Draft Updates
The 4th round just kicked off, and draft will go through round 30 today. I’ll update the picks as I have time here, with limited commentary on the guys I know a little bit about.
4th round – James Jones, OF/LHP
He’s a two way kid from New York who had been up to 94 off the mound but with no secondary stuff to write home about, so the M’s intend to use him as a position player. At 6’4 and with serious athleticism, there’s a lot of upside if the bat develops. You’ll hear comparisons to Mike Cameron and Adam Jones because he’s black and a good athlete, but those are obviously long shot best case scenarios, or he’d have gone about 100 picks higher than this. As another lefty bat with upside, it seems clear that the M’s know what they want to build around long term. For everyone who wasn’t happy with the lower upside picks yesterday, you should like this one.
5th round – Tyler Blandford, RHP
The M’s finally take a pitcher, and here’s a shock – it’s a hard thrower with no idea where the ball is going. If you like the guys in the bullpen right now, you’ll love Blandford. He’s 93-96 with a fastball, and he also throws a slider and change-up, but his command is a 15 on the 20-80 scale. Not surprisingly, he’s projected as a reliever long term, since he just doesn’t throw enough strikes to be a starting pitcher. Maybe the M’s can make a mechanical tweak and get him fixed, but probably not – he’s another higher upside guy with boom or bust potential, though.
6th round – Shaver Hansen, 3B
If you weren’t convinced that the M’s wanted guys who could swing the stick from the left side yet, they’ve added another one with the switch hitting Hansen. He played SS in college, but no one thought he could stick there, and the M’s announced him as a third baseman. He had a good year offensively, showing added power, but there are questions about how well he’ll hit with wood. He doesn’t have great footwork or athleticism, either, so he might not be a good defensive third baseman, even with the SS pedigree. Probably a utility infielder type in the majors if he gets there.
7th round – Brian Moran, LHP
I think the M’s like UNC’s baseball team this year. First Ackley, then Seager, now Moran. Moran has underwhelming stuff, throwing 85-89 with his fastball, but his delivery gives him some deception and allows him to get college hitters out. His secondary stuff isn’t great, and he’ll need to improve his breaking ball to fit into a LH relief role long term. But he’s probably not a major league pitcher, despite dominating NCAA hitters (his FIP was #2 in the country behind some guy named Strasburg).
8th round – Jimmy Gillheeney, LHP
The M’s take another kid from the state of North Carolina, drafting NC State’s best pitcher. He’s a pitchability lefty with a good change-up that will have to become a great one, because his fastball is well below average, ranging from 83-89. Jason Vargas is his upside.
9th round – Trevor Coleman, C
Switch-hitting catcher who had a terrible junior year, causing him to fall. He was pretty good in the Cape Cod League last summer, and the M’s will be hoping he can get back to that level. He should be able to stick behind the plate and offers some offensive upside. This is a nice pick in the 9th round.
10th round – Vincent Catricala, 3B
A third baseman who might end up in the outfield, he’s shown power and the ability to hit a fastball, but has struggled with off-speed stuff. But, hey, he’s a right-handed bat, so that’s different.
That’ll do it for me. I’ve got stuff to do, and the 11th+ round picks are extreme longshots to make the majors. Overall, though, I think the M’s did a nice job in rounds 1-10. Be happy.
Sounds a lot like the kid the Yankees took in the first round, though obviously he’s older.
Just drafted Shaver Hansen 6′ 190 Jr from Baylor.
I should say, Jones reminds me of the Yankees’ pick, just to be clear.
Random announcement before round 8 pick…
Dave, would a post on the value of switch-hitters be of value to the USSMariner followers? What is the relative value of two similarly skilled offensive and defensive players, except one bats right-handed, one left-handed, and one switch?
I wonder if Moran could potentially be Moyer-esque…
What’s the difference between Jones and the high school pure athletes taken in the first round? Less baseball skills or less tools?
I wonder if Gillheeney coud potentially be Moyer-esque…
It must be almost impossible to be Moyer-esque, because so far only Moyer has done it. In fact I think Moyer may be just as much a physical freak as, say, Randy Johnson; it just wasn’t obvious and Moyer himself didn’t figure it out until well into his career.
These North Carolina connections are too obvious–Dave, are you making this stuff up, or have you figured out how to personally commandeer the draft?
Wish the M’s would’ve selected more upside guys, but oh well. I expect the team to dip into the war chest and make some splashes in the international market next month.
Thanks for all the hard work that you’ve done with the draft and on the site.
What’s the difference between Jones and the high school pure athletes taken in the first round? Less baseball skills or less tools?
Less(er) tools, lower potential of reaching ceiling, more risk and weaknesses…
Drafting on athletic ability alone is very risky; most don’t have the kind of underlying fundamentals that lend to definitive projectability.
Brian Moran, Brian Moran, I knew that name sounded familiar – now I’ve got it, he just lost in the Democratic primary for governor of Virginia. Good thing he’s got a fallback career option.
so today we have only taken 2 right handed bats, so the plan is definitely get as many left handed hitters up in the majors as possible
So is this draft a good representation of the organizational philosophy? Draft hitters and sign pitchers as free agents? I’m thinking about the pitchers we have in the minor leagues and I’m not seeing anyone that can fill the rotation over the next couple of years.
Or is this just a case of drafting talented players, regardless of postion, rather than drafting for need?
I do like the players we’ve picked so far. Especially since I am a huge Tar Heels fan.
I’m not Dave, but this seems like an impossible question to answer in the abstract. The answer will depend on position (unlikely to have lefty gloves at 3B or SS, for example), how well the switch-hitter hits from each side (most switch-hitters are better from one side or the other), how your roster is currently constructed (might need a lefty to balance out a right-heavy lineup, for example), etc.
Well, it appears the plan is to get as many LH bats into the system as possible to correct the imbalance and build for Safeco. That should ensure you’ll have more LH bats in the majors eventually, but of course there’s no guarantee. The LH bats that we’ll see added to the major league roster in the near future are in Tacoma or on other clubs; they aren’t these guys.
How many FA pitchers have they actually signed so far? There are other ways to acquire arms (ie, trades). That’s what Oakland has been doing, for instance.
And this is just one draft. They’re plugging holes in the system and fixing what they inherited, not starting with a clean slate and an inflexible overarching philosophy.
Still haven’t found the recording of the Zduriencik post-game interview, but if you read the notes Drayer posted (that I linked earlier) he essentially answers that. From Drayer:
Thanks for that. I like the philosophy of the front office if this is how it’s going to be from here on out. A lot of teams in all the sports draft for need and wind up with busts.
If the Mariners farm system starts to resemble the Brewers I will be happy. You can’t complain with the results they have been seeing the past few years.
I second that. I understand the above concern, but I would love to read more about that subject.
I believe in Zduriencik more than I believe in the “reactionaries” who are raging and quitting baseball because Zduriencik has not drafted any of the 1st round pitchers. On the PI site yesterday people were going crazy.
Go Z and pick these hard working sound ballplayers. No Yuni’s in this draft or on this club anymore.
Having good sound ballplayers who know how to get on base, who can move over runners, who can drive in runs, who are good contact hitters,who have goos speed, and who play good defense are the way to go and are Zduriencik’s way apparently
For what it’s worth, I’ve read more than one article from SABR types stating that many switch-hitters shouldn’t. If I’m not mistaken, switch-hitters often have larger platoon differentials than single-handed hitters.
It takes a heck of a lot of work to maintain & develop one swing, much less two. Add in that the second swing you’re trying to maintain feels less natural than the dominant swing…
That’s different than addressing your question of the relative value of equally-good hitters who switch, bat LH, or bat RH. I would suspect equally-good switch-hitter prospects are less likely to make it.
This is a local draft question…why would the Angels spend a 10th round pick on Jake Locker who is highly unlikely to play baseball? Are 10th round picks worth that little or is there some way they can sign him and hope he plays 5 years from now?
In truth, there really isn’t that many upside guys in any major sport. Think about it. There are MLB roster spots for 750 players. About half are pitchers. That leaves 375 position players on the whole planet. Of those 375, how many of are premier players? 10% 25% I’d hate to be a scout, they are looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
BLYKMYK44: As unlikely as it is, Locker can sign a “future” contract and continue to play for UW as long as he does so without hiring an agent.
I have a question regarding our compensation for Raul Ibanez. So, we got the Phillies 1st round pick, which we used on a SS, and a compensatory pick which we used on a backup C.
Let’s say that both of those don’t have some disaster befall them and make it to the majors at about their projected talent level – how many wins, realistically, do we think we’re getting from them?
Does that number go up if we give our ability to sign Akley or our 2nd round pick to the fact that both of these guys were signable?
Here’s why I ask: the team this year has taken major steps forward over last year’s team – both in terms of defense, management, and to a lesser extent starting pitching. We know (or can reasonibly guess, based on how he’s handled Griffey) that Wak wouldn’t use Ibanez in left field, but would DH him as he ought to have been.
Given the incredibly poor performance we’ve gotten from DH, and our need for power in the lineup, we could have used Ibanez this year.
If he had been used as a DH, how many wins would we have gotten from him, and where would that have placed us in the AL West race? If we’re a true-talent .500 team as we are (or just bellow that), do we become legit division contenders with a real DH?
Finally, putting it all together: are the wins we may have recieved from Ibanez outweighed by the wins we hope to get from these 2 picks? In other words: if we imagine that we had just traded Ibanez to the Phillies for these two guys, did we “win” in that trade, or lose?
Thanks!
*Ackley (oops)
Ok, they finally put the interview up. It’s in the first hour’s podcast (direct link to the MP3). If you don’t want to listen to a bunch of intro stuff and nattering about Salk’s wife and the Huskies and Seahawks, jump ahead to 7:20 when they replay the Zduriencik interview.
Zduriencik sure knows more about this stuff than I ever will, but I have to question the comment about the value of the 25th-best pitcher vs. the 5th-best 1B.
In short, it’s dumb.
Sure, you’ve eventually got to have better players relative to the other AL teams, so maybe if there were a finite player pool that would make sense. But even having the “best” prep SS available this year, for example, doesn’t mean you’ve got a MLB-quality SS, while in a stacked year for pitching, the 25th-best pitcher prospect might be Cy Young quality down the road.
Maybe the most telling comment is that they took they best players that “want to sign.” In other words, they went cheap a little bit. That’s fine, but disappointing to me. If part of the point of this site is discussing organizational philosophy rather than just debating the actions within that philosophy, this seems a good time to wonder why allocating more dollars to the draft isn’t a good idea.
The draft could have been Ackley-Brothers-Paxton-Poythress-Myers/Stassi, and all it would have taken is money. Not prospects, not Bedard, just money. And then in four years you don’t have to worry about the money that you spent on the draft that now isn’t available for Silva or Washburn, because you’ve got great young pitching under club control for several more years. And then it’s lather, rinse repeat. Take the best players, pay them.
Ibanez was offered arbitration and declined the offer. According to Fangraphs he was worth $24.6 million combined over his age 34, 35, and 36 seasons. Would you have signed him to a 3-year, $31.5 million contract? I think the question is, would you rather have a late first-round pick, a supplemental round pick, and $31.5 million, or Raul Ibanez?
I don’t think there’s any question that the M’s could use Ibanez this year. Problem is, to get his 2009 season they would have also had to acquire his 2010 and 2011 seasons. You also have to conside the opportunity cost of his $10 million/year salary.
It’s probably more accurate to say that the M’s traded Ibanez + $10 million/year + a three year slot on the 25 man roster for the two draftees. That is a much murkier calculation than Ibanez for two draftees.
Ibanez is a lefty. Had they kept him to DH, are you assuming they would not have signed Griffey (and whatever bump in mindshare / attendance went along with that)?
I’ll let someone else attempt win projections for those drafted players. Ibanez has put up crazy numbers so far this year — he’s at 3.5 Wins Above Replacement already this year, and has more than earned his salary. Now, he probably wouldn’t be showing quite those numbers in Seattle: he’s got a different lineup around him, he’s facing NL pitching in a hitter-friendly home ballpark, and his range isn’t hurting his defensive value as much as we know it did in Safeco (I’m aware that WAR uses UZR which is supposed to be park-adjusted, but I’m a skeptic on that point). And as a DH he wouldn’t get the benefit of the positional adjustment (or his defense, whwtever it might be). But just assuming the numbers came straight across, the M’s record would be maybe 31-28, still a couple of games behind Texas. Better, yes, but not running away with the division.
Now, it’s very possible that those two picks together aren’t going to equal what Ibanez has put up so far this year (of course as I said it’s also possible he might not have equaled that in Seattle either). But the M’s get those drafted guys for more than the three years the Phillies have signed Ibanez, and they are youthful years. Ibanez is going to be 39 in the last year of his contract. Will he be this valuable next year, or the year after? Will he even be this valuable for the rest of this season? What’s the total value of those two picks over their lifetime in M’s uniforms, vs Ibanez at ages 37, 38, and 39? Not to mention those guys are also available to trade without restriction, whereas Ibanez as a 5-and-10 player would not be. They may end up in a trade that brings back something valuable. Meanwhile, they’re cheap.
And keeping Ibanez would definitely not have been cheap. He’s on a 3 year, $31.5M deal. There’s no reason to think he would’ve stayed in Seattle for less. Given the salary constraints the FO is operating under, they likely would’ve had to move somebody else (Washburn, maybe?) in the offseason. How much better would the team be with Ibanez but without some other key piece? (Take away Washburn, for example, you’ve just given back a couple of those wins). And how much better off would the team be in ’10 and ’11 when they can’t make an offer to a player because of salary tied up in Ibanez?
Really, we won’t be able to figure out the value of the picks vs Ibanez until we see how the next three years turn out. Or more. One of those picks could surprise everyone and turn into the gem of this year’s draft, or get included in a key trade that nets the M’s the next Santana or Pujols. Or they could never make it to the big leagues at all. Ibanez could continue to defy the perils of age, or he could fall off a cliff. But Ibanez was only getting older, he was going to be expensive, and the team seemed unlikely to contend this year. For a new front office trying to rebuild a team, getting younger and cheaper seems like the right choice.
And that’s probably the key thing to consider: whatever wins those draft picks contribute are probably 2 or 3 years in the future. So by keeping Ibanez you’re taking present wins at the expense of future wins. Unless you think Ibanez was enough to push the team into contention (and remember we didn’t know just how weak the AL West would be) that’s probably not a good bargain.
Maybe the most telling comment is that they took they best players that “want to sign.†In other words, they went cheap a little bit.
A little bit. To be fair to Zduriencik, he prefaces that by saying
So while clearly going hugely over slot (or simply paying what Boras demands) is a factor, it’s not the only one. It doesn’t help you to blow a draft pick on a guy who decides he wants to go to culinary school, either.
Obviously, they’re going to be paying Ackley what he wants so they were willing to spend. They just weren’t willing to do so all the way down the line. We don’t know what toeing Selig’s line on slots gets them, but they must think it’s something. And meanwhile, the ownership clearly has a budget ceiling here just like they did for the M’s salary as a whole. And to their credit they’ve been spending more on international scouting, so who’s to say that doesn’t end up being a better use of their talent acquisition dollars anyway? There’s baseball talent in the world outside the amateurs in the US and Canada.
Obviously, the international pool and the budget there is a big part of it.
It just seems weird that teams wouldn’t maximize their draft return. It’s the one chance they get to have sort of captive consumers. Sure, the players have the option of not signing, but we clearly have more leverage in the US draft than we would presumably have for MLB free agents and international signings, where we have to compete against 31 other teams. Here, it’s either sign with the M’s or go back to college and hope you get more next year, and that’s it. Obviously you can’t take guys if their demands exceed their value, but the idea of limiting your budget even for guys whose demands are in line with their value just because your total overall budget would be exceeded seems weird.
IOW, if you decide that Ackley’s worth $7 million and will take $6MM, that Brothers is worth $5MM and will take $4MM, and that Paxton is worth $5MM and will take $4MM, it seems weird not to draft ‘em all and pay the $14MM, as opposed to saying “We know those guys are worth the money, but we just don’t want a draft budget of more than $14MM.”
Again, sure, if you can get guys that good internationally for half the price or less, take the better value, but there you are competing in an open market, so in theory the costs should be similar.
Joser,
Yes – factoring in salary considerations and the last two years of his contract makes this seem a lot better.
What prompted my question was thinking to myself, now, in effect, we traded Ibanez to Philli for Franklin and Baron. That includes Ibanez salary and likely decline, but also includes (as you said) sacrificing known wins now for potential (though likely) wins later. Since that’s where we want wins (as this team is not going anywhere fast), that seems like an ok idea.
But just thinking about as a headline: “M’s trade Ibanez for Franklin and Baron” – those two talents don’t seem to measure up to Ibanez’s worth as a dh.
It’s much too much brain-thinky-ness for me to try and make a case for that; and given the other factors involved (i.e. rebuilding, free-ing up salary, etc) it probably IS best. I just thought it would be intriguing to speculate, now that we know WHAT we got for Ibanez, if (in hindsight) we’d make the same deal.
In short: would we want to trade Ibanez today for those Franklin and Baron (with the Phillies taking all 3 years and all of Ibanez’s salary)?
But that’s not the way it works. They’e “compensatory” picks in name only. If Phillie had taken another Type A free agent first those picks would’ve gone to that player’s former team and the M’s would’ve got even less “in return” for Ibanez. At least the M’s get something. In other words it would be easy to imagine a world where the headline was “M’s trade Ibanez for literally nothing at all”
Ibanez wasn’t going to DH.
And if the choice is Ibanez playing LF in Safeco, with a contract that has a pretty good chance of being an albatross in years 2-3; or Franklin and Baron, cheap and under club control for several years? I’ll take the latter, every time.
I’m not super happy with the Baron pick myself, but those of you who are casting him as Bloomquist 2.0 are selling him pretty short. He was a SLIGHT reach according to everyone I’ve talked to, and he’s no Bloomquist.
I might be wrong on this, but assuming that some team would have signed Ibanez, we’d have gotten compensatory picks from that team, no?
It may be simplistic, but essentially, by letting Ibanez go, we freed up 3 years of the salary he’d have recieved and got Franklin and Baron in return. There may have been another scenario that was possible, but that’s the scenario that played out.
I’m just asking if we think that tradeoff is worth it. I’m not saying it isn’t, or that it is. I just think its a fun question.
I believe it’s Franklin who was being described as Bloomquist 2.0, not Baron.
do you realize questioning letting Ibanez sign somewhere as a FA and getting picks from it is like saying as an Orioles fan last year “was trading Bedard who is a sure thing Major League pitcher for a young outfielder and a reliever who possibly can close worth it to are 08 team?” An 09 Mariners team with Ibanez is still a team trying to start over and get rid of all it’s aging talent + Ibanez new 3 year deal.
I’m not questioning your baseball knowledge, and i wouldnt expect any O’s fan to dislike the Bedard trade, but whether Ibanez helps or hurts the 09 Mariners, letting him walk was the right decision, and getting two picks out of it was just rewarding the team for doing so.
Bedard’s deal was much much much more lopsided than this though. That’s apples and oranges. Jones was major league ready, as was Sherril. They got in those two alone (let alone other prospects) enough value to outweigh Bedard.
Personally, if we don’t get the compensatory picks, I don’t think we let Ibanez walk. We aren’t exactly crawling with guys whom we should be giving a shot at DH (so Ibanez wouldn’t be holding folks back – excepting Shelton or Clement). If we don’t get the compensatory picks, Ibanez becomes a trade this year. If that were the case, and the offer came down the pipe for these two guys (Franklin and Baron), I honestly think I don’t pull the trigger as a GM. I wait for a better offer from someone else.
It just seems that, in hindsight, we could have either A) gotten more wins out of Ibanez at DH this season (and contended slightly more seriously) or, more likely, B) gotten a bigger haul for Ibanez’s talent as a bat, once the liability of his glove was no longer an issue.
If I remember Dave’s post from last year on the subject of letting Ibanez walk, the cornerstone of the argument was the value we’d recieve in the compensatory picks – not the salary issue.
Basically, what is the point in letting a guy walk whom you could sign (and then trade), if the compensatory picks you get in return aren’t used to aquire equal value to what you could have traded him for? It’s an opportunity cost, albeit in hindsight.
What better offer do you think you’re going to get for a 37 year old DH, exactly?
Wait a second…
So instead of using the compensatory picks on “Franklin and Baron” (Which is not a good way of looking at it to begin with) we should’ve instead signed Ibanez to a PLUS 3 year/$31.5 and then spend the next two or three years to try and trade him?
The team received two extra picks in the draft for offering Raul arbitration. The two picks were used to bloster our chances for a good draft (and not simply to draft Franklin and Baron). That’s valuable.
A) Yes indeed. We certainly could’ve gotten more wins with Ibanez at DH. This is absolutely correct.
That’s why Zduriencik offered him arbitration.
If Raul accepted, he’d be here on a 1-year deal in which he could’ve done exactly that.
The problem is if we wanted to keep Raul at all cost Zduriencik would’ve had to make a better deal than the Phillies gave him which, given that the market crashed for these types of players shortly after signing, would’ve put this team in a world of hurt as far as financial flexibility. Which leads me to:
B) Getting a bigger haul for Ibanez….hmmm…sounds like the best we were going to get for him last year from the Blue Jays was David Purcey and Brandon League (and it was noted that it wasn’t even going to be that much). In a vacuum, those two players would’ve added about a half a win to the 2009 team.
Now if that’s the best we can get for Ibanez with only a portion of the $5.5 million remaining how much can we possibly expect in return if the other team is expected to handle most of the 3 years/$35 Million-ish contract? You’d be lucky to get a salary dump out of it. And lets not forget once again, the market for these types of hitters crashed over the offseason. Teams aren’t exactly crazy about spending money.
I don’t see how the two are comparable. The compensatory picks are more valuable 10 times over, even if they end up somehow not helping. We avoided having to take a huge financial risk on an aging player during a time when we need to seriously retool the team.
First, thank you USSMariner for your draft coverage and for creating this wonderful site.
Jack Z’s radio comments (thanks joser) about securing the top draft picks are notable from an economic perspective (I think). One quote regarding draft strategy:
“None of it’s on the fly. There’s a lot of factors that tie into this. There’s players that demands are so high you can’t reach those demands. There’s players that choose to go to college and not sign. … You have to select the best players who want to sign.”
Setting talent attributes aside, it sounds like the M’s want guys who will commit immediately to the pro team. It also sounds like Z wants to take the $ uncertainty factor out of signing picks.
It’s worth recalling that this past FA off season saw a huge salary-market correction as the economy entered free-fall (Oct. to Feb.). So why then is the draft-bonus $ market suddenly booming? Because Strasburg raises the pay roof and the general economy is stabilizing – some call it a false bottom.
If draft player $ expectations meet another market correction (10% drop), signings could bust. Of course, so much depends on holdouts, the economy, the Strasburg contract, etc.
Maybe the Ms sign all of their new young players while other teams get bogged down in contract negotiations. I’d call that on time and under budget, my cousins in Atlanta would say: GIT_R_DONE.
Um, wouldn’t that leverage mean you can be more efficient in the draft and allocate fewer dollars there, as opposed to the international scene?
Sure, along with the desire to get them onto teams and playing quickly, we may well see that they’ve drafted players while avoiding those who’d demand major league contracts (which frankly I have no idea why anyone would want, player or team), giving the team more potential development time. It’d be a nice trick if they could turn it.
It’s funny that there is no clamoring about:
when that is blatantly more stereotypical than Yuni being lazy… not that I mind (I understand fully what was being said), I guess I’m just wondering where the cry for PC is here?
About the draft, I am definitely feeling good about the selections from what I have read so far and hopefully time will prove this draft out.
Well said.
Yes. That’s my point. In theory, the open market internationally should mean more competition, less value for the M’s. That’s why I’m saying we may be better off (at least in the short term) taking the BPA and ponying up more money in the US draft. It may be more efficient, but that doesn’t mean less money allocated; it depends on the players you are getting.
Fun fact, courtesy of mlb.com:
Fun Fact#2- Sixth-round pick Shaver Hansen’s father is retired pro wrestler Stan “The Lariat” Hansen- a legend on the Japanese ‘rasslin’ circuits.
I saw him “wrestle”, actually- he was a hoss, all right. But he was the kind of wrestler they call “stiff”- which meant that he used a bit too much force to ‘sell’ matches, and pro wrestlers hate actually getting hit that hard.
So, with any luck, we won’t be calling his son Shaver “Hands Of Stone” at third base….