Mock Draft 2.0

 Here is my Guardians mock draft 2.0.   Obviously, without the big picture of what every other team is looking for, this is just my view based on other mock drafts and rankings.   

Here goes!

Round 1 (16 overall) - Zach Neto - infield - college - There are rumblings that the Indians will go for a college bat and Neto is certainly the most versatile college player available here.  He has a great hit tool and great arm and so could transition to the outfield, if necessary, or be a super-sub.  I like Chase DeLauter as an outfielder but with the mixture of minor league infielders and outfielders we currently have, I think they would like someone with more versatility.  Now Neto could remind some of Owen Miller, not a good comparison to be having right now, but I think he is more than that.

Round 1S (37 overall) - Gabriel Hughes, RHP - college - Hughes was my first round pick in my first mock draft but it looks like his stock is slipping not so much because of him but because other guys are rising.   He would be a good value at this point in the draft. Cooper Hjerpe (LHP, college) and Justin Campbell (RHP, college) would be solid selections here.  I don't really like the position players who will be available at this point as, for example, Jacob Melton hits left handed and we have plenty of LH outfielders really close to or in the majors already.

Round 2 (54 overall) - Jud Fabian - OF - college - Again, the draft would have to fall just right but if Fabian is available here (currently rated 52 by MLB) he has the righthanded stroke and power to be a perfect fit in our farm system.

Round 3 (92 overall) - Luke Gold - infielder, college - I like his hit tool and I think we need more college hitters.

Round 4 (122 overall) - Xavier Isaac - 1B HS - I like his bat and we need some long-term power hitting prospects coming out of this draft.

Round 5 (152 overall) - Jayson Jones - 3B, HS

Round 6 (182 overall) - Chris Villamin LHP, college

Round 7 (212 overall) - Jorel Ortega 2B, college

Round 8 (242 overall) - Nate Baez - C college

Round 9 (272 overall) - Riley Cornelio - RHP College

Round 10 (302 overall) - Tyler Schweitzer, LHP college

Rounds 11-20 - As we don't have to populate a short-season rookie league team any longer, I don't see the Guardians drafting a lot of position players, except for a catcher or two.   I see these 10 rounds going much like last year with mostly college pitchers and a sprinkling of HS pitchers and hitters who are signable thrown in. 

Why is Ernie Clement on this team and other comments

 This is one of my pet peeves with Francona.   He gives too much respect to veterans.   

Play should be based on performance and there are guys on this team who are getting to play who are not performing.

Let's start with Ernie Clement.   He is a great guy to have on this team AS THE 26TH PLAYER!   Defensive replacement, pinch-runner, starting a game once every 2.5 weeks.   76 games and 120 AB a year.  Probably great in the clubhouse.  Perfect.   But this guy is playing all the time.   He has been just average on defense and his offense is totally unacceptable at the major league level.  He does nothing for this team on offense and should ALMOST NEVER start a game, certainly not 2-3 a week.

Then comes Myles Straw.   First he wasn't hitting.   Then he started doing stupid base running things.  Now his defense looks lackidasical.  He just looks disconnected and is providing no energy.  Today he makes a terrible throw and then lets the inexperienced Palacios take a ball that Straw could have EASILY gotten to. TWICE.  Then he doesn't help the team when he doesn't sacrifice and, instead, hits into a double play.  He's not helping on offense.   He's not helping on defense right now.  He's not being a team player.   When I saw him in the dugout the other day when he wasn't playing he was laughing and joking around.   Look at least like you give a crap you are sucking it up.

Follow that up with Owen Miller.   He looks just like he did all last year.   He makes weak contact and the only time he seems to make hard contact is when he hits into a double play.  His stat line sometimes looks good but they are not generally good, hard hits.  

Finally Sandy Leon.   Veteran catcher but not much else.   Maile is in this category, as well.

Francona wants to play his experienced players.  He sees rookies as mistakes waiting to happen.   He likes the comfort of guys who have played for him.  And that is the problem.

Played Kwan at the beginning of the year,  He performs.

Gonzalez comes up and provides energy. Reyes doesn't get hurt and he doesn't get that opportunity even though he could have replaced Mercado a month before that.

Palacios comes up and gives us some (albeit weak) hitting.

So let's stop the crap, Tito.   Let's stop the crap Chernoff.   Let's stop the crap Antonnetti.

We need energy.  

DFA Leon and bring up Bo Naylor

DFA Mercado (again) and bring up Will Brennan

Send Myles Straw to the minors.  Bring up Nolan Jones.

Send Owen Miller to the minors and bring up Tyler Freeman.  

Let's get some energy.   It has worked already this year.   Guys are getting free passes for playing pathetic, disengaged baseball.  Their body language says they are not important parts of this team right now and are, in fact, playing below replacement level.   So let's replace them.  

Francona lets his veterans run the clubhouse.   He did it in Boston and it got him fired.   Time to take charge of your veterans.   Make them accountable.  When you look at their play they are NOT being held accountable for stinking it up.   Time to make some changes.   Trust me, it can't get any worse than it is right now.  History has shown that this year.

 

Let's talk draft strategy

 The baseball draft is less than 2 weeks away and as I am working on my mock draft for the Guardians I thought we could first talk a little draft strategy.  What has worked for the Guardians and what I think they will do this year.  Let's break this down by player types:

High School Pitchers - The Guardians' #1 prospect is a HS pitcher, Daniel Espino., drafted roughly where our first round pick is this year.  Besides Espino, their track record with high school pitchers has been spotty with only Ethan Hankins and Lenny Torres, both held back by injuries, being notable selections.   To balance that out, Triston McKenzie was also a first round pick.

College pitchers - Anyone who follows the Guardians drafts and the trades they make and, in fact, the current rotation, they favor college pitchers.

High school hitters: Tyler Freeman and Nolan Jones are relatively recent HS hitters drafted early in the draft.   Before them came Will Benson who appears to be just coming into his own and recently, Petey Halpin and, most recently, Carson Tucker.  As you can see there is a lot of promise here but nothing that helps the major league team.   Later round HS hitter draft picks have been even less valuable, up to this point.  Plus they did trade for Isaiah Greene who is not producing that well.

Catchers - Except for Bo Naylor and Brian Lavastida, the Guardians have either not put much effort into drafting catchers and have less luck in finding diamonds in the rough.

College hitters - The Guardians have not drafted a lot of college hitters early, although they have found some future MLers in rounds 4-10, were more guys who could play defense and slap the ball around while showing good plate discipline.  In other words, no mpact bats.

So, looking at this year's draft, what does all this mean?

I like them taking college bats early in this draft.  My frst pick in my first mock draft was a 'safe' pick in college right hander Gabriel Hughes and then some college bats.  Without giving away my 2.0, I could see them changing gears and drafting Zach Neto first, giving them possible 3 college bats in their first 3 picks.  The goal is to extend the window of competitiveness and I think college bats are prevalent enough early in this draft that they could go for several and fill in behind that with some college pitchers.   Even though I love HS pitchers in this draft I just don't see the Guardians thinking that far ahead here.   I see them only going for HS pitchers early if the college bats they covet are all gone at the time they want to draft them.

Fluff on the roster - Where can we go from here?

 Lots of discussion has been and will be had in the next 57 days leading up to the trading deadline.   A little of that will even come from the upcoming baseball draft where small market teams will determine, to some extent, what their needs will be in 5 years or so when the fruits of that draft ripen and are picked.

For right now, let's talk about the current Guardians roster and where the 'fluff' is.  That is, what guys are expendable going forward.

Most expendable

Anthony Castro

Alex Young

Sandy Leon

Luke Maile

Oscar Mercado

Comments:  All of these guys could be replaced right now with someone in the minors as indicated in parentheses.   The issue, of course, is that if we replace these guys with someone NOT on the 40 man roster and add a true prospect then we've lost the ability to DFA that person later on as they will surely be lost through waivers if they are a true prospecdt who has produced in the minors.  Still, there is the possibility to add production to our current roster by adding guys who we will protect this wnter.  Here are some thoughts:

Anthony Castro (Xvaion Curry)

Alex Young (Andrew Misiasek)

Sandy Leon (Bo Naylor)

Luke Maile (Bryan Lavastida, when not injured)

Oscar Mercado (Will Brennan)

Somewhat expendable

Ernie Clement (George Arias)

Nick Sandlin (Nick Mikolajchak)

Bryan Shaw (Hunter Gaddis)

Owen Miller (Tyler Freeman)

Richie Palacios (Nolan Jones)

Enyel De Los Santos (?)

Anthony Gose (?)

Comments: This list will have a lot of debate associated with it, to be sure.  However, this team needs offense.   Clement is a feel-good story but his anti-offense is a real downer for a team with a hitting hole at catcher and sudden and stunning hitting holes at DH and CF.   We thought Miller's 2021 was just an aberration based on his overall body of work in the minors.  We were all elated when he started 2022 strong.  However, given his peformance and his recent body language it is looking more and more like 2021 was the norm and the aberration was the beginning of 2022.   Given how hot he was when called up in 2021, it looks like the guy may just start out hot each season and then regress to his mean which, on a contending team, is below replacement level given our farm system.   We should all love what Palacios has done so far and maybe as the 26th man he has a place on this team going forward if his defense improves at all positions.  At least when he comes on to pinch hit I feel like we have a chance.  Sandlin is a gmmick guy and like those who have come become before him, gimmicks only work for so long unless you uber-perfect them or come up with other weapons.  Shaw is and always have been a middling rental.  He takes the ball when asked and generally does well enough to not pour gasoline on the fire.  Still, he is taking valuable reps from rookies who we have to find out about.  For De Los Santos, he looks good now but given that he was a late minor league signee, he could go the way of Blake Parker and not be part of the long-term future.  Same is true for Gose.

Hard to believe but maybe expendable

Myles Straw

Franmil Reyes

Eli Morgan

James Karinchak

Comments:  Hard to believe but these three guys are on my bubble.   It is almost Carlos Baerga-like incomprehensible how Straw's and Reyes' performance has gone away.   I mean, they both look at the plate like middling AA prospects thrown to the wolves.  Compare the performance of Palacios to Straw, offensively.   Palacios should be, and was, Straw's floor of performance, not the other way around.   And Reyes?  It is almost impossible to believe his performance has fallen off the table this much.   Again, Josh Naylor should be Reyes' floor, not the other way around.   Finally, there is Eli Morgan.  Yes, he looks good but the announcers are starting to talk about it.   Is he just a gimmick-laden flash in the pan and when the entirety of ML baseball has seen him a few more times will he just become the guy the Twins beat up the last couple of tmes he faced them.  I hope not but that is a possibilty.  Karinchak is the most interesting case on this list.   Rumblings last year was that he was one of the ones who was loading up on the sticky stuff.   When the enforcement tightened, his stuff went south.   If he can perform without cheating like he performed in the first part of 2021 he doesn't belong on any list except for the list of guys you want to tie up long term.  Time will tell

So literally 40% of our roster could change next year.   Some of it will be necessary.   Some of it (Miller, Clement) will be painful but necessary.  And, finally, some of it will be shocking but necessary as we can't give up our window of competitivenewss just because we are hoping for a return to previous form that is not coming.   Time will tell and, as a long-time Cleveland baseball fan, I hope most of the above is wrong and is obliterated by solid to spectacular performance for the rest of the year.   However, if we want to compete THIS year, if we don't want to waste all the good performances THIS year, we may have to make some painful decisions this year.  It's not like we don't have the talent in the minors to replace some of these guys.   We just need the courage to pull the trigger to make this happen.

What is wrong with the Guardians' development of minor league outfielders?

Nothing, apparently!

Major Leagues: Kwan, Palacios, Gonzalez

AAA - Jones, Brennan

AA - Valera

A+ - Planez

What we thought was a weakness in our farm system may have just become a huge strength.  How did this happen?  I think it has to be the player development people.   

Oscar Gonzalez is the perfect example.  His defense has clearly improved.  I think his plate coverage and pitch selection have improved.  His speed even looks like it has improved.  His power is down in the majors but I think that it will come back once he gets more familiar with the league.

Nolan Jones is another example.   He is solid in right field so far and while it is in a small sample size, his plate discipline and pitch selection looks much better this year.  Second year at the same level effect?  Maybe, but to my untrained eye it doesn't look like that.  

Clearly, folks, the Guardians are finally figuring it out as far as developing outfielders.  Yes, some are the result of position changes (Palacios, Jones) but others are simply from preparing these guys to compete at a high level against good pitching and to play passable-to-excellent defense.

We'll see if they can keep up this development success with Kokx, Halpin and Greene and if Planez and Valera can keep on the steep part of their development curve.  If the Guardians are, in fact, becoming an outfielder-developing machine, we will see it in these guys who all need developing but have high ceilings.

What is wrong with Franmil Reyes and Myles Straw?

 I have seen slumps before but the body language I am seeing out of these two guys tells me there is something more going on here.

As far as Straw, he just looks overmatched at the plate, like he is just trying to slap or poke at the ball.  If I had to make a guess as a completely unqualified diagnostician, I would say he is suffering wrist pain, probably in his left wrist.  He is just not swinging the bat with authority and he wouldn't be throwing out runners if his right shoulder/arm was bothering him.

As far as Reyes, he just looks like he is not seeing the ball at all.  I mean, at all.  Based on last year it appears that he is seeing a blurry vision of the ball.   When it is in a certain area his body can react to what he is seeing to make hard contact.   But he is being fooled way too often on pitches way outside and he is not even fighting off fastballs on the inner half above the waist, constantly swinging through them.

And neither of them look engaged at all when at the plate.  Maybe it is the utter frustration knowing they are so much better than what they are showing.  I don't know.   But the body language for both of them at the plate is just really convincing me that these problems are not fixable this year, whatever the cause.

When you put a lineup on the field that has four automatic outs (Hedges/Maile, Clement, Straw and Reyes) surrounded by guys, except for Ramirez, who are only moderate starting quality in the majors, you just can't win baseball games at this level.

Yes they are above .500 so we all should be happy with that.   

But the production of Straw and Reyes?  They are killing our offense and they need to get right or go on the IL.  With them at last year's form this team is in first place in the AL Central.   With them this year, they are making it almost impossible for this team to win against good teams.

The Oscar Gonzalez situation and how it impacts the future of the Guardian's 40-man roster decisions

OK, if the internet didn't exist and all we had was "Remember when I told you..." then this would be a different story.   

But a number of us were saying last winter that the Indians needed to re-sign Oscar Gonzalez before he left as a 6-year minor league free agent.  Remember, based on the old rules, that means that the guy has actually played in your minor league system for SEVEN seasons as you have to have more than 6 COMPLETE seasons once you sign in order to qualify as a minor league free agent, assuming the player was not released.

Then, once we all breathed a sigh of relief, we were saying it was a no brainer to roster a 23 year old who hit 31 HRs and ended the season raking at AAA. 

However, we were all working with limited information.   We wanted him protected based on his power numbers and his ability to hit for average and his strong arm in RF.    We didn't see the other skills which is why there was less gnashing of teeth in not rostering Gonzalez and less jubilation when the Rule 5 draft was cancelled.

But we (fans and bloggers) are not scouts and some of the beat writers, fans and bloggers bought into the Indians' KoolAid that Gonzlez's lack of walks would doom him and that the rest of his skill set (fielding and speed) were not enough to overcome his lack of selectivity at the plate.

Still, how does one make that judgement on a 23 year old coming off his best minor league season against the best pitching in the minor leagues (AA and AAA)?

Well, now we know who Oscar Gonzalez is: a guy with plus power who uses the whole field as a hitter, who has a great arm, better than average speed and improving defense.  

Looking at it now it appears a no-brainer to have rostered him last fall, despite the roster crunch we all knew as coming.   I even suggested rostering him INSTEAD of Kwan, who I saw, and still see, as a 4th outfielder with limited power and only average speed.

But why did the Guardians' experts whiff on Gonzalez?  He has flashed all 5 tools and the only one he is lacking on the 6th, the Money Ball skill of plate discipline.  The last is a make-or-break skill in the majors, to be sure.  But the first 5 get you lots of chances to improve.   

The question should be: what are the Guardians going to do to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again?  We will have the ever-improving Will Benson coming up this winter and, likely, next winter we will have Alexfri Planez,  Junior Sanquintin and maybe Gabriel Rodriguez looming as power potential guys with unfinished tool sets who we will have to make decisions on.  

Hopefully the Guardians' scouting and player development people will have refined their pardigms so that we don't have a repeat of the Oscar Gonzalez situation and we will make better decisions going forward. For a team that HAS to maximize every minor leage asset they have and can't afford to waste anythng, it is crucial that our player development people do better than they did with their evaluation of Gonzalex.