It’s strange that this year’s draft is already over and that some teams took as few as three players. Now we move into $20,000 undrafted free agent signing mode, a totally unprecedented exercise. In the coming days, I’ll add the drafted players to their new teams’ prospect lists over on The Board; you’ll see them on the 2020 Updated list on the Prospect List tab after I do. The farm system rankings will change as I do that. You can already see the approximate Top 100 landing spot for the 50 FV and above draftees on the MLB Draft tab of The Board.

Odds

Texas Rangers
Texas’ draft will be the talk of the industry today. After taking Justin Foscue in the first round (Fosuce was in the mix throughout the middle of round one) the Rangers went off the board (well, public boards anyway) and picked a bunch of six-figure high school types throughout the rest of the draft.

In round two, it was Tennessee prep outfielder Evan Carter, a high school two-way player committed to Duke. What I have on Carter at the moment is that he’s fast, has a big, rectangular frame, and that he has good bat speed but a swing path that may not work. This is next to nothing, and we’ll all learn more about Carter in the coming days. Based on what I know right now, he sounds like a 35+ FV prospect, a $600,000 type of high schooler. I also have a 35+ FV on Tekoah Roby, the club’s third rounder, who was up to 94 last summer, flashed a 55 changeup, and has a medium frame. Fourth rounder Dylan MacLean is an athletic, projectable lefty from Oregon whose stuff has coveted vertical action. His fastball was in the mid-80s last summer, up from the low-80s early the spring prior. It’s likely he’ll throw harder as he matures based on the frame and athleticism, or that we’d know he were throwing harder this spring had he played (and that Texas does, but successfully hid it), but he’s the kind of prospect who ends up in the honorable mention section of a team’s prospect list. Finally, their fifth rounder was Thomas Saggese, a contact-oriented SoCal high school infielder. A handful of teams were on Saggese, also a 35+ FV prospect, who could hit enough to play second base everyday. All of these kids are actual prospects, but unless we learn something new about a couple of them (Did MacLean have a velo spike? Did we whiff on Carter as an industry?), this draft will feel odd, and I wonder if Texas’ new stadium has impacted their financial situation and that that may mean they aren’t spending their whole pool. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the continued standstill over starting the season, MLB’s series of superficially different, substantively identical, and equally unproductive proposals, public perceptions of the owners’ and players’ positions, the difference between a 50-game season and an 80-game season, and how the “negotiations” seem destined to end, plus a Stat Blast about repeatedly drafted players. Then (27:01) they talk to FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen about which teams did and didn’t appear to do well in the 2020 draft, how limiting the draft to five rounds affected team strategy, how the pandemic changed draft prep and draft predictions, the potential of Tigers top pick Spencer Torkelson and other notable names, what will happen to the hundreds of players who didn’t get drafted, and the latest on when and where prospects will play in 2020.

Audio intro: Mates of State, "My Only Offer"
Audio interstitial: I Was a King, "Eric"
Audio outro: Wild Flag, "Short Version"

Link to latest Craig Edwards analysis
Link to Jeff Passan report on most recent MLB offer
Link to Eno on season length
Link to Angus Kellett’s Stat Blast song cover
Link to spreadsheet about most-drafted players
Link to Eric’s 2020 draft primer
Link to Eric’s Day 1 draft recap
Link to Eric’s draft odds and ends
Link to story about amateurs signing with NPB teams

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Well, that was fun. Let’s do it again today, please. Wednesday night was full of some big surprises early and a few later on, all of which are covered below. I’ll start moving drafted players onto their new teams over on The Board once I wake up, so make sure to take a peek at the farm system rankings as they currently stand — they’re about to change as the new prospects get moved over. Briefly, before I dive in, here are the states from which the most players were drafted yesterday:

**Editor’s Note: This piece initially incorrectly stated that the Baltimore Orioles had absorbed their four corners area. It has been corrected. FanGraphs regrets the error.**

The lone surprise there is Arizona, notable because a couple of teams (the Yankees) have either “absorbed” their four corners area recently or have considered it, meaning they let go of their area scout there and had other scouts fill in, thinking the area doesn’t have enough talent to justify having that extra scout. Four kids from the area went on Day 1, and with a lot of junior college spillover expected next year (there are lots of southwest JuCos), it seems especially foolish for other teams to really consider such cuts. Plus, there’s so much low-level pro ball here, baseball for which amateur scouts have a great context since the players are about the same age as their usual coverage. That makes turning over rocks on the complex backfields inexpensive since most of the four corners scouts live in Phoenix. Okay, I’m done. On to my team-by-team analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

My day-of mock goes through the first Competitive Balance Round, and includes a name for Houston’s first pick of the draft at 72. My first mock draft can be found here; my other Draft Week mock is in the navigation widget above. As always, full reports for the 2020 class can be found on The Board.

1. Detroit Tigers- Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Arizona State

2. Baltimore Orioles- Austin Martin, CF, Vanderbilt
As discussed in my previous mock, there’s still a chance Baltimore cuts a deal here. The pool of names if they do is Heston Kjerstad, Patrick Bailey (who seems the most likely of these players to slip to a place where cutting a deal for $4.5-ish million here makes sense), and Nick Gonzales.

3. Miami Marlins- Asa Lacy, LHP, Texas A&M

4. Kansas City Royals- Zac Veen, OF, Spruce Creek HS (FL)
There’s late movement here, including the sudden inclusion of Emerson Hancock, but I think a bat is more likely. Veen and Gonzales are possibilities. The Royals also explored going under slot with Kjerstad, which would make them the stopping point for a lot of seemingly falling players (many of whom are advised by Scott Boras) in the comp round and Round 2.

5. Toronto Blue Jays- Max Meyer, RHP, Minnesota

6. Seattle Mariners- Emerson Hancock, RHP, Georgia

7. Pittsburgh Pirates- Nick Gonzales, 2B, New Mexico State
Pittsburgh could try to cut a deal with Bailey. I’ve also heard high school righty Mick Abel mentioned here but think those chances are remote.

8. San Diego Padres- Robert Hassell, CF, Independence HS (TN)

9. Colorado Rockies – Tyler Soderstrom, C, Turlock HS (CA)
Sounds like Soderstrom would be under slot, which, as with KC, makes sense for the Rockies because they have several early picks. Kjerstad and Reid Detmers are also possible here.

10. Los Angeles Angels- Reid Detmers, LHP, Louisville
I’ve heard Ed Howard’s name here but think college players are more likely and that any of these are good value: Bailey, Kjerstad, Justin Foscue, and Detmers. I’ve also heard Cade Cavalli is in the mix, but his track record is shorter than the other guys’.

11. Chicago White Sox- Garrett Crochet, LHP, Tennessee
If Bailey doesn’t go before this, I think he’s in the mix. The same goes for Abel.

12. Cincinnati Reds- Heston Kjerstad, OF, Arkansas
In order of what I think is likely: Hassell if for some reason he’s here, then Kjerstad, then Abel.

13. San Francisco Giants – Justin Foscue, 2B, Mississippi State
I wonder if they’d consider Bailey here since he and Foscue are similar: younger up-the-middle college players who performed on paper.

14. Texas Rangers – Aaron Sabato, 1B, North Carolina
Sabato has homes all over the teens.

15. Philadelphia Phillies – Cade Cavalli, RHP, Oklahoma

16. Chicago Cubs – Patrick Bailey, C, North Carolina State
As the draft approaches, Bailey is the one college hitter who appears to be slipping down the board, and I think a team with a track record of drafting safe college players will just take him. I also have the Cubs attached to Alika Williams, though I’m not sure if they’d cut for him here or if that’d be in Round 2.

17. Boston Red Sox – Mick Abel, RHP, Jesuit HS (OR)
It sounds like even though Boston doesn’t have a second rounder, they’re looking to take advantage of teams generally avoiding high school players and might cut a deal here to scoop some of them up later. A hot rumor here is that Arizona high school shortstop Carson Tucker or righty Tanner Witt might go underslot here to facilitate that. I think that’s a contingency plan for if Abel is gone.

18. Arizona Diamondbacks – Bryce Jarvis, RHP, Duke
Jarvis’ stuff works much like Zac Gallen’s, and a host of other pitchers the D-backs have either drafted or traded for.

19. New York Mets – Austin Hendrick, OF, West Allegheny HS (PA)
The Mets moved on older, falling high schoolers last year and were willing to alter draft strategy to do so, which they might again.

20. Milwaukee Brewers – Garrett Mitchell, CF, UCLA

21. St. Louis Cardinals- Nick Bitsko, RHP, Central Bucks East (PA)
I think St. Louis is doing work on high schoolers who might fall here: Pete Crow-Armstong, Abel, Ed Howard and Bitsko. They have later comp picks that give them flexibility to go over slot here if they need to, which they probably would for Bitsko. If his number is near $4 million, then he probably slides to the comp round.

22. Washington Nationals- Cole Wilcox, RHP, Georgia
Any of the falling Boras guys make sense here (Hendrick, maybe even Tanner Burns) based on Washington’s history of taking them.

23. Cleveland Indians- Peter Crow-Armstrong, CF, Harvard Westlake HS (CA)
I think Jordan Walker is in Cleveland and everyone else’s mix from here on and if Cleveland wants him, the team probably need to do it here.

24. Tampa Bay Rays- Ed Howard, SS Mount Carmel HS (IL)
The Rays have the picks to diversify their group and typically incorporate some upside-oriented players.

25. Atlanta Braves- Nick Loftin, SS, Baylor
Atlanta puts a premium on defensive fit and Loftin plays short and is model-friendly.

26. Oakland A’s- Clayton Beeter, RHP, Texas Tech
If Beeter throws strikes like he did (very suddenly) this spring, then he could help Oakland’s bullpen this year, and I think they have strong incentive.

27. Minnesota Twins- Jordan Walker, 3B, Decatur HS (GA)
Walker’s power and age make him model-friendly, and that’s a fit with Minnesota.

28. New York Yankees – Jared Shuster, LHP, Wake Forest
I have them on college pitching. Beeter if he’s here, maybe Bobby Miller.

29. Los Angeles Dodgers- Tanner Witt, RHP, Episcopal HS (TX)

30. Baltimore Orioles- Dax Fulton, LHP, Mustang HS (OK)
Baltimore has the pool space to try to move Bitsko here (the bonus number would have to be big enough to scare away St. Louis, Tampa Bay, and maybe Cleveland) and it fits with what Mike Elias did while in Houston. If Bitsko gets popped before this (as in my mock) then Fulton becomes the favorite.

31. Pittsburgh Pirates- Bobby Miller, RHP, Louisville
I expect Pirates decision-makers saw Miller shove when they were in to see Detmers this spring.

32. Kansas City Royals- Jared Kelley, RHP, Refugio HS (TX)
If KC likes a lot of the college arms left on the board, I think they take a falling high schooler knowing a college guy they like will be there at 41.

33. Arizona Diamondbacks- Christian Roa, RHP, Texas A&M (
I think they’d take Howard if he’s here. Roa is here for the same reason I mocked Jarvis to the D-backs earlier: fastball traits Arizona clearly likes. I think Jordan Westburg is also a possibility here.

34. San Diego Padres – Carmen Mlodzinski, RHP, South Carolina
I have SD on college arms here.

35. Colorado Rockies – Dillon Dingler, C, Ohio State

36. Cleveland Indians- Alika Williams, SS, Arizona State
Cleveland loves contact-oriented middle infielders and Alika is in this range for many analytically-inclined teams. Walker is possible if he’s here.

37. Tampa Bay Rays – Slade Cecconi, RHP, Miami
Alika seems in play here, too, if available.

…

72. Houston Astros – Elijah Cabell, OF, Florida State
Houston loves measurable power and Cabell has among the most in the entire draft.

Baseball’s most famous unsigned draftee is arguably J.D. Drew, who along with superagent Scott Boras, waged a summer-long battle against the Phillies and the MLB draft itself back in 1997. I’d describe that conflict as a draw, for while Drew didn’t win freedom and earned the eternal enmity of Phillies fans, he did get the signing bonus he wanted the following year with the Cardinals.

There are a lot of reasons a player can go unsigned. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of money. Players at the bottom of the pecking order, without a significant signing bonus, have to figure out how to subsist for years on a paltry minor league salary just to take the long shot at having a major league career. Sometimes they just don’t want to play for the team that drafted them. Players with family connections to a team are sometimes drafted in late rounds as a courtesy even though the org knows they won’t sign. Other times, players are hoping for a better draft position in a future year or want to honor a promise they made to their college program, either out of a desire to play ball there or take advantage of getting an education.

From J.D. Drew to Aron Amundson, baseball’s only 100th round pick ever, the stories of why a player doesn’t sign can vary. Thousands of players have gone unsigned only to eventually resurface and end up playing in the major leagues anyway. In 2,584 cases covering 1,983 different players, a draft pick has gone unsigned and later made it to the majors. 439 players didn’t sign at least twice, with the record for a future major leaguer being Luis Medina of the Cleveland Indians. Medina remained unsigned his first five times (MLB had a January draft at the time), getting drafted as high as eighth overall on his fifth refusal. Medina eventually signed the sixth time he was drafted, in the ninth round, his lowest draft position since the first time he was selected.

In the early 1990s, baseball’s owners attempted to short-circuit the whole concept of negotiating with amateurs — not for the last time — by increasing the number of years a team retained control of a player’s rights from one year to five. The players objected and it was ruled in arbitration that owners had to negotiate draft changes with the Major League Baseball Players Association. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year in the draft, teams select ultra-talented baseball cyborgs who look like movie stars and project as potential future big league stars. Some of them even have sweet names — Spencer Torkelson sounds like a mid-career Arnold Schwarzenegger role, a screwup with a heart and biceps of gold. These draft picks are the way bad teams get good, the core building blocks of future juggernauts.

Every year until now in the draft, teams made many more picks. Some of them turn into legends. Some of them are major contributors right now. Most of them don’t pan out. There’s a fourth category here as well. Some of these late-round draft picks have short but non-zero major league careers.

Matt Adams, the example my mind first heads to in this category, was a 23rd round draft pick. He won’t make the Hall of Fame. He won’t make an All-Star game. He’s also accumulated 5 WAR in the big leagues already. In a league where 5 WAR on the free agent market will run you upwards of $30 million dollars, that’s a heck of a find.

I can’t tell you who the next Matt Adams is. If there was a draft-eligible player who was likely to have his career, he wouldn’t go in the 23rd round, or be signed as an undrafted free agent this year. Some team would snap him up. Instead, today I’m throwing darts. I hope to find a few position players who might be overlooked in a five round draft but who might hit enough, in some cases relative to their position, to make an impact in the major leagues at some point in their careers.

Of note, I do mean “hit enough.” I looked for these players in the statistical record, combing over college numbers looking for performers at smaller schools or ones who were overlooked for myriad other reasons. I have no doubt that there are pitchers who fit the bill here as well, but I can’t easily access velocity and spin rate data, something any team looking at these players could likely find either from old Perfect Game performances or from scouting. Given that, we’ll stick to college bats.

I’m going to highlight eight hitters. All eight might amount to nothing in the majors. Heck, that might even be the most likely answer. But they’re all doing something interesting, something that gives them a chance to stand out from the pack. They all have warts, too, of course; again, most of these players will go undrafted in this year’s abbreviated setup. And I’m not claiming to have scouting insight on these guys; I’m surveilling from a distance and guessing. These aren’t major league locks, and heck, I might be completely off. But here are a few names you might be excited to see your team sign after the draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Picking up where I left off from Part 1, this is my round-by-round look at the best players drafted in each round beyond the fifth since the amateur draft was instituted in 1965. It’s an exercise intended to highlight the numerous quality major league players who might slip through the cracks with a shorter draft, not only this year’s absurdly curtailed five-rounder but also future years, particularly with minor league contraction looming.

With the database help of Ben Clemens, we’ve assembled top-five WAR rankings for rounds six through 25, plus a top-10 ranking for those chosen in later rounds. I’ve attempted to summarize the career highlights of each player in concise fashion (hat-tip to Baseball America’s Ultimate Draft Book for some of the tidbits on why draftees slipped to later rounds). Additionally, I’ve highlighted one active player who may or may not have cracked the leaderboard yet, but who’s also noteworthy. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many of you, since March I’ve been experiencing time dilation while interacting with the gravity of our global situation. The pandemic itself, as well as the institutional frailty — and human stupidity and ugliness — it has exposed has been, to borrow a prospect writing cliche, eye opening. Unless you tied your sheets together and rappelled out of your socially distanced bedroom window to CSBI or a Prep Baseball Report event over the weekend (which I would find distasteful but also be extremely jealous of), it has somehow been three months since anyone in our industry has seen live baseball. It has felt like forever and an instant all at once. For those who derive their sense of self from the game, or who use it as a three-and-a-half hour respite from the daily drone, I imagine baseball would have been an especially welcome refuge from the global circumstances that have instead become psychologically unavoidable in its absence.

I’m hopeful we’ll get our collective acts together and that eventually there will be some better long-term outcomes for our planet as a result of this, but right now it sucks. And so here’s a two-day dose of what you need: a draft. Like everything else it has been altered, maybe forever, and it will feel bizarre to those who have been through the exercise before, but it’s still a draft. The entire industry has had to feel around in the dark looking for ways to deal with the many quandaries that arose as a result of the shutdown. Not everyone is going to have solved them. That will make the draft interesting and entertaining. The lives of many young people and their families will change for the better this week, either instantly or as their careers blossom. Some of the players drafted tomorrow will become so good that your grandchildren will know their names. It’s an unavoidably optimistic exercise. I hope you enjoy it and that this piece and the other work here at FanGraphs helps you engage with it on a deeper level.

My player evaluations and rankings are here. My latest mock draft is here. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that Major League Baseball is highly adept at saving money on the backs of people without a seat at the table. Amateur players often bear the brunt of those machinations, and without a real voice in the collective bargaining process, they’ve seen their negotiating rights and earning potential limited by bonus pools, restrictions on major league contracts, and shrinking negotiation windows. Sometimes, these measures have seemed almost gratuitous, like when the Phillies, unable to sign Ben Wetzler in 2014, decided to report him to the NCAA for having legal representation.

The March agreement between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association on how to resume the season (and what to do if there isn’t one) cut the amateur draft to the bone. The draft was reduced from 40 rounds to a maximum of 20 (MLB later settled on the minimum of five), slot values remained at their 2019 levels, signing bonus payments were deferred to July 2021 and 2022, with a maximum of $100,000 due to each player in 2020, and undrafted players had their bonuses capped at $20,000 (previously, players could receive $125,000 without it counting against a team’s draft pool).

The question is: What kind of talent will this cost baseball long-term? Baseball’s draft is an uncertain exercise compared to the NBA’s or the NFL’s. While those leagues have their own share of undrafted stars — in much shorter drafts — baseball has a long history of franchise stalwarts who weren’t in the top 300, 600, or even 800 players taken.

With the bonus restrictions on undrafted players, baseball is sure to lose a piece of its future. Many of these players will still end up in baseball eventually, but with only minuscule bonuses, which many players desperately need to justify seeking baseball careers because of the anemic minor league salaries, a lot of players will not. Read the rest of this entry »