Models for the Indians to follow in signing non-drafted free agents

We covered in most previous post what I thought was going to happen in the signing of guys who were eligible but were not drafted in the 5 round draft last week.  

So far this has played out somewhat as expected.   Two teams to take a look at that I consider good models of what the Indians should be doing are the Phillies and the Royals.  Here is what Baseball America lists as the players signed by each team:

Philadelphia

• Jake McKenna, LHP, Ocean City (N.J.) HS | Scouting Report (No. 434 on BA 500)
• Jordan Fowler, LHP, Central Missouri
• Sam Jacobsak, RHP, Northeastern
• J.P. Woodward, LHP, Lafayette
• Noah Skirrow, RHP, Liberty | Scouting Report (No. 249 on BA 500)
• Chase Antle, RHP, Coastal Carolina | No. 13 on top undrafted seniors list
• Billy Sullivan, RHP, Delaware

Kansas City

• Saul Garza, C/DH, Louisiana State | Link | Scouting Report (No. 379 on BA 500)
• Kale Emshoff, C, Arkansas-Little Rock | Link | Scouting Report (No. 174 on BA 500)
• John McMillon, RHP, Texas Tech | Scouting Report (No. 357 on BA 500) | No. 3 on top undrafted seniors list
• A.J. Block, LHP, Washington State (No. 20 on Baseball America's top undrafted seniors list)
• Tucker Bradley, OF, Georgia | Scouting Report (No. 317 on BA 500)
• Chase Wallace, RHP, Tennessee | Scouting Report (No. 440 on BA 500)

Philadelphia focused exclusively on pitchers, signing 7, including one HS pitcher.  Note that 3 of the players they signed were at least rated by BA, although their rating would have made them anywhere from 7th-10fth round picks.   

Kansas City, on the other hand, signed a mix of 3 pitchers and 3 position players.   Note that each one of them was ranked in some fashion by Baseball America.   One of KC's signees was projected to go in the first 5-6 rounds.

A combination of what I said the other day about signing guys to major league deals and what KC and Philadelphia did is what I was/am looking for from the Indians: Lots of pitchers and some position players if relatively highly ranked with the total number of signees being 10-15 with 1-2 of them being highly ranked college pitchers being placed immediately on the 40-man roster.  

The Indians tend to play these things tight to their vest and have a plan as to when they want these signings announced.   For us fans that part is nerve-wracking, especially when you see other teams signing bunches of players early.

Draft 2020 Analysis

The 2020 draft is over.   Here are my thoughts on the Indians' draft.

1. MONEY - I don't think there is a better team in baseball at understanding the finances of the draft than the Indians.   They always seem to have enough money to sign the players they want and always seem to find the gems late in the draft that other teams can't find.

So, when you take a look at their draft picks you see a familiar pattern.   You see picks that will save you some money and players drafted later on who will require above slot bonuses.

This is not like other years, however.   If you fail to sign even one player from this draft your draft crop takes a hit as there are only 6 players you drafted.  

2. PRESENT AND FUTURE VALUE - The Indians had only 6 picks but they found a way to help themselves in the near future and give themselves hope for the more distant future.  

3. MIDDLE INFIELDERS:  The Indians drafted2 high school shortstops, or 1/3 of their selections.  

4. COLLEGE PITCHABILITY PITCHERS: The Indians drafted 3 college pitchers and all of them are the pitchability variety.  They have had success in the past and they went to that well again.

5. WILD CARD: The Indians drafted high school outfielder Petey Halpin in the 3rd round.  This is the riskiest pick in the draft for the Indians.   He will likely require an overslot bonus and the Indians track record in drafting high school outfielders is, well, pathetic.   So, we have a guy who is a risky selection in the two biggest risk areas: cost and floor/ceiling ratio.

6. THE REST OF THE "DRAFT" IS STILL TO COME:  Yes, there is more to this draft than just the players who were actually drafted.   Teams can sign as many draft-eligible, undrafted players as they want, starting on 9 am on Sunday, June 14th...providing they don't sign any of them for more than $20,000.  Here is the way I see the remaining groups of players left in this draft:

a. College seniors - I think this will be business as usual as I think a number of these guys will sign.   I don't think the numbers will be as high as normal years, however, as there is no baseball to be played this year so roster filler/organizational players are not really needed.  Still, college seniors are used to signing for peanuts and I think their leverage is lower than normal as they probably know teams are on tighter draft budgets than normal and they may not even get that $1,000 they have gotten in the past.

b. Unsigned college junior (or RS sophomore) pitchers in the top 200 prospects - I think we could see a number of  these types of pitchers, signed in this group.   College pitchers tend to be closer to the majors than college hitters and top prospects will even be closer and I think teams will try to leverage whatever they can find to sign these guys.  Here is one way: Sign them to major league contracts.   Guys on the 40 man roster make about $45,000 a year compared to $14,000 for minor leaguers not on the roster.   Plus there is talk about having 50 guys on the roster for the season meaning these guys could get ML coaching and a bigger than normal chance to play in the majors this year.   Additionally, putting one of these guys on the 40 man roster benefits the player as it potentially starts two "clocks".   First, if the player is not ready for the majors the team will have to burn one of their three options on that player if they send him to the minors.   Thus he will likely reach the point of having to be kept on the ML roster or DFA'd sooner than the average prospect.  Second, if he plays in the majors it starts his free agent clock.    I really think teams will see the advantages here outweigh the downsides.  I think teams can really get value here if they are just willing to gamble on their development staff.

c. college junior pitchers outside the top 200 prospects - Many of these guys will just go back to school for their senior year unless they are the typical late-round college junior pitcher who is just done with college and sees minor league baseball as his lottery ticket.  

d.  college junior hitters - Like the college junior pitchers outside the top 200, I think ALL draft eligible college hitters will return to college unless they are organizational filler level players.   Hitters take longer to develop and I don't see any team taking a chance on a college hitter by placing him on their 40 man roster and I don't see any college hitter who is any good at all settling for $20,000 and $14,000 a season when he can go back to school and maybe make $200,000 as a top 10-round, senior-signing bonus pool saver next year.

e. junior college players - I think few, if any, of these guys will sign unless they are the end-of-the-draft, organizational filler types.

f. High school players - I don't think you will see ANY of these guys sign.   There is no need and none are ready to be rostered on the ML roster.  Most if not all the talented ones can go to college.   I think you might see a good number of the talented ones go to junior college if they had really intended to sign but a good number of the talented high school players with big time college commitments will honor those commitments.   The only ones I see signing are the same type of low-level high school hitters who don't really want to go to college and who expected a small bonus in the first place.

 OK, with all this said what do I think the Indians will do?  Well, for years the Indians have said that their Latin American scouting program is built on outworking other teams as they don't have the money to outspend other teams.   With any luck they will do this again in this rush for undrafted amateurs which looks and feels to me a lot like a typical Latin signing year.  What will they look for?  The Indians have a great track record of finding quality relievers late in the draft.  They also signed a quality catcher in Roberto Perez later.   On the other hand they have not had good luck signing college position players or high school hitters late in the draft.   I don't see them signing a lot of guys but I do see them signing 15-20 guys, mostly pitchers and catchers.   I hope they have the guts and are able to outwork other teams to find some of those college junior pitchers who will sign for $20,000 while signing a major league contract.    


7.  SUMMARY - I really can't do a summary of this draft until all the undrafted players are signed.   Still, just looking at their actual draft picks you have to say they did really well IF they can sign all these guys.    I don't know if any team in this draft did as well as the Indians from top to bottom.   If they can sign a few quality undrafted players I think they could have the best draft in baseball this year.

Besides no fans, what will baseball look like if we play this year?

Thinking about this last night.

First, prayers to all those being impacted by COVID-19.

As far as baseball goes here are some thoughts and questions:

•  How do you handle the injury list? The average length of time to recovery for COVID-19 is 2 weeks for mild  and 3-6 weeks for severe cases.   Adding 72 hours to the end of the disease per CDC and that means that the player would not be able to play baseball for 17-45 days.  The rules would have to allow for a lot more non-baseball injuries and not force all those people to the 60-day DL.  
• There might be wholesale changes in a roster if a hotspot occurred.   As has been postulated, you would need AT LEAST a 37 player roster and maybe up to 60 players assuming that you could have anywhere from 50-100% of your roster having COVID-19 during an outbreak.  That doesn't even injuries and other forms of leave away from baseball.
• Bench personnel might be required to wear masks all the time and what has become a tradition (pitchers and catchers holding their gloves over their mouths so they can't be lipread, might be mandatory.  
• Baseball, itself, has to remain somewhat normal.   For example, are we going to require homeplate umpires and catchers to wear shields over their facemasks?  What about batters using helmets similar to what they use in little league, with a face shield? 
• Will pitchers be able to go to their mouths at all?
•  Will batters, catchers, etc. be able to spit?  Can you spit out the sunflower shells?  Can there be communal pin tar?  Will each pitcher have his own rosin bag?
• Will teams have the handshake/high 5 lines after games?

NOTE: I guess a lot of this will come from the continuous COVID-19 testing that will have to be done so maybe the last three points will be non-issues.  Still tests aren't perfect and there is some thought that you can be infected before the test will show you are infected so who knows.

• How will watch parties be handled if no fans can't go to games?  
• None of this even covers whether baseball-related injuries will be greater this year because of the change to the playing season.

In any case, with or without fans, if the game can be played safely, it would be great to see baseball again.

Stay safe out there

Just a note to wish all of you the best (especially you Indians fans out there).   Please try to stay safe!   Help and pray for each other and do your best to have good personal hygiene and germ control.   If you know someone who is elderly or has underlying respiratory issues, please stay in contact with them as this virus is especially hard on and dangerous for them.

May God bless all of you!

Hey Dodgers, shut the f--k up!

At some point, you have to just tell the other guy to shut up.

The Dodgers want Lindor but don't want to give up Lux.   I cannot believe the fans of some teams, or the teams themselves.   They want to go for the brass ring but overvalue their own prospects and want to get a star like Lindor on the cheap.

Unbelievable.  

Gavin Lux was the #2 prospect in baseball last year.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.   So the f--k what?  Let's take a look at who the #2 prospect in baseball was for each year for the years 2009-2016, cutting it off at that point as we have gotten a good look at what these guys actually developed into.:

2009 - Matt Weiters
2010 - Jason Heyward
2011 - Mike Trout
2012 - Matt Moore
2013 - Jurickson Profar
2014 - Xander Bogaerts
2015 - Byron Buxton
2016 - Byron Buxton

So one guy is actually in the conversation with the talent of Lindor and that is Trout.   Bogaerts is OK but the rest of the #2 prospects in those years are not even close to the value that Lindor has.

So what's my point?  Prospects are just that.   They are prospects.   You can't have it both ways, or at least I hope the Indians don't let you.   You have a great player like Lindor who can potentially give you a WS championship when added to what you have now and all we want is a prospect who may or may ever become great in a few years.  

The arrogance of these people thinking they can cheat the Indians and give us their scraps hoping that because we are stupid we will take it and they can laugh their butts off for years about how they fleeced us.   As I said previously, trading Lindor is essentially throwing in the towel for the Indians UNLESS we get a major league talent back AT THE SAME POSITION.   That is Gavin Lux and Dustin May comes too.   Look, you already have Corey Seager to either trade or move to second base, making that position stronger.   Thus your major league team gets stronger even beyond Lindor since Seager has value beyond the current value of Lux or May.   What we get is to keep the outside change of competing this year AND get some chance to win in the future.

Given the odds above, the Dodgers get the better deal by far.     Maybe down the road the Dodgers, looking at their next two WS trophies, will regret this deal.   However, I don't think they will as prospects are just prospects until they become veterans and, more times than not, things like on the list above happen.

So, Dodgers, fans of the Dodgers, other teams and fans of those teams, put up or shut the F--k up.   I am ready for baseball and tired of teams trying to steal our best player and one of the top 5 PLAYERS in MLB.  Not one of the top 5 prospects but one of the top 5 players in the majors.   If you don't want him then go somewhere else and don't bother the Indians or their fans any more.   And good luck filling that empty spot in your trophy case!

DFAing Haase and other topics

It's past midnight and Dec. 30th and Francisco Lindor is still a Cleveland Indian.  On a northern Ohio sports weekend like we just had, any non-negative news is good news!

A blip on the bad weekend news is that the Indians DFA'd Eric Haase to make room for Cesar Hernandez.   I am sure that there is an analytics guy or team of analytics guys somewhere who are sure this was the best move the Indians could have made.  Not sure if Haase is out of options but, even if he is, this is still not a good move.

•  We have 9 outfielders on our roster.   We may keep 4 or 5.  One, Greg Allen, has become about 4th on the list of CFers, utility outfielders.
•  We have 3 utility infielders.   We probably will keep 1 and be able to send one other to AAA.
•  We have 12 or 15 relievers, depending on how you count Plutko and whether you count Hentges and Mejia of which two of them, Maton and Hoyt, appear to be AAAA lifers.  And that's without the typical January and February minor league free agent reliever signings.

However, at this point, we had only 3 catchers on the roster and exactly zero catching prospects in our system above low class A.   That is ZERO.   

Remember that even if we made a deal with Haase to keep him if he clears waivers he would still need to clear waivers for us to keep him.  Not likely with the perennial state of catching in baseball but I am sure those analytics guys are somewhere smiling, saying it doesn't matter if we don't keep Haase because he is not above replacement level.  I don't buy that because I value prospects and guys brought up in an organization more than the AAAA flavor of the month.  

There is no way that Haase was the fluffiest player on the 40 man, not by a long shot.   But he did have one distinction.   On the roster with 9 outfielders and 15 potential relievers, and 3 utility infielders, Haase was the only guy on the roster who was clearly the "next man up" at his position going into spring training. Doesn't matter that his position was backup to the backup catcher,

there had to be a better guy to DFA.  Had to be.  The roster breakdown shows this.

But, somewhere, analytics guys are giving each other high 5s while watching reruns of Big Bang Theory.   Remember, the word 'analytics' starts with "anal".   Never has that been more clear than this off-season, at least for the Indians in the makeup of the bottom of their 40-man roster.

Time for a football interlude

OK, this is an Indians blog but once in a while we digress into other topics.   Today it is Ohio State football.

Three years ago Ohio State lost to Clemson 31-0.   Ohio State never adjusted to what Clemson was doing against them.   Basically, they could never get anything going.

But this is not that coaching staff.   Unlike essentially every year under Urban Meyer, this coaching staff has made in-game adjustments that have turned the tide in games that we close early.   I love what Urban Meyer did at Ohio State but, in my opinion, the man had an ego that hurt him in these situations.  Apparently Ryan Day's staff doesn't suffer from that from that issue.

That being said, here is what I think needs to happen in this game.   Note that these comments are just from a nervous fan who is just talking to himself, in public, prior to this game.   I am not a football expert by any means.   But, that notwithstanding, here goes:

1. Ohio State needs to move Chase Young around more than it has this year.   Essentially every play.   They have to give Clemson's offense different looks with Young.   He will always have a target on his chest but if the Buckeyes create enough confusion he should get a sack or two and other guys should be free for more sacks.

2. The Buckeyes have to trust their corners in man coverage and blitz more from the safety spot.  Yes this is risky but we have to make Trevor Lawrence uncomfortable.   His recent success is due to his comfort that he is going to have time and not get hit or hurried.

3. We need to adjust our offense to what we have.   We don't want Fields to have to make intricate reads against disguised defenses and hold the ball for a long time as it increases the chance he will get hit and that he will make a bad read or force something.   One way to avoid that is a more Baker Mayfield-like passing game.  Quick throws to slanting receivers and backs isolated against linebackers. There is some question about whether the Buckeye receivers can gain separation from the Clemson cornerbacks.   If we establish the quick passing game that could allow us to gain that separation late in the first half and, occasionally, in the second half.  As funny as it sounds, a quick passing game should open up the run for Fields, too.   If everyone is keyed on the pass he should get a couple of steps before the defense readjusts.

4. If what I think about the coaching staff is accurate we just need to make sure that the game is close at halftime.  I think our coaching staff can adjust better than any coaching staff in the country and I am betting on them to win the second half pretty substantially.

If all these come to pass here is my prediction:

Halftime score: Clemson 21 Ohio State 17

Second half scoring:  Ohio State 21 Clemson 13

Final score: Ohio State 38 Clemson 34