2014 MLB Post-Draft Discussion Thread

I agree here.  I'd love to land Peterson, Matijevic, Kemp and Pennington.  Fisher seems plausible.  I don't see the budget for Kendall either.  Problem of course with Peterson is he comes at the expense of at least one of Whitson or Beeks and at least one other mid level sign.  Guess it depends on how you feel about those two as potential starters.  Unless there is a Stankiewicz situation where they find some existing medicals that helps to drive down the bonus on one of the top 4 rounders to free up funds.  I can see Peterson going to Oregon and being a late 1st / mid 2nd rounder in three or four years.  He essentially wasn't able to show himself at full health all season even though he got back on the mound late in the season.  Given a full healthy senior season he could have pushed himself into the 2nd round this draft year.

Brilliant. And, in fact, I was able to nail down the rankings for most guys by Google.

251-300 Case Rolen (!)

317 Ian Rice
320 Ben Moore
364 Jalen Beeks
389 Mike Gretler
398 Trenton Kemp

451-500 Luis Alvarado
451-500 Tyler Hill

unranked Josh Pennington

Hill has a commitment to Wilmington University (Div II school). Should be signable.

I wonder whether they might be able to get Kopech for a bit under slot. Kiley McDaniel was the only guy who had him ranked as high as 33 (at 31), with BA 37, PG 48, MLB 41, KLaw 40, and Garrioch 55.

His slot value is $1,678,000, and based on his reported eagerness to sign and those rankings, maybe he can be had for $1,400,000 or even $1,350,000 (slot values of the weighted median and mean projections, respectively).  If so, that $300,000 or so would come in very handy in trying to sign, say, Peterson.

This falls under total rumor. But, it's from a pretty good friend. Kind of might apply in relation to how much money Kopech is asking for. We had a local kid from Bloomsburg, Pa. Colton Hock. He was committed to Stanford and a very bright kid from a well to do family. Told everyone he was going to college. Heard Baltimore spoke to him about their top pick and offered him 1.3m and he turned it down. 2m was their asking price. I haven't seen him on any Top 100 lists.

That's a lot of work Eric! Thank you!

This is also sounds like a good sign. Would assume there is some common ground or agreement in principle based on this unless he got that direction from his agent.


"Ortiz chose not to play to avoid the risk of getting hurt, he said. Gatewood was told by the Brewers to not play. Trenton Kemp, who went to the Boston Red Sox in the 15th round, also was told not to play."

Read more here: www.fresnobee.com/2014/06/08/3968377/a-light-sendoff.html#storylink=cpy

Not that it was a question of him signing but from his Twitter picture it seems like Kopech wants to get a deal done..
twitter.com/MichaelKopech5

These numbers are for how many players they drafted, not how many of those they signed.

I have no gut feel or years of history, but I do have my spreadsheet of where folks were ranked by everyone, and that gives me a sense of which of your projections are, technically speaking, inconsistent. Of course, where your projections are inconsistent, that's where you're using your gut! So I'm going to give some alternate numbers based on this dumb objective evidence. It will be really interesting to see if any of those prove to be nearer to the mark.

6 Danny Mars $150,000

I think this may be a little low, based on where he was ranked. He was definitely popped early in order to save some slot money (off of $211,800), but based on your other guesses and his rankings, I'd say $160,000.

8 Ben Moore $50,000

I don't see him coming this cheap. He was ranked as a possible 10th round pick, more or less. The slot is $157,200, and I could see him getting as much as $125,000, but (Edit) factoring in that he's a lifelong Red Sox fan, let's guess $100,000.

11 Karsten Whitson $350,000 ($250,000 towards cap)

Whitson, Beeks, and Shepherd, as I understand it, all fell because of health concerns. Now, many guys who would be 7-10 round picks are not getting drafted there because teams are going after seniors and other guys who will sign for below slot, in order to draft above-slot guys after round 10. Whitson was projected as a late 7th round pick, which makes sense, but this dollar projection is early 5th round money. I don't see where that's coming from, and $190,000 would be consistent with your Shepherd projection.

12 Jalen Beeks $400,000 ($300,000 towards cap)

And this seems like it should be $185,000. Your number would be consistent with BA's ranking and a late 4th round selection, but others rankers were much more concerned about his injury, and ditto for teams apparently.

15 Trenton Kemp $250,000 ($150,000 towards cap)

Your next three projections, Fisher, Rice, and Matijevic, are nicely consistent with each other and the player rankings. This one is high, and seems like it ought to be $175,000.

29 Josh Pennington $150,000 ($50,000 towards cap)

Given his eagerness to sign and his rankings, I think he ought to be signable for $100K.

After 10th round, possible $100k or less signs (count $0 towards cap, about 8-12 of these players will sign)
33 Luis Alvarado

I'm not sure why you included him in this group and excluded Rolen and Gretler, figuring all three were ranked and drafted similarly.

Now, if I'm right to any extent, there should be money to pop either Peterson, or one or more of Rolen, Alvarado, and Gretler.

However, it's also possible that I'm right about Kemp being less relative to Fisher, Rice, and Matijevic, but all four of them going for more than my Kemp plus your projection for the other three. In the same way, it's also possible that you're right about Whitson and Beeks and have under-projected Shepherd. All I can do for certain with this little exercise is spot where two projections are inconsistent with their prospective rankings. The baseline is much more of a guess.