Third day draft analysis

In this historic draft for the team, the Indians stayed the college pitcher course.   It makes sense as this draft was really deep in college pitching.  Here are their 3rd day picks:

• Round 11 - Hunter Stanley, college 5th years senior RHP,  Southern Miss. 6'0", Had good numbers this year striking out 122 in 102 innings with only 19 walks.   Can't find much on him but the numbers scream good breaking ball(s) and his low draft slot screams below average fastball.  My guess is they drafted him as a reliever hoping his fastball plays up with good professional coaching and working in shorter stints.
• Round 12 - Connor Kokx - college junior OF, Long Beach St. - He is a well-rounded guy who showed some power this year, some speed and a good batting eye.  No idea why he was rated so lowly but at least his stats, especially his plate discipline, gives a good foundation for fhis development as a professional power hitter.
• Round 13 - Davis Sharpe - college junior, RHP - 6'4" - Not great stats but good K/IP. Projects as a reliever based on his usage in college as an opener and a reliever.
• Round 14 - Trenton Denholm - college junior RHP, 5'11" UC Irvine - A short right-handed pitcher, Denholm was drafted at 426 and was listed as the 216th best prospect by MLB so there may be some extra value in this pick.  He is a changeup guy with a borderline average ML fastball.   Think Eli Morgan as his upside. 
• Round 15 - Alaska Abney - college junior RHP Coastal Carolina, 6'1" - Another shorter RHP,   Pitched in relief for 3 years.  This year 46 ip, 14 BB and 68 K.  Likely drafted as a reliever
• Round 16 - Zach Pettway - college senior RHP, UCLA, 6'2" - Starting pitcher with good control but only OK strikeout numbers.  
• Round 17 - Tyler Thornton - college junior RHP, Arizona St. 6'3" - 
• Round 18 - Tommy Ventimiglia - high school RHP, 6-4 - 
• Round 19 - Reid Johnston, college junior RHP, 6'3" - 
• Round 20 - Jake Miller, college junior RHP, 6'3" -

Well, there you have it, the third day was the cap to a historic draft for the Indians where they drafted 18 college pitchers, 1 college outfielder, 1 high school pitcher and 1 high school shortstop.  Here are my initial thoughts.

• I don't know if there has ever been a team that drafted 86% college pitchers in the first 20 rounds of a ML first-year player draft.  
• Note that we may not be done.  We may still sign some organizational position players as non-drafted free agents.
• The loss of the Mahoning Valley team really impacted the need for organizational position players and probably played into the large number of pitchers drafted.  It is a simple fact.  You need 9 bats and only one ball.   When you remove a team you remove the need for those 9 bats, if they are just organizational guys.   As all the 2020 and 2019 drafted position players already have teams, there was no need to draft more.
• Look at the state of our rosters in the minors right now.  The AZL team has, essentially, no pitching.  At all the other levels the Indians have a much, much higher ratio of position player true prospects on each roster than they have real pitching prospects.   
• College pitchers from good programs will be able to start higher in the minors than less experienced pitchers meaning we can backfill a lot of holes in our pitching prospect content at each level in the next year or two.
• Don't be surprised if only a handful of these pitchers actually get to play this year.  I think that most will be developed first in Arizona and then in the instructional league before they get to play next year and that is when you will see a good number of the 2021 drafted college pitchers appear on full-season rosters.  I think they will take their time with these guys to make sure they have polished them up and have roles for them before just throwing them out there.   That being said, don't be surprised if a number of 2021 draftees start this year on the AZL roster.  The pitching there is so bad some of those guys still need to be playing in the Dominican.

I willl be back with an overall summary later but my initial impression is that this is interesting.   I will be OK  if I find out that the decent college position players I wanted to draft don't end up signing.  If they do, I think we should have grabbed a couple more, especially one or two of the catchers I mentioned before and an outfielder or two.   While I am on board with the idea that pitchers drafted late have a much greater chance to at least make the majors, if you pick the right ones who can play a small role, the idea of missing out on potential position players at crucial postions, like catcher and maybe OF still bothers me.  In the end, though, we needed guys who were going to be here by 2024.  I think, in this draft, we got that done.

More later