First day draft blog

 OK, the draft is on.  I will be updating this post the rest of tonight each time the Guardians make a pick.  The updates will contain thoughts about those picks and the state of the draft after each round (first, supplemental first and second) 

FIRST ROUND

Guardians - Chase DeLauter - Look, I was on Daniel Susac at this position because the Guardians have exactly 1 (Naylor) and 1/2 (Lavastida) catching prospects in their ENTIRE minor league system,  Basically, for me it comes down to this.  I like DeLauter and he fits with what the Indians covet (strikezone control and athleticism) and what they need (power).  However, if you make one assumption: guys rated roughly the same have the same chance of success, then you pick the guy who has the clearest path to the majors.  For the Guardians, that would be Susac, who can impact both sides of the ball at catcher.  DeLauter would have to be much better than Susac given the guys he has to climb over to make the majors and I don't think he is.  In the end it is how this pick will impact the major league roster down the road.  I think Susac fills a hole a catcher, a hole I don't think will exist in our outfield in a few years.  Nevertheless, the DeLauter pick is not horrible and is OK for the spot they were drafting (no overdraft here).  I just think it was the wrong pick, given who was available.  Just my thought.

Rest of the first round - Literally every draft has surprises in the first round.   Big surprises, not just shuffling of deck chairs.  The first round started early with Rocker going to Texas.  The only thing I can think is that they were getting him cheap to save money for other picks.   Cade Horten at 7 is, to me, more of the same.   I think Cubs like Horton and know they can save some money here and get another top prospect later.  When I saw Gabriel Hughes go at 10 to Colorado I felt for the kid.   Here he is waiting his whole life and he goes to a team whose stadium location eats pitchers for dinner.   That being said, I think this is an overdraft but the best of the 3 overdrafts up to that point in the first round.  As we move down to the later parts of the first round, starting at Boston's pick, the pundits draft rankings are becoming meaningless.  From 20-30 only 3 guys with first round credentials were even drafted with the average overdraft number (difference between MLB draft rankings and where the player was drafted) was about 35 spots ABOVE where the guys were ranked.  This is just totally amazing to me.  Could all these teams be trying to save money?  Absolutely.  But I do find it hard to imagine that that Tampa Bay at 29 could have liked Xavier Isaacs (who I liked as the Guardians' FOURTH round pick) enough to draft him there when they were aware that 6 of their competitors (7 counting Texas with the Kumar pick) were already making picks to save money to sign guys who slid.   There just couldn't be that many guys who were first round talents who were going to slide, right?

More to come after the supplemental round is completed.

COMPENSATION AND COMPETITIVE BALANCE A ROUNDS

Guardians - Justin Campbell, P, Oklahoma St. - Campbell is a solid pick at this point and one of my suggested options if Cayden Wallace, 3B from Arkansas wasn't available.   Campbell is a solid pitcher but his stuff doesn't seem to say that he is much better or much more needed than corner infielders with power, something that hardly exists in our farm system.

So Campbell was a solid selection here if he can increase his fastball average to more than 92 mph.  But I still would have rater had Wallace and his power potential, even if we have doubled down on power hitters in college by selecting him after DeLauter.

Rest of these rounds - For those teams who may have been trying to save money in round 1, none of those teams drafting in these rounds seemed to draft guys who have fallen except for Colorado in their drafting of Jordan Beck (36th spot, 23rd ranked player).

SECOND ROUND

Guardians - Patrick Messick - LHP - I don't know if they were counting on Wallace to get to them or if they had other college hitters in mind who they think will be there in round 3 and later, but Messick was a safe pick and one I mentioned.   If we had not drafted 19 pitchers last year, almost all college pitchers, I would have been OK with this pick.  And there is nothing wrong with this pick.  Messick fits the bill of pitchers the Guardians like, albeit that he is a little short for my liking. His fastball velocity only sits at a below ML average 91 right now but if he can add velocity he could be a good one.  It is just, following the selection of Campbell, a really non-sexy pick, Messick represents another non-sexy pick and not one that matches the needs of this organization.

The real upside here is that the Reds took Logan Tanner one pick after we selecdted Messick.  We dodged a bullet there, in my opinion!

Rest of 2nd round - We started to see some of the teams, like TB, SF and Houston who may have overdrafted earlier, start to use some of what will likely be budget excess to  pick up guys who have dropped..  This is the round where you generally start to see wild deviations from what teams value compared to what prospect listings value.   The thing here is that, except for a couple of cases, that didn't happen in the second round at the level it normally happens.  My guess is that since we had so much of that in the first round teams went safe or picked up guys who had dropped into the second round to make up for earlier overdrafting (done likely to save budget).