Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about why there have been so many Noah Syndergaard trade rumors, then answer listener emails about whether Giancarlo Stanton would be better if he raised his launch angle, how and when a manager who kept intentionally walking hitters would be stopped, how and whether to debate saber skeptics (about Harold Baines, or anything else), Bryce Harper pulling a LeBron, how to identify pitches, and the definitions of “gas” and “inning,” plus a Stat Blast about J.T. Realmuto and the biggest career home/road splits.
The Padres have been connected to big names like J.T. Realmuto, Noah Syndergaard, Nathan Eovaldi and even Bryce Harper, all of which suggests that after three straight seasons of 90-some losses and eight straight with records below .500, they’re ready to get out of the business of losing. So far, no dice on the marquee additions, and last winter’s big Eric Hosmer contract isn’t sitting so well, but on Friday, they did score something of a bargain, signing second baseman Ian Kinsler to two-year deal worth $8 million, with a club option of unspecified value also included, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The implication is that Kinsler’s days as an everyday player are numbered, and that he’s ready instead for that sage veteran mentor/utility role, à la Chase Utley with the Dodgers.
(Or maybe he just wants to knock back some quality craft beers and fish tacos. San Diego is great for that, but perhaps I’m just projecting.)
The 36-year-old Kinsler was last seen making a mess of things in the World Series, going 1-for-10 for the Red Sox and most notably committing base running and fielding gaffes in the epic, 18-inning Game 3. As pinch-runner for J.D. Martinez, he was thrown out at home plate on the back end of an inning-ending double play in the 10th, and then, after the Red Sox had taken the lead in the top of the 13th, he threw away a Yasiel Puig grounder that allowed the tying run to score. Not great. The Red Sox lost that game, and while they won the Series, Kinsler didn’t make another appearance.
Aside from winning that elusive championship ring, it really wasn’t a season to write home about for Kinsler. After being traded from the Tigers to the Angels last December 13 (for minor leaguers Wilkel Hernandez and Troy Montgomery), he scuffled, and once the Angels fell out of contention, he was dealt again on July 30, this time to Boston, in exchange for relievers Ty Buttrey and Williams Jerez. He had started the year so slowly that in June I explored whether he was cooked, though his bat perked up long enough for him to be of interest to a Dustin Pedroia-less Boston team that featured Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt scraping by with replacement-level production. It must have been contagious, because Kinsler went from hitting .239/.304/.406 (97 wRC+) with 2.2 WAR in 391 PA with the Halos to .242/.294/.311 (62 wRC+) with 0.0 WAR in 143 PA with the Sox. The saving grace of his season was his defense; he was 9.4 runs above average according to UZR, 10 above average via DRS, and over the past two years, he’s been +17.5 and +16 by those two metrics while batting just .238/.308/.397 for a 90 wRC+ but 4.9 WAR. That’s still an above-average player, if not a terribly sexy one.
The bat is worrisome, though. According to Baseball Savant, Kinsler’s 85.3 mph average exit velocity ranked in the bottom 8% of the league, and his xwOBACON (expected wOBA on contact) plummeted from .350 in 2017 to .303 in 2018. As I noted in June, his downturn owes largely to two major problems: first, he’s struggled against four-seam fastballs, particularly ones 95 mph or higher; and second, he’s stopped hitting lefties. Despite a career 135 wRC+ against heaters as a group, he’s been at 88 and 94 over the past two seasons, and as for the high-velo stuff, here’s an updated version of a table I made for the previous article:
Ian Kinsler vs. 95+ MPH Four-Seam Fastballs
Year
wOBA
lg wOBA
wOBA dif
xWOBA
lg xwOBA
xwOBA dif
2015
.305
.309
-.004
.315
.311
.004
2016
.337
.315
.022
.353
.316
.037
2017
.223
.312
-.089
.298
.318
-.020
2018
.271
.306
-.035
.312
.308
.004
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
The trend isn’t uniform, but it isn’t good. Neither is hitting .191/.236/.250 for a 33 wRC+ in 144 PA against lefties, especially when you’re a righty. That aspect of his performance may well have been a fluke, the flip side of his .278/.357/.539 (135 wRC+) line against southpaws in 129 PA in 2017. For his career, he has a fairly typical split (127 wRC+ against RHP, 101 against LHP), but over the two-year period, his 81 wRC+ against lefties is in the 24th percentile among righty swingers, which is worrisome.
Here’s the thing, though: the Padres got less than nothing out of their second basemen in 2018. Jose Pirela, Carlos Asuaje, Cory Spangenberg and three other guys combined for a 78 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR at the spot. Spangenberg was released in November, and Asuaje was just claimed off waivers by the Rangers, so they’re out of the picture. Luis Urias, who hit .208/.264/.354 in 53 PA for the Pad squad, is the future, a 55 FV prospect who is currently number three on the Padres list (behind shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr and lefty MacKenzie Gore) and number 21 overall. He’s just 21 years old, though, and while MLB.com’s A.J. Cassavell recently reported that he’s expected to open the season at the keystone, it would surprise nobody if he were to start the year back in Triple-A. Since Tatis is just 19 and hasn’t played above Double-A (and has just 102 games there overall), there’s talk that Urias could even start the year at shortstop, a position he’s continued to spot-start at as he’s moved up the ladder.
All of which is to say that Kinsler, a 13-year veteran with 47.7 WAR, four All-Star appearances, and a pair of Gold Gloves to his name, could be Urias’ double play partner, or his placeholder, or his backup/mentor, depending upon how things unfold. He might even get a chance to play third base in a utility role, if and when both Tatis and Urias are in the bigs. Maybe he’ll become such a natural in this capacity that the Padres will view him as a surrogate dad, as some of the Dodgers did with Utley. The Padres’ padre? Why not?
Considering that Kinsler was projected to produce 1.8 WAR in 490 PA — though now, it would be a surprise if he got that much playing time — and that in our free agent preview the estimates for his salary ran for $6-8 million for a single season, two years and $8 million seems quite reasonable for San Diego. His presence probably won’t change the course of the Padres’ 2019 season, but if he helps Urias adapt to the majors and fulfill his potential, it’s a small price to pay.
On the surface, Thursday’s trade that sent left-handed pitcher Alex Claudio from Texas to Milwaukee in exchange for a competitive balance pick seemed relatively innocuous. A rebuilding team sent a middle reliever to a competitive team that needed one in exchange for an asset — in this case, a draft pick — with a maturation timeline that better fits that of the rebuilding club. But this trade also might tell us a little more about how the Brewers think about pitching, and help us to calibrate the way we think about draft prospects, particularly advanced college relievers.
But first, let’s talk about Claudio, who is entering his first year of arbitration and will be under team control for three more. Kiley and I posited in the Brewers prospect list’s System Overview (it’s at the bottom) that Milwaukee seems drawn to pitching curiosities. This is, of course, our subjective opinion, but the list of Brewers draftees and minor leaguers who have weird deliveries or unique release points has grown to the point where it seems to be an organizational focus or, at least, an organizational experiment. And Claudio, for those who have not been lucky enough to see him pitch for Texas over the last few years, looks like this:
It’s not easy to make big league hitters look goofy under normal circumstances, let alone when you only throw 86 mph. It’s clear the bizarre nature of Claudio’s delivery plays a role in his success. For context, here’s how Claudio’s release point looks on paper when given some context. Here I’ve compared Claudio’s release point to a lefty with a pretty generic delivery.
The proliferation of Trackman at the minor league and college levels enables teams to measure things like release point, and identify players who are bizarre or unique in this regard. Extension probably factors into this, as well, and I think adding that could enable us or teams to plot release points in three dimensions, and learn even more about what helps stuff play beyond just velocity and movement.
Claudio is also effective because he’s a rare reliever with plus-plus command. He’s walked just 4.5% of hitters during each of his three years in the big leagues and, when he misses, he misses down. His ability to dump sinkers and changeups into the bottom part of the strike zone or just beneath it and almost never, ever miss up in the zone is remarkable, and it’s a huge part of why Claudio has been able to induce ground balls at a 60% clip in the big leagues.
Teams have begun to think about pitching like wine and cheese. They’re more concerned about how pitches pair together rather than just evaluating each pitch’s quality in a vacuum. A general rule of thumb is that sinking fastballs pair well with changeups because they have similarly shaped movement, sinking and running toward the pitcher’s arm side. And again, Claudio is a great example of this, with his fastball and changeup movement overlapping exactly.
We know what Claudio is at this point. He’s going to be a good middle relief option whose WAR production will likely hover around 1.0, perhaps maxing out close to the 1.7 WAR he netted in 2017. Based on how we map WAR to the 20-80 scouting scale, Milwaukee got a 40-45 FV player for the next three years. Mapping Claudio’s WAR production to the scouting scale helps us make an apples to apples comparison in situations where we otherwise would not be able to, as in this instance, where Claudio was traded, straight up, for a draft pick.
The competitive balance pick Texas received from Milwaukee is going to be close to the 40th overall selection in the draft, give or take a few spots depending on how free agent compensation picks shake out ahead of that selection. As you can see from our last several years of MLB Draft evaluations (here’s 2018), that 40th overall range is typically right about where the 45 FV and 40 FV tiers blend together, which is akin to Claudio’s value when he’s placed on the 20-80 scale. In short, based on how we think about relievers and how we expected draft prospects in the late first and early second round to pan out, this seems like a fair, logical trade for both teams.
In every draft there are a few college pitchers who seem like they could pitch in a big league relief role right away. It’s almost never a plan teams actually enact for various reasons, but this trade also gives us an idea of where that type of prospect would go in a draft. It would take a confluence of variables for such a selection to be made (a team with a relief need, a very seller-friendly or completely barren reliever trade market that forces that team to turn to the draft, and a specific type of prospect) but this part of the draft is where the drop-off in potential ceiling could lead teams to focus on other traits, like proximity and risk. In other words, the Brewers seem to have told us who they’d take in June if given the choice between this theoretical college arm and, say, a high school hitter whose career is much harder to predict.
Last season, the relief market was the only aspect of free agency that moved quickly. Of the first 14 free agents to sign last winter among the Top 50 players available, eight were relief pitchers (nine if we count Mike Minor). All eight received similar contracts for two, sometimes three, seasons, and around $7 million to $10 million per year. In “deals that were announced at 2 AM the night before everyone at FanGraphs left the Winter Meetings and spent most of Thursday on airplanes,” we have two free agent reliever signings that meet the qualifications for that standard reliever contract.
What type of hitter did the Cleveland Indians get when they acquired Jake Bauers as part of yesterday’s three-team trade with Seattle and Tampa Bay? From a biographical perspective, the answer is a 23-year-old left-handed-hitting first baseman who came into this year ranked fourth in the Tampa Bay system. He made his big-league debut in June and went on to post a .700 OPS, with 11 home runs, in 388 plate appearances. Bauers played his maiden season as a 22-year-old, not turning 23 until the month of October.
From a self-assessment perspective, Bauer is a hitter who knows who he is, and needs to stay true to those elements in order to be successful. The newest member of the Indians organization explained what those elements are when the Rays visited Fenway Park this past August.
———
Bauers on his keep-it-natural swing: “My swing has just kind of been natural. Any time I went to a hitting coach growing up, the only thing they’d say is, ‘Don’t change anything.’ Beyond that, there have maybe been little tweaks here and there, but mostly it’s been about doing my work and staying right.
“I have to keep my swing and just let it happen. I have to trust that the natural path of my swing is going to take over — that by doing what comes natural, everything will take care of itself.
“When I’m trying to hit the ball in the air — trying to hit for launch angle — my swing tends to get long and loopy and I end up not getting the result I want. Everything will get out of sync. My hips will go early. My hands will drag behind and then try to catch up. I’ll end up pulling off to where I can’t reach the outside pitch and I’m getting jammed on the inside pitch.” Read the rest of this entry »
Rumors swirled on Wednesday morning that the New York Yankees had reached an agreement to re-sign J.A. Happ, but that deal was walked back as the two teams couldn’t quite come together. As the parties kept getting closer, alternatives continued to come off the board, with Charlie Morton signing with the Rays and Lance Lynn headed to Texas. All of this was set against the backdrop of a warmer-than-expected market for starting pitching, which had already seen Patrick Corbin get a sixth year on his deal with the Nationals and Nate Eovaldi receive a guarantee of $68 million from the Red Sox. The cause of the holdup between Happ and the Yankees was likely the years of the contract, as Happ wanted three and the Yankees wanted to pay for two. The result the two sides seem to have come to is a two-year, $34 million contract with a $17 million option vesting for Happ if he reaches 27 starts or 165 innings in 2020, providing the Yankees with significant protection against potentially paying an ineffective 38-year-old. The deal has yet to be officially announced.
Happ returning to the Bronx wasn’t a foregone conclusion, as there appears to have been significant interest in the lefty, and for good reason. Over the last four years, Happ has been a consistently above-average pitcher, grabbing about three wins and 170 innings every year. In our free agent rankings, Eric Longenhagen discussed how Happ has been able to perform well through his mid-30s.
Greater use of a sinker to complement his changeup has facilitated his ascent from 1.0 WAR back-end starter to 3.0 WAR mid-rotation innings-eater. Happ’s size and length create discomfort for opposing lefties, and he has been able to dominate them (left-handed opponents slashed .171/.239/.248 against Happ last year) without a good breaking ball. Instead, Happ makes unusually frequent use of his fastball (throwing 73% of the time, roughly 20 points higher than the league-average mark for starters), which is firmer now than it was in his mid-20s.
Every team could use the three wins and 30 starts the Yankees can expect from Happ in 2019. The potential issue, though, isn’t so much next season as it is the ones that come after it. The Yankees didn’t want to guarantee that third year and that reticence is justified. The lefty turned 36 years old in October. A three-year contract would take him through his age-38 season. Over the last decade, only six pitchers have produced even four wins and 400 innings in their age-36 to age-38 seasons, with CC Sabathia likely to join that group in 2019. Here is how those pitchers, along with Happ, fared in their age-32 to age-35 seasons. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2014 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Jeff Kent took a long time to find a home. Drafted by the Blue Jays in 1989, he passed through the hands of three teams who didn’t quite realize the value of what they had. Not until a trade to the Giants in November 1996 — prior to his age-29 season — did he really settle in. Once he did, he established himself as a standout complement to Barry Bonds, helping the Giants become perennial contenders and spending more than a decade as a middle-of-the-lineup force.
Despite his late-arriving stardom and a prickly personality that sometimes rubbed teammates and media the wrong way, Kent earned All-Star honors five times, won an MVP award, and helped four different franchises reach the playoffs a total of seven times. His resumé gives him a claim as the best-hitting second baseman of the post-1960 expansion era — not an iron-clad one, but not one that’s easily dismissed. For starters, he holds the all-time record for most home runs by a second baseman with 351. That’s 74 more than Ryne Sandberg, 85 more than Joe Morgan, and 86 more than Rogers Hornsby — all Hall of Famers, and in Hornsby’s case, one from before the expansion era (note that I’m not counting homers hit while playing other positions). Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances in their career who spent at least half their time at second base, only Hornsby (.577) has a higher slugging percentage than Kent’s .500. From that latter set, only Hornsby (1.010) and another pre-expansion Hall of Famer, Charlie Gehringer (.884), have a higher OPS.
Offense isn’t everything for a second baseman, however, and in a Hall of Fame discussion, it needs to be set in its proper context, particularly given the high-scoring era in which Kent played. Taking the measure of all facets of his game, he appears to have a weaker case with regards to advanced statistics than to traditional ones. On a crowded ballot chockfull of candidates with stronger cases on both fronts, he has struggled to gain support, topping out at 16.7% in 2017, his fourth year on the ballot.
The major-league phase of Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft began with its annual roll call of clubs confirming the number of players currently on their 40-man rosters and ended with a total of 14 players being added to new big-league clubs. Dan Szymborski offered ZiPS projections here for the players taken earlier today. Below are brief scouting reports on the players selected, with some notes provided by Kiley McDaniel.
But, first: Our annual refresher on the Rule 5 Draft’s complex rules. Players who signed their first pro contract at age 18 or younger are eligible for selection after five years of minor-league service if their parent club has not yet added them to the team’s 40-man roster. For players who signed at age 19 or older, the timeline is four years. Teams with the worst win/loss record from the previous season pick first, and those that select a player must not only (a) pay said player’s former club $100,000, but also (b) keep the player on their 25-man active roster throughout the entirety of the following season (with a couple of exceptions, mostly involving the disabled list). If a selected player doesn’t make his new team’s active roster, he is offered back to his former team for half of the initial fee. After the player’s first year on the roster, he can be optioned back to the minor leagues.
These rules typically limit the talent pool to middle-relief prospects or position players with one-dimensional skillsets, though sometimes it involves more talented prospects who aren’t remotely ready for the majors. This creates an environment where selections are made based more on fit and team need than just talent, but teams find solid big-league role players in the Rule 5 every year and occasionally scoop up an eventual star. Let’s dive into the scouting reports on this year’s group.
First Round
1. Baltimore Orioles Richie Martin, SS (from A’s) – Martin was a 2015 first rounder out of the University of Florida, drafted as an athletic shortstop with some pop who was still raw as a baseball player. Martin had really struggled to hit in pro ball until 2018, when he repeated Double-A and slashed .300/.368/.439.
He has average raw power but hits the ball on the ground too often to get to any of it in games. Houston has been adept at altering their players’ swings, so perhaps the new Orioles regime can coax more in-game pop from Martin, who is a perfectly fine defensive shortstop. He should compete with incumbent Orioles Breyvic Valera and Jonathan Villar, as well as fellow Rule 5 acquisition Drew Jackson, for middle infield playing time. But unless there’s a significant swing change here, Martin really only projects as a middle infield utility man.
2. Kansas City Royals Sam McWilliams, RHP (from Rays) – McWilliams was an overslot eighth rounder in 2014 and was traded from Philadelphia to Arizona for Jeremy Hellickson in the fall of 2015. He was then sent from Arizona to Tampa Bay as one of the players to be named later in the three-team trade that sent Steven Souza to Arizona. McWilliams is pretty raw for a 23-year-old. He spent two years in the Midwest League and posted a 5.02 ERA at Double-A when the Rays pushed him there after the trade.
He has a big fastball, sitting mostly 93-94 but topping out at 97. He’ll flash an occasional plus slider but it’s a rather inconsistent pitch. The industry thought McWilliams had a chance to grow into a backend rotation arm because his stuff is quite good, but he has a much better chance of sticking as a reliever right now.
3. Chicago White Sox (Traded to Rangers) Jordan Romano, RHP (from Blue Jays) – Romano is a 25-year-old righty who spent 2018 at Double-A. He’s a strike-throwing righty with a fastball in the 91-93 range and he has an average slider and changeup, both of which reside in the 80-84 range. His command is advanced enough that both of his secondaries play up a little bit. He likely profiles as a fifth starter or rotation depth, but the Rangers current pitching situation is quite precarious and Romano may just end up sticking around to eat innings with the hope that he sticks as a backend starter or swingman when they’re competitive once again.
4. Miami Marlins Riley Ferrell, RHP (from Astros)- Ferrell was a dominant college closer at TCU and was consistently 93-97 with a plus slider there. He continued to pitch well in pro ball until a shoulder aneurysm derailed his 2016 season. Ferrell needed surgery that transplanted a vein from his groin into his shoulder in order to repair it, and the industry worried at the time that the injury threatened his career. His stuff is back and Ferrell is at least a big league ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man.
5. Detroit Tigers Reed Garrett, RHP (from Rangers)
Garrett’s velo spiked when he moved to the bullpen in 2017 and he now sits in the mid-90s, touches 99 and has two good breaking balls, including a curveball that has a plus-plus spin rate. He also has an average changeup. He’s a fair bet to carve out a bullpen role on a rebuilding Tigers team.
6. San Diego Padres
No Pick (full 40-man)
7. Cincinnati Reds Connor Joe, 3B (from Dodgers) – The Reds will be Joe’s fourth team in two years as he has been shuttled around from Pittsburgh (which drafted him) to Atlanta (for Sean Rodriguez) to the Dodgers (for cash) during that time. Now 26, Joe spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. He’s a swing changer who began lifting the ball more once he joined Los Angeles. Joe is limited on defense to first and third base, and he’s not very good at third. He has seen a little bit of time in the outfield corners and realistically projects as a four-corners bench bat who provides patience and newfound in-game pop.
8. Texas Rangers (Traded to Royals) Chris Ellis, RHP (from Cardinals)- Ellis, 26, spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. One could argue he has simply been lost amid St. Louis’ surfeit of upper-level pitching but his stuff — a low-90s sinker up to 94 and an average slider — did not compel us to include him in our Cardinals farm system write up. The Royals took Brad Keller, who has a similar kind of repertoire but better pure stuff, and got more out of him than I anticipated, so perhaps that will happen with Ellis.
9. San Francisco Giants Travis Bergen, LHP (from Blue Jays)- Bergen looked like a lefty specialist in college but the Blue Jays have normalized the way he strides toward home, and his delivery has become more platoon-neutral in pro ball. He has a fringy, low-90s fastball but has two good secondaries in his upper-70s curveball and tumbling mid-80s change. So long as he pitches heavily off of those two offerings, he could lock down a bullpen role.
10. Toronto Blue Jays Elvis Luciano, RHP (from Royals)- Luciano turns 19 in February and was the youngest player selected in the Rule 5 by a pretty wide margin. He was acquired by Kansas City in the trade that sent Jon Jay to Arizona. Though he’ll touch 96, Luciano’s fastball sits in the 90-94 range and he has scattershot command of it, especially late in starts. His frame is less projectable than the typical teenager so there may not be much more velo coming as he ages, but he has arm strength and an above-average breaking ball, so there’s a chance he makes the Jays roster in a relief role. He has no. 4 starter upside if his below-average changeup and command progress. If he makes the opening day roster, he’ll be the first player born in the 2000s to play in the big leagues.
11. New York Mets Kyle Dowdy, RHP (from Indians)
Dowdy’s nomadic college career took him from Hawaii to Orange Coast College and finally to Houston, where he redshirted for a year due to injury. He was drafted by Detroit and then included as a throw-in in the Leonys Martin trade to Cleveland. He’s a reliever with a four-pitch mix headlined by an above-average curveball that pairs pretty well with a fastball that lives in the top part of the strike zone but doesn’t really spin. He also has a mid-80s slider and changeup that are fringy and exist to give hitters a little different look. He could stick in the Mets bullpen.
12. Minnesota Twins
No Pick (full 40-man)
13. Philadelphia Phillies (Traded to Orioles) Drew Jackson, SS (from Dodgers)- Jackson is a plus runner with a plus-plus arm and average defensive hands and actions at shortstop. He’s not a great hitter but the Dodgers were at least able to cleanse Jackson of the Stanford swing and incorporate more lift into his cut. He had a 55% ground ball rate with Seattle in 2016 but that mark was 40% with Los Angeles last year. He also started seeing reps in center field last season. He projects as a multi-positional utility man.
14. Los Angeles Angels
No Pick (team passed)
15. Arizona Diamondbacks Nick Green, RHP (from Yankees)- Green has the highest present ranking on The Board as a 45 FV, and we think he’s a near-ready backend starter. Arizona lacks pitching depth, so Green has a pretty solid chance to make the club out of spring training. He induces a lot of ground balls (65% GB% in 2018) with a low-90s sinker and also has a plus curveball.
16. Washington Nationals
No Pick (team passed)
17. Pittsburgh Pirates
No Pick (team passed)
18. St. Louis Cardinals
No Pick (full 40-man)
19. Seattle Mariners Brandon Brennan, RHP (from Rockies)- Brennan is a 27-year-old reliever with a mid-90s sinker that will touch 97. He has an average slider that relies heavily on it’s velocity more than movement to be effective. The real bat-misser here is the changeup, which has more than 10 mph of separation from Brennan’s fastball and dying fade.
20. Atlanta Braves
No Pick (team passed)
21. Tampa Bay Rays
No Pick (full 40-man)
22. Colorado Rockies
No Pick (team passed)
23. Cleveland Indians
No Pick (team passed)
24. Los Angeles Dodgers
No Pick (full 40-man)
25. Chicago Cubs
No Pick (team passed)
26. Milwaukee Brewers
No Pick (team passed)
27. Oakland Athletics
No Pick (team passed)
28. New York Yankees
No Pick (full 40-man)
29. Houston Astros
No Pick (team passed)
30. Boston Red Sox
No Pick (team passed)
Second Round
San Francisco Giants Drew Ferguson, OF- Ferguson is a hitterish tweener outfielder with a good combination of bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline. He has a very short, compact stroke that enables him to punch lines drives to his pull side and he’s tough to beat with velocity. Ferguson doesn’t really run well enough to play center field and lacks the power for a corner, so his likely ceiling is that of a bench outfielder.
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