Draft recap, rounds 3-10

OK, let's dive in.

Round 3 - Richard Palacios - college SS - The Indians love of drafting college middle infielders in the middle of the first 10 rounds is really interesting.   Tyler Krieger, Mark Mathias, Ernie Clement, Jesse Berardi...these guys all fit this mold.  I don't get it but my hope is that Palacios will sign for about $300,000 under slot.

Round 4 - Adam Scott, RHP - college senior - The first true sellout of this draft for the Indians.  By this I mean drafting a guy with no leverage and paying him so little that most, if not almost all of his slot bonus can go to another player.   No doubt he will get about $50,000 which is much better than the $1,000 he would have gotten had he been taken after round 10.

Round 5 - Steven Kwan, college CFer (like Ka'i Tom a couple of years ago) - Another player who I am sure they hope they can sign for about $100,000 under slot.  He was ranked 262 by Baseball America which would fit with him signing for that much under his draft slot value.

Round 6 - Raynel Delgado - HS 3B - Also in character for previous drafts, the Indians draft a HS guy who seems to be a steal (draft slot vs national ranking) who you think would be a tough signing.   But then they sign for slot or a tiny bit over.  Think Connor Capel of the 2016 draft and, if you want a position comparison, think Ulysses Cantu from the same draft.

Round 7 - Cody Morris - RH college pitcher - Think Kirk McCarthy, James Karinchak, Eli Morgan. He should sign for slot or below with the goal to save us maybe $50,000 in bonus pool money.  Considering his BA rank is 292 and he was drafted 223, that makes sense.  Plus, he has some upside.  Maybe, like Sandlin, they plan to make Morris a reliever.  That would make sense as they have had some luck turning college pitchers into pro relievers.

Round 8 - Alex Royalty - RH college pitcher - Another signability pick, the Indians again looking to stockpile bonus money as Royalty was not even ranked in BA's top 500.

Round 9 - Brian Eichhorn - RH college pitcher - Following a trend, Eichhorn was ranked only 419th by BA.

Round 10 - Robert Broom - RH college pitcher - Completes the trend.  BA ranks him 453.

Summary - This is one of the most boring, yet intriguing 2nd days of the draft I have ever seen with the Indians.  It does seem like the Indians are trying to save bonus pool money by who they drafted on day 2.  In so doing they went to mostly college pitchers (6 of the first 12 picks and the last 4 on Day 2) and up the middle college position players (CF, SS, one each) and sprinkled in one intriguing HS hitter who might require a slightly over slot bonus but fits the mold of building a farm system based on dumping a bunch of prospects into the majors in 2022-2024.  Basically it looks like day 2 was about saving money, more than I can ever remember with the Indians.   To me this means that Hankins will be expensive and they will be going for him.

As far as bonus predictions for these 12 guys here is what I see:

Noah Naylor $2.3 million (slot)
Ethan Hankins $3.1 million ($1.1 million over slot) - equal to the slot for the 20th overall selection
Lenny Torres $1.6 million ($100,000 under slot)
Nick Sandlin $750 thousand ($190,000 under slot)
Richard Palacios $475 thousand ($69,000 under slot)
Adam Scott $50,000 ($356,000 under slot)
Raynel Delgado $235,000 (slot)
Cody Morris $150,000 ($35,000 under slot)
Alex Royalty $135,000 ($15,000 under slot)
Brian Eichhorn $120,000 ($23,000 under slot)
Robert Broom $110,000 ($26,000 under slot)
Total  for first 10 rounds vs slot: $286,000 over slot
Amount left before reach 5% over pool total amount: $171,260

Predictions for Day 3 - The Indians have had lots of luck drafting good college pitchers near the  beginning of day 3 (Adam Plutko and Zach Plesac come to mind), and going a little over slot to sign those guys.   Look for some of that.   Look also for the Indians to draft 2-3 HS prospects as "flyers", guys who, if Hankins doesn't sign, they can use their extra bonus pool on. They likely will also take some HS guys who end up signing (normally HS guys picked after the 10th round DON'T sign) as well as a bunch of up-the-middle (C, 2B/SS, CF) college hitters and, of course, some college pitchers (some juco, some college seniors, a couple of college juniors who likely won't sign).  I predict we will not spend any of the remaining $171,260 that we have left before we get to 5% over our pool.