Gavin WIlliams

Unfortunately McGreevy was off the board when it came the Indians turn.   They still picked a college pitcher in Gavin Williams who will turn 22 in a couple of weeks.    He actually went undrafted last year in the 5 round draft likely due to a finger injury he sustained even though he was rated at the #90 draft prospect by MLB in 2020.

He can get it up to triple digits and has a 3-4 pitch mix, making him a little more appealing than Ryan Cusick who went next to the Braves.

He dropped his walk rate from 11% to 6% this year.

He is a college senior who has less leverage than college juniors.   His slot bonus is $2.93 million so they might be able to get him at a discount and use the residual for a later pick.

There must be something going on with Ty Madden from Texas as he was a college pitcher and the #9 prospect in the draft but Madden, at this point, is still on the board. 

Summary: Would have rather had McGreevy but the Cardinals saw what I saw and grabbed this high floor guy first.   Williams floor is lower than McGreevy's but he is older and might make it to the majors in pretty short order if everything falls into place.   I guess Williams floor is a late inning reliever but his stuff says that he could easily be a #4 starter with a chance to be a #2 down the road.  

A college pitcher is what this slot in the draft for the Indians was screaming for and that's what they got.   Let's hope their stellar pitcher development machine cranks out Williams as a top ML pitcher.

FYI, 9 college pitchers off the board in the first round so about what the experts expected.   So far, not a lot of high ranked college pitchers besides Madden still left on the board so no gems there right now.

Next up pick 59.  The top college players still on the board are two outfielders (Jud Fabian, Ethan Wilson) and a pitcher (Jaden Hill).   Any of those three would be good if they were there at that pick.   The best remaining college pitchers after that are Tommy Mace (45), Matt Mikulski (51) and Andrew Abbott (51).  Christian Franklin (52) is the next highest ranked college outfielder.   There are two college catchers ranked relatively highly but PLEASE, no college catchers.

On draft night, a quick update on the Indians' minor league prospect rankings

This is just a snapshot in time without a lot of data from complex league team but here are some thoughts, assuming Emmanuel Clase, Trevor Stephan, Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen, JC Mejia, Eli Morgan, Sam Hentges, Ernie Clement, Daniel Johnson, Nick Sandlin, Kyle Nelson, Cam Hill and Justin Garza lose their rookie status.

1. Tyler Freeman 

2. George Valera

3. Daniel Espino

4. Nolan Jones

5. Daniel Espino

6. Angel Martinez

7. Gabriel Arias

8. Oscar Gonzalez

9. Jhonkensy Noel

10. Logan T. Allen

11. Carson Tucker

12. Bo Naylor

13.  Brayan Rocchio

14. Isaiah Greene

15. Jose Tena

16. Bryan Lavistida

17. Ethan Hankins

18. Juan Hillman

19. Will Benson

20. Richie Palacios

21. Owen Miller

22. Juan Mota

23. Yainer Diaz

24. Alexfri Planez

25. Luis Durango, Jr.

26. Carlos Vargas

27. Jose Tena

28. Gabriel Rodriguez

29. Francisco Perez

30.  Nick Mikolajchak

31. Tanner Burns

32. Jose Pestrano

33. Josh Wolf

34. Jerson Ramirez

35. Trenton Brooks

36. Xzavion Curry

37. Lenny Torres

38. Jose Fermin

39. Junior Sanquintin

40. Petey Halpin

41. Adam Scott

42. Aaron Pinto

43. Cody Morris

44. Robert Broom

45. Mason Hickman

46. Dakody Clemmer

47. Milan Tolentino

48. Yordys Valdez

49. Christian Cairo

50. Hunter Gaddis

2021 Draft Thread

OK, just a few hours from the draft and the painfully long time between picks.   I like rounds 10-20 where it becomes one continuous lightning round.

Let's talk about what I think the Indians' strategy should be.  Here are the facts sos far:

• The Indians and other teams have lost a short season minor league affiliate.  Thus guys drafted this year can go to one of 3 teams: AZL complex team, Lynchburg (low A) or Lake County (high A).  2021 has shown us that guys drafted last year (e.g., Logan T. Allen, Tanner Burns) near the top of the draft can excel in their first season at high A but HS players drafted must begin their prep careers on the complex team because if they are pushed (Petey Halpin) they will struggle.  So low A becomes what the short season team used to be and polished players scan start this year at Lynchburg and start next year at Lake County.   The minor leagues at, at this point, set up to serve polished players from the draft who will excel on this accelerated timeline created by the loss of the short season team.
• The strength of this draft is college pitching 
• Right now, looking at the Indians top 30 prospects on MLB.COM there are only 9 pitchers listed with three of them having significant injuries and Scott Moss being chronically injured this year.
• The Indians will have their whole ML roster under control until 2025 except for the catcher position.   Plus, by that time, most of their minor league hitters will have matriculated to the majors
• Some teams will be enamored with HS players.   They won't be able to resist, looking for that franchise player even if he takes a few years to develop.   Those picks will, as they usually do, eat up a lot of the draft slots in the top 3 rounds.

Looking at the Indians top prospects and projecting to when they reach the majors, what the Indians need are guys who will be in the majors full-time around 2024 to keep this franchise humming along.   

1. High school players drafted this year will likely not be in the majors full-time until 2006-7.
2. College pitchers drafted this year will be in the majors by 2004-5
3. College hitters drafted this year will be impact bats in the majors by 2006-7.

So, in line with the strength of this draft and the Indians organizational strengths and timelines, the Indians should start with drafting college pitching.   

Mock drafts having them go for Michael McGreevy, RHP from UC Santa Barbara.   If the draft goes as expected in these mock drafts, McGreevy is exactly the fast-moving, high floor guy they need to draft first.  His drafting moves to balance the farm system AND helps us before our window closes AND will likely be impacted the least by the loss of the short season team as they can start this year at Lynchburg and have success.

I have seen some mock drafts shaving them go for a HS catcher, Henry Ford, in the first round.   This would be a big mistake.   By the time Ford would get to the majors we might no longer be competitive.   Any guy drafted high who is not in the majors before our competitive window closes is worthless.  Look at Casey Mize of the Tigers.   The Tigers will likely not be competitive before Mize goes to arbitration and maybe not before he hits free agency.   Total waste of a pick as he will not be able to move the needle of their competitiveness, even if he develops into a perennial Cy Young award winner.  Teams like the Tigers and Pirates should be drafting HS players.   Drafting Mize was a mistake by the Tigers not because he  is bad but because all his cheap, controllable years will be wasted on non-competitive Tigers teams.  At this point it would be better for the Tigers to trade Mize and get 3 stud HS/international prospects playing on a complex team.  That would match their rebuild timeline better.

The Indians' farm system is set up to hit the majors about the time that quality college players would get there.   Since our minor league system is position player heavy, you draft quick-moving college pitchers with high floors to catch up with our hitting prospects and create the next golden years for the Tribe, assuming only that guys don't flame out or get injured.   Aside from that, McGreevy and guys like him are what we need.

Keep your fingers crossed that this draft, like the 2016 draft, keeps us competitive for years to come.

Let's talk draft!

When you were an Indians' fan in the 60s, 70s and 80s this was the most exciting time of the year.   

The draft!

Christmas in July...well, June, until recently.  But you get the idea.

Now, with a winning team, it is a little less exciting as you draft lower but it is, nevertheless, exciting.

So let's talk the Indians in the 2021 draft.

• The draft will be college heavy.   So many college guys are drafted after round 5 each year that there were a lot of guys who got left out of the 2020 10-round draft.   Those guys are now back in the draft this year.  EIghteen (18) of the top 150 draft prospects last year were college junior pitchers who were not even drafted.   Another 6 were college junior position players.  That's almost a full round of a draft in just highly ranked college juniors from last year who are draft eligible this year.    When you look at MLB's top 250 draft prospects for 2021 you will see that almost 57% of them are college players (84 of 138 pitchers, 58 of 113 position players).   That is probably an unprecedentedly large number as it usually is the much more heavily favoring HS players.   
• The college crop will be pitching heavy.   Beside the almost 61% of top pitching prospects in 2021 being college pitchers (84/138), of the top-ranked college players who weren't drafted last year, 18 of them (all ranked in the top 150 in 2020) were pitchers.   Add that to all the college pitchers who are normally drafted after round 5 who weren't drafted last year and you have a lot of college pitchers who will be eligible.  When you consider that all of them will still be college juniors this year due to the NCAA waiver from 2020, there will be a lot of guys to choose from.   For comparison guys like James Karinchak, Adam Plutko and Zach Plesac would have likely fallen through the cracks in a 5 round draft.  Add those 18 pitchers and a number of position players from college to the crop of college players who would normally be eligible for the draft in 2021 and you have A LOT of quality college talent. 

Teams that are retooling instead of rebuilding (the Indians) should be looking for the quick fix and that will involve college pitchers.  When the dust settles on this draft I see the Indians drafting 17 college players and only 4 high school players.   As a breakdown I see them drafting 12 pitchers (11 from college, 4 in the first 6 rounds, even though college pitchers make up only 1/3 of the top 250 draft prospects this year), 4 outfielders (3 from college), 1 catcher (college) and 4 infielders (2 college).  That means their draft will include 17 college players and only 4 HS players.  In the top 10 rounds I see 5-6 college pitchers, 3-4 college position players and one high school kid (not sure if he will be a pitcher or position player).  These are wild predictions but you go where the strength of the draft is and in my opinion there will be so many quality, projectable college pitchers left after round 10 that they would be crazy to not just gamble on some arms because they have a lot of position players in the minors right now but need to restock their pitching prospects.  Plus, for the first time in a while, rounds 10-20 will have quality college position players and even a few quality pitchers like Plesac who are left, at least through round 13 as there are a bunch of college position players who didn't get drafted last year.

This could, and SHOULD, be a down year for HS players who want to get drafted.  Given the increased number of college players available (including JUCO players who we haven't even talked about) AND the draft budget limitations, I think teams will forego even drafting high-priced HS talent when they can draft from a college crop that will be much better than the average year.  On a 1-100 scale of upside, why would I want to draft a guy with an 80 upside when I can get a college guy with a 70 upside.  I think you will see a lot of HS players pushed down in the draft by this trend taking them to rounds low enough that they won't get good bonus money and won't sign, likely meaning teams will draft even more college players than they normally would in rounds 6-10 as they can't afford quality HS talent in those rounds AND stay inside their draft budget.   So I think probably 6-15 in the first round you may see mostly HS guys but 1-5 and 16-50 I think you will see a lot of college guys.  After that I think you will see a heavier than average emphasis on college guys, especially college position players, in the rest of round 2 and round 3 for position players and up to round 10 for college pitchers.  Then, once you get past round 10 most of the HS guys won't sign and will go to college and you will be left filling those last 10 rounds with college guys.   

So there are my predictions.  I won't be commenting on which players I think the Indians will draft or do a pre-draft mock draft this year as drafts are too fluid, in my opinion, to make predictions.   I may do my customary post-draft mock draft after the draft this year. just to get down for posterity how I think it should have been done.

Christmas in July!   When you look at how the Indians look right now, it takes me back to draft days in the '70s.

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...

 ...it's going to.     But more on that later.

(1) Frist, let's talk about the Tampa Ray Trash...uh... I mean Rays.  Look, the Indians are helpless.   We all know they are helpless.  So the Rays are beating the crap out of the Indians, 7-1 in the 5th.   And that piece of crap Kevin Cash uses a challenge to try to get his catcher a meaningless (to the outcome of the game) double.   Turns out it really was a foul ball.   Doesn't change the classlessness of the challenge but, at least, karma.  So now he is up 8-1 with two outs in the 7th and Daniel Johnson is called safe.   Was does that piece of crap do?   He challenges that.  Now, Johnson was out but when you are beating a helpless team and the guy in question doesn't have a hit this season, you just let it go, right?

No, Classless Cash, as he will now be known on this site, challenges it again.   So let's talk about the logic of this that, if he was asked, Cash could give.

"Well, Zuninno was struggling and I fight for my players and, you know, the Indians scored 8 on Monday so no lead is safe.

followed by

"Look, my guys had another game to play and I just wanted to get them off the field and rest and Sheriff's been scuffling so I wanted him to have a good inning plus, you know, the Indians scored 8 on Monday so you just never know what can happen."

All-star manager?   You should be the manager of the all-trash team.   Trash...Cash.   Hey!

(2) So now let's talk about Trash, part deux.   The official scorer is just an incredible homer.   So you give Mercado a base hit and then take it away when it looks like the Rays may have a chance to have a no-hitter.   Then, later in the game, the IDENTICAL play happens and you give your hitter a hit.   Talk about a pathetic piece of crap of an official scorer.   You made two decisions on the identical play, both favoring your team.   It is one way or the other.   Either Mercado gets the hit or Hentges gets charged with two less earned runs.   But no.   Official scorer, whatever gender you are, you are a piece of crap and should NEVER be allowed to be an official scorer again.   Look up "integrity" in the dictionary.   It's as close as you will ever come in your life to that word.

Now, back to the Indians.   You think .500 is going to be as bad as it gets?   You are foolish if you do.   Right now, the way the Indians are playing, you can predict the rest of their schedule.  by August 1st they will be 48-55, going 6-13 over the next 19 games and be completely out of it by the trade deadline where Dolan will order Antonnetti to sell of whatever veteran assets they have (Hernandez, Eddie Rosario, Wittgren, Shaw, Hedges, maybe even Roberto Perez) for pennies on the dollar.   The rebuild won't be on because Bieber, Plesac and Civale won't be traded, both because they are still cheap AND because with their injuries they won't be worth what they are truly worth. 

They might make it back to .500 by the end of August if they get their pitchers back and may even make a run at an above .500 record by the end of the year just because Francona is that good.  But this team right now can't beat ANY team that, on paper, they are worse then.   The Royals come to town and the Indians should have a chance against them, but not Monday night when Duffy is pitching.   So, just by looking at the schedule and the teams they are going to be playing for the rest of the year you can, essentially, predict the result of that game right now.  Will they run into a win or two they shouldn't have?  Likely.   Will they lose games they should have won?  Likely.   In the end, they will lucky to be the 82-80 I predicted for them.  And only because Francona is the manager and only if Biever, Plesac and Civale contribute the rest of the season..

Dolan is a cheapass.   You will see it the rest of this year.  You will see it over the winter.   You will continue to see it.  Antonneti will continue to do the best he can which, in my opinion, is only slightly above average  for a general manger and Francona, as long as he can stomach it, will continue to get much more out of the Indians than they have on paper, covering up for Dolan and Antonneti and our pathetic hitting development program.  The only good thing that is going to come out of all of this is that our young players will get chances.

However, Oscar Mercado SUCKS, Daniel Johnson SUCKS, Logan Allen SUCKS, Owen Miller shouldn't suck but he SUCKS.  The rest of the pitching will be OK.   If the hitters hit anywhere near what they have shown so far the pitching should hold up if Bieber, Plesac and Civale come back. 

82-80 is the ceiling here.   You don't want to even think about what the floor is! 

Thank you, Houston

...for letting us stay in the opener of this series for 4 innings.   It was very kind of you and it allowed people to settle into their seats, have some hope, buy some concessions and merchandise and not think about leaving early...until now. 

On to game 2 of the series on Friday.   At least we know the Indians will be providing fireworks...after the game.

Welcome to the start of a wild ride

 OK, put on the seat belts.   This is going to be a rough ride.

Two days ago the Indians moved to 9 games over .500 after losing 2 of 3 to the Twins.   An unfortunate glitch as we needed to bank all the wins we could against Minnesota and Detroit anticipating what came after that.   It started out well, winning on Monday to get to 9 over.   I was anticipating, at worst, that we would enter the Houston series at 9 games over.

But no.

The two losses yesterday left us 7 games over .500 entering a 7 game stretch where we play the two teams who are arguably the best teams in the AL, Houston and Tampa Bay.

There is a legitimate chance that we will head into playing KC next weekend with a .500 record.

Look, no one can expect us to have a playoff team this year.   The FO screwed us by giving only 3 viable ML starting pitchers without spending significantly on upgrading the offense.   Add to that some bad player decisions (Bauers) and some unexpected falling flat on their faces by prospects we needed to perform (McKenzie, Logan Allen, Owen Miller, Mercado, Daniel Johnson) and it was apparent why I would predict them to go 82-80.  

Still, with smoke and mirrors and a dominating bullpen we entered yesterday's doubleheader looking like a Tampa Bay.   That is, a team whose value was greater than the sum value of all its parts.  

The next 7 days will tell.   If we can somehow ESCAPE the next two series going 3-4 maybe we have a chance to still have a chance to avoid being sellers at the deadline.

But the chances look really like we could easily go 1-6 or 0-7 in the next two series.

Hopefully we can come up with some unexpected pitching and hitting performances.   

Hold on.   It's about to get bumpy!