time to the majors for these HS pitchers - Best case, 2028, likely case: 2029, 

We didn't exactly bring in talent in this draft, except for Bazzana, who will help in the competitive window of our biggest stars.

2. Regarding The Rest of the Day 2 picks

College pitchers: good thing

High effort college pitchers: Not a good thing

I heard a lot of utility infielder and 4th outfielder comps for some 4th and 5th round picks.  This tells me that I am not sorry that we drafted all pitchers on Day 2.

3. Day 3 excitement 

Not sure I have any.  I think all the fireworks were done on Day 1 and Day 2.   But the guys I would like to get on Day 3 are:

• Mason Koch - Creighton, RHRP -in transfer portal
• Micah McDowell - OF - OSU; senior sign.  Hit .400 hitting 2nd behind Bazzana this year
• Owen Boerema - RHP - Kansas State - senior sign - workhorse, pitched almost 100 innings this year.
• John Bay, OF - Austin Peay - Big HR threat but not showing much plate discipline to go with his HRs this summer at the Cape.
• Pierce Coppola - LHP - Florida - Had one great start in the College World Series but only worked 9 ip before that this year.
• Matt Willadsen - NC State RHP - Injured all year so may or may not want to sign.  Worth a pick if there is a chance, though.

These were all guys in my mock draft as late day 2 or day 3 guys.  I think we won't be drafting any HS pitchers if we are sure we are going to sign all the HS pitchers we have drafted already.  It wouldn't hurt to take a couple of flyers or college sophs in case something falls through.  Not sure about Koch now as he is a draft-eligible sophomore and I am not sure we have the money to sign him.  but if we could get some or all of these guys tomorrow I think it would be a very good day.  It will keep me checking the internet so I guess that qualifies as excitement.

 

Maybe we end the draft with our first JUCO D&F under the new rules.  Who knows.

2024 Draft - Part 29 - The Draft Bonus Pool Rules And What Happened To The Guardians On Day 2

 The draft bonus rules are a little complicated but, in a nutshell, here they are:

• MLB assigns every draft pick in the first 10 rounds a dollar value. 
• To calculate a team's total bonus pool just add up the dollar values for all the slots they draft at in the first 10 rounds.   
• Aggressive teams can spend up to 4.999% above their bonus pool and only be penalized 75% of that excess.  If they spend 105% of their bonus pool or more, they lose one or more draft picks.
• Any player drafted (or acquired as a non-drafted free agent after the draft) is allowed to be paid a bonus of $150,000.  Any part of the bonus above that figure counts against a team's draft budget.
• To figure out how much of a team's bonus pool they have used, just add up all the bonus amounts they have paid to players they drafted through round 10 and add in the amounts above $150,000 they paid to any player acquired after round 10.
• One very important nuance to this system is, if a team fails to sign a player from the first 10 rounds they lose the slot amount from that draft slot from their bonus pool.  As their 104.999 percent bonus pool is calculated based on the bonuses a team pays out, if they lose a bonus amount from a slot they also lose the ability to have that overage amount.  Thus, if a team fails to sign a pick from a slot that is worth $500,000, they lose $500,000 from their bonus pool plus the ability to add to their bonus pool with an overage of $249,000 for that 4.999% overage.

Why is all this important to the 2024 Cleveland Guardians draft?  Well, the Guardians did something VERY unusual in this draft.  Normally teams will have a player they REALLY want to sign in their first 10 rounds of picks or even in rounds 11-20.  To get that money they will draft, in the other spots of first 10 rounds, players who will sign for below the slot that they are drafted in.  These include: college seniors and players who didn't expect to be drafted as high as they were.  But there are only usually 10-11 players drafted in the first 10 rounds by a team.  It sometimes takes them saving money on a lot of their first 10 picks to pay that one player who will require a higher bonus to keep them from going to (back to) college.  

Last year the Guardans messed up and had to pay a much higher over slot bonus to ONE player, that made them not be able to sign two other players later in the draft.

And this year they may have screwed up worse than last year.

This year, however, they may have gone overboard.  With one day to go in the draft the 

1. Bazzana - $1.3 million

36. Doughty - 0

48. Cozart - $200,000

84. Oakie - $1.1 million

113 - Sleshinger - $143,000

146 - Major - $75,000

175 - Favors - $257,000

205 - Sullivan - $720,000

235 - Zsak - 0

265 - Matson - 0

295 - Mobley - $817,000

By this calculation, the Guardians have overshot their bonus pool by $662,000.  This is using conservative estimates that Sullivan and Mobley will sign for $1 million each and all the other guys in the draft will accept the under slot or at slot bonuses for the spot they were drafted that I have listed above.

While that is possible as our 5% overage amount is actually $914,000 ABOVE what our bonus pool of $18,334,000, giving us a maximum pool, without losing a draft pick next year, of $19,248,000, it is cutting it really, really close.  

If any of the prospects listed above wants a bonus above what the Guardians thought they would settle for, their draft can fall apart like a house of cards.  That did happen to them last year when they had to pay Alex Mooney $1 million meaning that they suddenly did not have enough money to sign two highly touted HS pitchers, Ryan Marohn and Mac Heuer,   And last year, they had to sign Mooney or they would have lost his bonus slot, causing them to have to not sign ANOTHER draftee.  So they chose to sign Mooney and let Marohn and Heuer walk.  Not ideal and, this year, it looks like they are going back to the same house of cards approach, except worse because if they can't sign Mobley, Sullivan, Oakie and Doughty for bonuses as small as I used to do the calculations above, those players will walk and we will lose their slot values.

Plus, cutting it this tight means they are unlikely to draft any players tomorrow who will require bonuses larger than $150,000, meaning the talent from this draft will likely be lower, overall, than if they had the money to spread around to the entire draft.

Up to last year the Guardians were masterful at using exactly 104.999% of their draft budget.  Let's hope they get back to that this year.  The numbers above make me worry A LOT though, especially after last year's disaster.

2024 Draft - Part 28 - It's Tuesday - Thoughts About Day 1 Picks And What's Ahead on Day 2

 OK, I have had a night's sleep and here is what I think going into day 2.

Day 1 Recap -

• We got Bazzana.  For a large market club who can buy players they need, we might be able to call it a day and look toward adding expensive talent at the deadline.  But we talking about the Cleveland Guardians.  They need to have GREAT drafts every year as, in the real world, that is the major way small market teams flourish (along with astute international signings).  So while Bazzana was a great add, that is when the real work, the 'don't work hard, work smart' should have begun.  But it didn't.
• With Bazzana's likely underslot deal (probably by $1.2-1.5 million) and our $900,000 overage allowance (up to 4.999% over our budget) we should have had $2.1-2.4 million ABOVE slot value bonuses we could play with.  So what did we do?
• We drafted a 36th ranked HS P at slot 36 (Braylon Doughty).  A solid, long-term play pick that does not, and SHOULD NOT, scream over slot bonus, although Alex Clemmey, 58th pick & 50th ranked prospect, did cost us $900,000 over slot last year.  Frankly, he has pitched like the 50th ranked prospect who should have been paid $1.5 million instead of $2.3 million.  But we had the money to spend, so.... But more on that later
• At pick 48 we drafted the 42nd ranked prospect. Jacob Cozart.  He is a defense-first catcher with power potential and a good batting eye.  On the surface it appears that this is a good pickup in an organization almost devoid of catching prospects.  But looking a little deeper this was, to me, a bad pick.  He will be a ML catcher.  But his hitting upside is likely .220/.310/.400, not bad for a good defensive catcher.  However, this still makes him a #9 hitter in a good ML lineup.  In addition, his downside is Austin Hedges, a totally unplayable offensive player with great defensive skills.  A ML backup on a good team.  So, while that is great to have, what is NOT great is that it cost us the 48th pick in the draft.  BTW, Hedges was a 2nd round pick, to.  But guys like Hedges and Cozart should be mid Day 2 picks, at best, not Day 1 picks.  Ever.
• By drafting Doughty and Cozart we left day 1 without a college pitcher of the type that we don't tend to leave day 1 without.  In addition, we left Day 1 likely without spending a penny of our bonus excess because whatever we spend in excess with Doughty we will likely get back from Cozart.  We'll talk below about why picking a  slot appropriate HS pitcher and a defense-first, LHH college catcher was probably not the best play early in the draft for a team this flush with money.

Day 2 - What Do We Do?

• Before we get into this, let me give you my draft philosophy for this draft which has evolved from what I thought before we started making picks.  Jose, Kwan, Gimenez, Bibee, Gaddis, Smith, Clase, Willaims and Josh Naylor, if we re-sign him like we should, give us a competitive window up through 2027 or 2028.  So, if we want to inject talent into that competitive window, as I think we should, we should focus on impact college players.  Bazzana is a good fit in that regard but HS pitchers and hitters are not, as they likely will only be impactful in 2029, or later, if at all.  bit players, like Cozart, are also not helpful as, in a WS caliber lineup, he has no spot.  College pitchers picked this year are very likely to be able to be impactful within at that window.  Just look at Bibee, Williams, Gaddis, Curry and Smith.  So, if the Guardians are trying to impact that competitive window they should have been drafting impactful college hitters and impactful college pitchers.  So far, they just have Bazzana in their first 3 picks who fit that profile and that is NOT a good thing, IMO. For example: And 
• I would love to have a quality overslot HS pitcher to burn some of this bonus excess as most teams won't have the excess we have.   But we have Doughty and I am not inclined to have TWO HS pitchers in the first 2 days of this draft.  They, especially HS RH pitchers, are so risky that is way too much inherent risk to throw into the first two days for me.  So, to me, we should be done with HS pitchers until Day 3.  So, Joey Oakie, the next best HS player, is probably not reasonable to me.
• I would have loved to have an offense-first RHH good defense college catcher who was athletic enough to play another position.  But I can't see us drafting ANOTHER college catcher on Day 2, giving us 2 in the first 2 days of the draft.  No one needs two college catchers taken high in the same draft.  So as much as I would have loved to have Kevin Bazzell INSTEAD of Jacob Cozart, I don't think it is smart to have Kevin Bazzell AND Jacob Cozart.  You have 13 pitchers on your ML roster and 2 catchers.  I think that math speaks for itself.

So, with the above in mind of what we SHOULDN'T do, let's talk about what we CAN and probably SHOULD do both to stock our system with good prospects and, judiciously, spend that bonus excess that we have.

Pick 84

I see us with three choices:

• Draft overslot college soph OFer Dakota Jordan with all his swing-and-miss
• Draft likely slotted college OFer Mike Sirota
• Draft a quality college pitcher of the type we SHOULD have drafted at 36 and 48.

Unfortunately, the play we SHOULD make is Jordan.  We have the money.  We have booked 3 solid (albeit the last two being very boring) prospects.  Jordan would be our first brass ring pick.  I don't think this draft has any true brass ring picks and I think spending money on Jordan could easily be a waste of money.  But, still, if we spend $1.3 million on Jordan ($400,000 over slot) I would be OK with that.  That still will give us money to spend on Alex Mooney-type overslot college sophs, high school P flyers and injured college pitchers later in the draft and buy ourselves a deep, solid draft in a year where the draft ONLY provides deep and solid for teams flush with bonus excess.

What my head tells me to do is to draft the best COLLEGE junior pitcher available.  And that would be Ryan Prager or Drew Beam.  We have 9 picks to wait to see if either of them is available but, if they are, we pop one of them.  If not, we have to bite our lip and take the best available college pitcher left.  That would either be soft-tossing Josh Hartle or guys who need work like Tristan Smith or Daniel Eagen

Pick 113

Again, the same applies here.  I would go for the best college pitcher available because it sets up the next two rounds.

Pick 146

Here I would go out and find the best available college sophomore, even if we get Jordan.  This guy would probably want to go over slot but I would be OK with that if it wasn't crazy.  Nothing over $1 million

Picks 175, 205, 235, 265 and 295

I go just as I did in my mock drafts with the guys I picked there.  Four college pitchers and one RHH college outfielder, unless we get Jordan than it would be all college pitchers.

Once again, we need players who will impact the current competitive window.  That is all college players and that is what I think we should pick on Day 2.

NOTE

As an aside, I think this could be turning into a historic draft.   I was surprised when I say that after the undraftable William Schmidt, Dakota Jordan (34) was the best available prospect after only 74 picks.  Then was #46 HS P Joey Oakie.  While there are 27 top 100 prospects left starting day 2, most of them look like solid, signable picks.  That is interesting, and maybe historic, because of the last 6 drafts (not counting 2020).

In these drafts here is the highest ranked player NOT drafted, the number of top 100 prospects who were not drafted and the number who were drafted late in the draft (after slot 300) who were, predictably, not signed.

2017 - #111 highest ranked player not drafted, 0 top 100 ranked prospects were not drafted and 9 were drafted late and didn't sign

2018 - #115, 0, 12

2019 - #86, 2, 8

2021 - #29, 13, 5

2022 - #46, 8, 3

2023 - #44. 8, 3

2024 (so far) - #16, 27, ---

If the trend continues as yesterday, looking at the players left in the top 100, we might not even make 5 players in the top 100 who are not drafted and maybe 6 who aren't signed. Or less in both categories.  To have so many top 100 prospects sign would be unprecedented in recent history, especially as we enter the NIL era.  It will be interesting to follow through the rest of the draft and how the Guardians might leverage that, if they can.

2024 Draft - Part 27 - Recap Of Day 1 and Thoughts As We Approach Day 2

To begin with, any day in the 2024 draft than starts with drafting Travis Bazzana can't be a bad day.  But for this day and for the rest of my analysis of this draft I will look at 2 things

• Did the Guardians get good value at their pick by either drafting a player who was rated as good or better than the slot they were selected
• Did the Guardians' pick support a continuation of their competitiveness during the next 4 years, which is the bulk of the competitive window with the current major leaguers.
• Was it a good pick, cost-wise
• Did the pick they made make sense with the current organizational needs (least important) 

I also want to look at draft trends by the other teams so I will focus on the picks between each of our picks and whether teams drafted guys who were as good or better prospects than their draft slot, worse prospects than their slot or MUCH worse prospects than their slot.

So let's dig in to day 1:

Guardians 1-1 

Travis Bazzana College 2B - (slot 1-1, rank 1-1), the fans' pick, is now a Cleveland Guardian.   He was the best fit possible in terms of getting the best prospect available at the time. He both fits into our current competitive window and appears to be a good financial play.  This pick addressed the organizational need for hitting but it is unclear if it addressed an organizational need for a player at the position he was drafted.

My mock draft pick: Bazzana 

Guys Between 1-1 and 1-35

What I always look for in the draft between Guardians' picks is what teams are making surprise picks.  Every time a lower-rated player is picked the Guardians have a stronger pool of remaining players that they might be able to pick from.

• 18 if the next 34 picks were guys who were rated (by MLB Pipeline) lower than where they were drafted. 

• Of those 18, 5 were rated 20 spots or more worse than where they were drafted.

Guardians 1-36

Braylon Doughty RH HS P (Slot 36, Rank 36) - He is a solid HS pitching prospect.  He should require a bonus not much different from slot.  Of course, that's what we thought about Clemmey last year (pick #58, rank #50) so I can't be sure where he will land in terms of above or below slot.  This appears to be a good, solid pick for the Guardians even though I HATE HS arms (or bats) this early.   

The way I look at it is this:  Jose Ramirez will be under contract for 4 more years.  At that time Kwan could be a free agent and Gimenez and Bibee could be free agents.  Doughty is likely not getting to the majors until 2028 at the earliest.  So he might not overlap with the current Guardians much, if at all.   Picking Doughty doesn't help in our competitive window as defined by when Bibee, Ramirez, Gimenez and, maybe Kwan are with the team. 

So, what does this pick really help?  It is a long-term play that is filled with risk and becomes fruitfful, if it works at all, only in an uncertain future.

I like the pick, but it doesn't make sense for the Guardians as it does nothing to help the team when it still has the good players we know.  You have to hypothesize that some of our minor leaguers become stars in the majors at the level of Kwan and Ramrez for us to have a base to which Doughty can make a MEANINGFUL impact to.

So, for the current Guardians' window of competitiveness, this pick doesn't make sense, although you can never have too much pitching and Doughty falls in with Bresnahan, Clemmey, Wilkinson, Humpries and Zibin in terms of getting to the majors, everything being equal, within the same period.

My mock draft pick: I selected Luke Holman who, as a college pitcher, likely would fall into our current competitive window.  He was available at this slot.

Picks 37-47

In these 11 picks 5 of them were ranked worse than where they were selected, 2 of them more than 20 spots or more worse than the slot they were selected at.

Guardians pick 1-48

Jacob Cozart - College catcher - (Slot 48, Rank 42) -This pick gives me Javi Herrera (2003 2nd round pick by the Guardians, also a college catcher) vibes.  A college catcher who was a decently ranked prospect, Herrera was a blah pick to me as a glove first catcher.  The fact that he never made the majors made his blah selection all the more infuriating.  Cozart reminds me of that pick.  On the surface he checks the value box as he was ranked higher than where he was drafted.  He also checks the financial checkbox as he won't cost over slot.  He also checks the organizational need as I don't think Cooper Ingle will end up as a full-time ML catcher and there are no other catchers, AT ALL, in the Guardians' minor leagues who are prospects. He sort of checks the compettive window box as he should be here in 3 seasons and overlap with Bo Naylor for at least a year.  

Still, to me, this pick was really a blah pick as he doesn't hit that well, showed some power in college this year (didn't everyone!?! and had more walks than strikeouts.  In short, he is a Guardians guy.

My mock draft pick: Bryce Cunningham - RHP College - He was available at this slot.

SUMMARY -

Look, we got Bazzana, did not overdraft any players and, likely, ended the day with 3 guys who will sign for underslot or, in the case of Doughty and Cozart, at worse slot or a little above.  We also filled organizational needs (you can never have too much pitching and we have little to no catching in the system).  What the Guardians DID NOT do is leverage their developmental strength, which is finishing off polished college pitchers.   They had the opportunity to bring in any two of a number of college pitchers were selected during the CB-A or 2nd round spots after they drafted at 26 and 48 and didn't do it, instead selecting HS pitching (vert risky) and college catching (more defense than a hitter (hit tool 45) and not good enough to be considered a really good value).  

I just think the Guardians left a lot on the table here, not selecting to their strengths and not getting great value to leverage the bonus excess they will likely have.

They have also put themselves in a situation where they will likely have to:

• Take college pitching
• Drew Beam (#64)
• Ryan Prager (#61)
• Josh Hartle (#70)
• double down on their second and 3rd picks to get real value
• Joey Oakie (RH HS P, rank 46)
• Dax Whitney (RH HS P, rank 60)
• Kevin Bazzell (College C rank 55)
• Or take on significant risk
• Dakota Jordan (College draft-eligible soph, rank 30)
• Mike Sirota (college JR RHH OFer, rank 50)
• HS OFers

 if we are getting good value for our next pick.

The college pitcher options are somewhat intriguing but remember there are 9 selections before we selected next.  It is quite possible that all of these three could be gone.  Sirota becomes maybe the best option if the college pitchers above are gone or we can get another college catcher (not ideal), lower ranked HS pitchers or a handful of HS and college position players who are ranked higher than #84, our draft slot.

There is still some hope of getting good value at the next pick and picks beyond that but everything would have to fall right for us not to end up with another college catcher or another (inherently) risky HS pitcher or position player. 

Had we taken the two college pitchers I suggested , than focusing on a college bat or another HS pitcher might have been more palatable as we would have locked in a couple of solid guys at 36 and 48.  

Solid first day but let's hope we didn't paint ourselves into a corner where we have to double down on positions or take on unnecessary risk or cost just because solid prospecets are gone.