With early talk that the strength of the first-year player draft will be college pitching, time to look back on the Guardians' 2021 draft, a draft that has a chance to go down as the best in Guardians history.
As I said in my series on the draft last summer, it is not unreasonable to think that you can get one star, 2-3 other guys who will haver 3 year ML careers and maybe 2 guys (now that the draft is limited to 20 rounds) who have cups of coffee.
The 2021 draft has a chance to be a lot more.
Remember that the 2021 draft contained 18 college pitchers, 1 HS pitcher, 1 HS position player (Jake Foxx) and one college position player (Conner Koxx).
To show you how early we are in the development process following this draft, the college draftees would not need to be put on the 40-man until after the 2024 season. Normally guys may take 1-2 years of being on the 40 before they make the majors, meaning that the most likely draft time for these guys making the majors would have been projected as 2025/2026. If you expand on that line of thinking, it would mean that the college pitchers we drafted in 2021 should only be at AAA by the beginning of 2025. And most of the guys you draft don't even make it AAA and some don't even make it ot AA!
So let's take a look at the guys we drafted in 2021 and see where they are now and where they will be projected to start the season in 2024:
1. Gavin Williams - MLB in 2023 (MLB in 2024)
2. Doug Nikhazy - AA (either AA or AAA)
2S - Tommy Mace - AA (AA)
3. Jake Fox - A+ (AA) NOTE: As a HS draftee, doesn't have to be rostered until after 2025
4. Ryan Webb - A+ (AA)
5. Tanner Bibee - MLB (MLB)
6. Aaron Davenport - A+ (AA)
7. Jack Leftwich - AA (AA)
8. Rodney Boone - A+ (AA)
9. Will Dion - AA (AAA)
10. Franco Aleman - AA (AA/AAA)
11. Hunter Stanley - AA (AA/AAA)
12. Connor Koxx - AA (AA/AAA)
13. Davis Sharpe - A+ (AA)
14. Trenton Denholm - A+ (AA)
15. Alaska Abney - A+ (AA)
16. Zach Pettway - A (A)
17. Tyler Thornton - AA (AA/AAA)
18. Tommy Ventimiglia - Rookie (Rookie)
19. Reid Johnston - A+ (AA)
20. Jake Miller - A+ (A+)
We already have 2 guys who have made it to majors. Only 2 of the 21 draft picks are stalled out in their career development. Ventimiglia can't seem to get his control together at all, even in rookie ball and Zach Pettway, due mostly to injuries. The other 17 are progressing very well. In fact, it is possible that, besides Williams and Bibee who have already made their ML debuts, as many as 7 of them will pitch or play at AAA in 2024 with a handful of them possibly making their big league debuts this coming season. The rest (except for Ventimiglia and Pettway, obviously) could easily be playing at AA or AAA to start the season.
Compare this to the 2019 draft class and where each of those draftees finished the 2023 season
1. Espino - AA
2. Yordys Valdes - A+
3. Joe Naanjo - AA
4. Christian Cairo - A+
5. Hunter Gaddis - AAA/MLB
6. Jordan Brown - A
7. Xzavion Curry - MLB
8, Will Brennan - MLB
9. Will Bartlett - A+
10. Zach Hart - A+
11. Nick Mickolojchak - AAA (injured)
12. Allan Hernandez - A
13. Micah Pries - AAA
14. Ike Freeman - Released
15. Trey Benton - AA
16. Jordan Jones - Released (I think)
17. Julian Escobedo - Released
18. Matt Waldron - MLB
19. Kevn Kelly - MLB
20.Nic Enright - AAA
As you can see, most of the players drafted in 2019 haven't even made it to AA (9/20) in 4 seasons (albeit with the lost 2020 season) even though they were drafted two years earlier (most early picks were HS kids, though). Very few of them show any promise at all of making the leap in projectability to make me think they have any future at all as solid ML contributors, or even guys who will get a cup of coffee in the big leagues.
SUMMARY
The 2021 draft class could be special, ranking right up there or above the two other outstanding draft classes in Guardians history: 2016 and the 1972 classes (Manning, Eckersley, Kuiper and a couple of others). Will Dion, Ryan Webb and Franco Aleman appear to be on the fast track and other guys like high draft picks Nikhazy and Mace and almost every other college pitcher picked that year still have some level of promise that they could develop into pitchers who at least pitch in the majors or have 2-3 year careers (similar to Matt Waldron and Kevin Kelly from 2019).
I have to say that this draft has been, for me, the most fun draft in my history of following Cleveland's drafts as it is filled with promise and almost devoid, so far, from disappointments.
No comments:
Post a Comment