2024 Draft - Part 28 - It's Tuesday - Thoughts About Day 1 Picks And What's Ahead on Day 2

 OK, I have had a night's sleep and here is what I think going into day 2.

Day 1 Recap -

• We got Bazzana.  For a large market club who can buy players they need, we might be able to call it a day and look toward adding expensive talent at the deadline.  But we talking about the Cleveland Guardians.  They need to have GREAT drafts every year as, in the real world, that is the major way small market teams flourish (along with astute international signings).  So while Bazzana was a great add, that is when the real work, the 'don't work hard, work smart' should have begun.  But it didn't.
• With Bazzana's likely underslot deal (probably by $1.2-1.5 million) and our $900,000 overage allowance (up to 4.999% over our budget) we should have had $2.1-2.4 million ABOVE slot value bonuses we could play with.  So what did we do?
• We drafted a 36th ranked HS P at slot 36 (Braylon Doughty).  A solid, long-term play pick that does not, and SHOULD NOT, scream over slot bonus, although Alex Clemmey, 58th pick & 50th ranked prospect, did cost us $900,000 over slot last year.  Frankly, he has pitched like the 50th ranked prospect who should have been paid $1.5 million instead of $2.3 million.  But we had the money to spend, so.... But more on that later
• At pick 48 we drafted the 42nd ranked prospect. Jacob Cozart.  He is a defense-first catcher with power potential and a good batting eye.  On the surface it appears that this is a good pickup in an organization almost devoid of catching prospects.  But looking a little deeper this was, to me, a bad pick.  He will be a ML catcher.  But his hitting upside is likely .220/.310/.400, not bad for a good defensive catcher.  However, this still makes him a #9 hitter in a good ML lineup.  In addition, his downside is Austin Hedges, a totally unplayable offensive player with great defensive skills.  A ML backup on a good team.  So, while that is great to have, what is NOT great is that it cost us the 48th pick in the draft.  BTW, Hedges was a 2nd round pick, to.  But guys like Hedges and Cozart should be mid Day 2 picks, at best, not Day 1 picks.  Ever.
• By drafting Doughty and Cozart we left day 1 without a college pitcher of the type that we don't tend to leave day 1 without.  In addition, we left Day 1 likely without spending a penny of our bonus excess because whatever we spend in excess with Doughty we will likely get back from Cozart.  We'll talk below about why picking a  slot appropriate HS pitcher and a defense-first, LHH college catcher was probably not the best play early in the draft for a team this flush with money.

Day 2 - What Do We Do?

• Before we get into this, let me give you my draft philosophy for this draft which has evolved from what I thought before we started making picks.  Jose, Kwan, Gimenez, Bibee, Gaddis, Smith, Clase, Willaims and Josh Naylor, if we re-sign him like we should, give us a competitive window up through 2027 or 2028.  So, if we want to inject talent into that competitive window, as I think we should, we should focus on impact college players.  Bazzana is a good fit in that regard but HS pitchers and hitters are not, as they likely will only be impactful in 2029, or later, if at all.  bit players, like Cozart, are also not helpful as, in a WS caliber lineup, he has no spot.  College pitchers picked this year are very likely to be able to be impactful within at that window.  Just look at Bibee, Williams, Gaddis, Curry and Smith.  So, if the Guardians are trying to impact that competitive window they should have been drafting impactful college hitters and impactful college pitchers.  So far, they just have Bazzana in their first 3 picks who fit that profile and that is NOT a good thing, IMO. For example: And 
• I would love to have a quality overslot HS pitcher to burn some of this bonus excess as most teams won't have the excess we have.   But we have Doughty and I am not inclined to have TWO HS pitchers in the first 2 days of this draft.  They, especially HS RH pitchers, are so risky that is way too much inherent risk to throw into the first two days for me.  So, to me, we should be done with HS pitchers until Day 3.  So, Joey Oakie, the next best HS player, is probably not reasonable to me.
• I would have loved to have an offense-first RHH good defense college catcher who was athletic enough to play another position.  But I can't see us drafting ANOTHER college catcher on Day 2, giving us 2 in the first 2 days of the draft.  No one needs two college catchers taken high in the same draft.  So as much as I would have loved to have Kevin Bazzell INSTEAD of Jacob Cozart, I don't think it is smart to have Kevin Bazzell AND Jacob Cozart.  You have 13 pitchers on your ML roster and 2 catchers.  I think that math speaks for itself.

So, with the above in mind of what we SHOULDN'T do, let's talk about what we CAN and probably SHOULD do both to stock our system with good prospects and, judiciously, spend that bonus excess that we have.

Pick 84

I see us with three choices:

• Draft overslot college soph OFer Dakota Jordan with all his swing-and-miss
• Draft likely slotted college OFer Mike Sirota
• Draft a quality college pitcher of the type we SHOULD have drafted at 36 and 48.

Unfortunately, the play we SHOULD make is Jordan.  We have the money.  We have booked 3 solid (albeit the last two being very boring) prospects.  Jordan would be our first brass ring pick.  I don't think this draft has any true brass ring picks and I think spending money on Jordan could easily be a waste of money.  But, still, if we spend $1.3 million on Jordan ($400,000 over slot) I would be OK with that.  That still will give us money to spend on Alex Mooney-type overslot college sophs, high school P flyers and injured college pitchers later in the draft and buy ourselves a deep, solid draft in a year where the draft ONLY provides deep and solid for teams flush with bonus excess.

What my head tells me to do is to draft the best COLLEGE junior pitcher available.  And that would be Ryan Prager or Drew Beam.  We have 9 picks to wait to see if either of them is available but, if they are, we pop one of them.  If not, we have to bite our lip and take the best available college pitcher left.  That would either be soft-tossing Josh Hartle or guys who need work like Tristan Smith or Daniel Eagen

Pick 113

Again, the same applies here.  I would go for the best college pitcher available because it sets up the next two rounds.

Pick 146

Here I would go out and find the best available college sophomore, even if we get Jordan.  This guy would probably want to go over slot but I would be OK with that if it wasn't crazy.  Nothing over $1 million

Picks 175, 205, 235, 265 and 295

I go just as I did in my mock drafts with the guys I picked there.  Four college pitchers and one RHH college outfielder, unless we get Jordan than it would be all college pitchers.

Once again, we need players who will impact the current competitive window.  That is all college players and that is what I think we should pick on Day 2.

NOTE

As an aside, I think this could be turning into a historic draft.   I was surprised when I say that after the undraftable William Schmidt, Dakota Jordan (34) was the best available prospect after only 74 picks.  Then was #46 HS P Joey Oakie.  While there are 27 top 100 prospects left starting day 2, most of them look like solid, signable picks.  That is interesting, and maybe historic, because of the last 6 drafts (not counting 2020).

In these drafts here is the highest ranked player NOT drafted, the number of top 100 prospects who were not drafted and the number who were drafted late in the draft (after slot 300) who were, predictably, not signed.

2017 - #111 highest ranked player not drafted, 0 top 100 ranked prospects were not drafted and 9 were drafted late and didn't sign

2018 - #115, 0, 12

2019 - #86, 2, 8

2021 - #29, 13, 5

2022 - #46, 8, 3

2023 - #44. 8, 3

2024 (so far) - #16, 27, ---

If the trend continues as yesterday, looking at the players left in the top 100, we might not even make 5 players in the top 100 who are not drafted and maybe 6 who aren't signed. Or less in both categories.  To have so many top 100 prospects sign would be unprecedented in recent history, especially as we enter the NIL era.  It will be interesting to follow through the rest of the draft and how the Guardians might leverage that, if they can.