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2015 Draft Discussion
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 17, 2014 19:38:01 GMT -5
What jmei said. If he lost his eligibility, it's not because of the settlement.
As for the "represented by an agent" thing, there's the whole advisor/agent story.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 23, 2014 10:40:05 GMT -5
Now this is interesting: But rules are rules. The Cubs and Red Sox have the chance to align their playoff ambitions with a prospect bonanza not yet seen. They’ll have their pick among the elite and after that, should the dominoes fall along the way, they can – and should – take full advantage.www.fangraphs.com/community/the-cubs-the-red-sox-and-a-blank-check/
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 23, 2014 11:11:38 GMT -5
Now this is interesting: But rules are rules. The Cubs and Red Sox have the chance to align their playoff ambitions with a prospect bonanza not yet seen. They’ll have their pick among the elite and after that, should the dominoes fall along the way, they can – and should – take full advantage.www.fangraphs.com/community/the-cubs-the-red-sox-and-a-blank-check/A) To say this is unprecedented is very wrong. See the 2013 Red Sox. B) At first blush, I disagree that this is a viable strategy. As we've seen, the draft now more-or-less falls the way it should. This isn't 2006 when Lars Anderson falls to the 18th round because his agent doesn't understand how baseball bonus slots work - if a guy falls out of the first round or two, it's because he's not signing beyond an ungodly, unnecessary expenditure. Sure, looking back, it'd be nice to have just given Alex Bregman or Carson Fulmer (or, it looks like, Ryan Boldt) whatever they wanted to sign (yes, this statement is in part because I'm bitter that UVA would've won the CWS this year if Fulmer signed, but I digress...). But for every one of them there's a Senquez Golson or (to a much lesser extent) Jamal Martin who wouldn't have been worth the money. I'm not sure, but I think this writer seems to imply that the Sox and Cubs would lose their first-rounder anyway through signing a free agent. Sure, but as we all know, if the first-rounder is gone because of draft penalties, then the team is losing its next pick. It's not clear to me that the person who wrote this fanpost realizes that. I think the only way this could work would be if you KNOW you can line up 3 or more of the Bregman/Fulmer/Boldt-level prospects in the late rounds of the same draft. And even then it might be too much of a crapshoot. Those kinds of players fall because there may not be an amount of money, period, that would convince them to sign (think Alex Meyer and Pedro Alvarez, who both turned down seven figures from the Sox to go to college). I think the post gets close to this, but I think this is a strategy you decide on day three of the draft whether or not to implement, and you'd better have scouted those players well and know exactly what it'll take to get them to sign.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 23, 2014 11:51:13 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure the writer realizes this but the situation here has a twist, not only do both teams have a protected pick near the top, both teams have the financial capabilities and more importantly the free agent crops over the next two years makes it worth considering churning your present contracts for prospects then signing a wealth of free agents to replace them. Also, neither team is likely to have a protected pick.
The draft money penalty for going over slot becomes exactly zero because the penalty doesn't slide to the second rounder like the free agent signing does.
If the Sox/Cubs target high school kids with leverage, they can promise whatever dollars they want to their agent/advisers which would make it incredibly difficult for other teams to compete and that could easily force slide downs as the "domino effect". In this scenario, the top two high school kids would slide to the Sox and Cubs because they would offer over slot, well over slot.
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Post by burythehammer on Dec 23, 2014 11:54:30 GMT -5
The draft money penalty for going over slot becomes exactly zero because the penalty doesn't slide to the second rounder like the free agent signing does. Is this true?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 23, 2014 12:16:03 GMT -5
Just to clarify something, if I'm interpreting what he's saying correctly here. I believe he's saying the actual penalty for overspending doesn't happen when you overspend, it happens as of the next draft. Therefore, when they sign a free agent, their first rounder would still be lost, not the second rounder because the drat signing penalty hasn't been imposed yet and the draft penalty specifically says first round pick not top pick. If they offered every second round high school talent first round money, they'd have one hell of a draft. The draft money penalty for going over slot becomes exactly zero because the penalty doesn't slide to the second rounder like the free agent signing does. Is this true? How do you interpret the article ?
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 23, 2014 12:20:41 GMT -5
I just can't see the league not stepping in on that and putting a stop to it.
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Post by azblue on Dec 23, 2014 12:45:13 GMT -5
The rules can be changed by collective bargaining, but MLB cannot "step on that and put a stop to it" just because it doesn't like a team taking advantage of the system.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 23, 2014 12:46:09 GMT -5
How ? void all the contracts ? How can you penalize teams that follow the rules ?
Did they penalize the Yankees for spending over $15m on IFA's ?
You can be pretty certain that the players union would love it, ultimately more money for players even if they aren't current union members.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 23, 2014 12:48:24 GMT -5
MLB also can't suspend Arod for a year, but they did.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 23, 2014 13:01:20 GMT -5
So you think MLB would go against the collective bargaining agreement ? I really don't see that anymore than them punishing the Yankees for going way overboard on IFA's, it's essentially the exact same scenario.
The Yankees spent about 600% of their pool.
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Post by sarasoxer on Dec 23, 2014 13:43:31 GMT -5
MLB also can't suspend Arod for a year, but they did. Gosh if that were the case how did the Players Association not prevent same? Memory is hazy but I believe that Arod was at least a two time loser (not counting the 2001 report where he was listed as violating the drug policy) and isn't there that pesky 'best interests of baseball clause' too? Regardless I think the conclusion was clearly based on adequate authority.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 23, 2014 14:08:32 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure the writer realizes this but the situation here has a twist, not only do both teams have a protected pick near the top, both teams have the financial capabilities and more importantly the free agent crops over the next two years makes it worth considering churning your present contracts for prospects then signing a wealth of free agents to replace them. Also, neither team is likely to have a protected pick. The draft money penalty for going over slot becomes exactly zero because the penalty doesn't slide to the second rounder like the free agent signing does. If the Sox/Cubs target high school kids with leverage, they can promise whatever dollars they want to their agent/advisers which would make it incredibly difficult for other teams to compete and that could easily force slide downs as the "domino effect". In this scenario, the top two high school kids would slide to the Sox and Cubs because they would offer over slot, well over slot. You lose picks for players you sign in the offseason in the following draft. You lose picks for going over the draft cap in the following draft. So, for example, in the 2015 draft, the Red Sox go way over slot and incur the max penalty, losing their next two first-round picks. In the 2015 offseason, if the Red Sox sign a QO free agent, they now lose their second-round pick (or any comp picks they'd get). The pick you lose from signing a QO is just your highest, non-protected pick, so the fact that the draft rules specify first/second round doesn't mean anything. For going over your draft cap, you lose the first rounder, and then you lose whatever picks come next for signing a QO free agent (like the Red Sox are this year - they have a protected first-rounder, so they're losing the second-rounder and the A's competitive balance pick). So to me, again, it has nothing to do with having a protected pick this year. It's if you can line up enough first-round talents on Day 3 that you know you can sign that it makes giving up a pick in the next two drafts worth it.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 23, 2014 14:17:31 GMT -5
MLB also can't suspend Arod for a year, but they did. Gosh if that were the case how did the Players Association not prevent same? Memory is hazy but I believe that Arod was at least a two time loser (not counting the 2001 report where he was listed as violating the drug policy) and isn't there that pesky 'best interests of baseball clause' too? Regardless I think the conclusion was clearly based on adequate authority. wouldn't "best interests of baseball" apply to teams singlehandedly ruining the entire draft by gaming the language that wasn't thought through completely?
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Post by jmei on Dec 23, 2014 14:18:45 GMT -5
Just to clarify something, if I'm interpreting what he's saying correctly here. I believe he's saying the actual penalty for overspending doesn't happen when you overspend, it happens as of the next draft. Therefore, when they sign a free agent, their first rounder would still be lost, not the second rounder because the drat signing penalty hasn't been imposed yet and the draft penalty specifically says first round pick not top pick. I don't think he's saying that at all (ADD: so I agree with Hatfield's analysis above). I think he's saying that if they plan on signing two QO free agents in the next two years anyways, the penalty for going overslot becomes effectively two second round picks, which might be low enough to make the overslot strategy worthwhile. They would still lose their first and second round picks in the 2016 and 2017 drafts. He clearly outlines this in his theoretical chronology. The problem is, you have to make a lot of assumptions for this concept to be true, most of which I think are shaky. Those assumptions include (a) you can make overslot picks this year that have more value (after taking into account their total $ cost, which includes tax payments on the overage) than your 2016 and 2017 second round picks, (b) you're going to sign at least one QO free agent in each of the next two years, (c) you're going to have a pick in the 20s in each of the next two years (as opposed to a higher-value earlier pick), and (d) the league acquiesces to this strategy. If any one of those assumptions is false, your strategy will have been a bad idea, and I think it's pretty unlikely that they're all going to be true.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 23, 2014 14:22:35 GMT -5
Yeah the biggest flaw, to me, is that there are enough players a team can go get in a given draft to make the strategy work. Like I said, the current CBA more or less made talent line up a lot more with draft slot, except for the guys who go way late now and never sign. But do they not sign because they fall and teams can't go over the cap for them, or do they fall because they won't sign? This assumes the latter, which I don't think is the case, and incorrectly assumes there are enough guys to make just going all-out worth it.
There's a reason that teams have determined that going over the IFA cap and suffering those penalties was worth it, but that no team has done so with the draft. Losing a first-round pick to acquire a present MLB talent is probably worth it. Doing so to sign three late-first-to-second-round-talent high-schoolers is way more of a gamble and probably isn't.
(It is indeed an interesting point of debate though. Thanks for posting, Ray.)
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Post by mgoetze on Dec 23, 2014 15:25:00 GMT -5
This "analysis" also ignores supplemental picks you might pick up by not resigning guys like Napoli.
I would be very uncomfortable going over the 15% overage because I find it quite impossible to predict what the free agent market will look like after 2016. Even the people talking about how "loaded" the 2015 free agent class is going to be fail to account for the fact that quite a few extensions are going to be signed between now and spring training. Is the difference between 5% overage and 15% overage worth it? Probably not, though it is at least fair to say that it is more likely to be so with the 7th pick than with the 27th.
I mean, just think of some of the overslot signings people have gotten excited about... Jon Denney comes to mind.
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Post by sarasoxer on Dec 23, 2014 15:57:47 GMT -5
Gosh if that were the case how did the Players Association not prevent same? Memory is hazy but I believe that Arod was at least a two time loser (not counting the 2001 report where he was listed as violating the drug policy) and isn't there that pesky 'best interests of baseball clause' too? Regardless I think the conclusion was clearly based on adequate authority. wouldn't "best interests of baseball" apply to teams singlehandedly ruining the entire draft by gaming the language that wasn't thought through completely? You have my permission to run this up the Commissioner's flagpole.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 24, 2014 6:16:24 GMT -5
To me, this is a case of either not doing it or doing it big, similar to the Yankees IFA approach. There's nothing to prevent a team from contacting several players and asking if they would sign for significantly over the amount his normal slot would have garnered. If, for example, you offered 10 players $1 million more than they normally would have gotten, you have effectively only spent a total of $10 million over the actual perceived value for all ten.
What's a kid going to say if the Sox offer $2m then later the Cards call and ask him if he'd sign for $1m ? Both the Cubs and Red Sox have a top 9 pick, they could easily call the top two prospects in the country and offer them significantly over 1-1 money.
Agreed that it assumes we aren't going to have a protected pick over the next two years and that we sign at least one free agent each of the next two. If played out to the max, that would make the penalty paltry, eerily similar to the our buddies down south and the IFA market.
Reread it, this paragraph is the gist:
In addition to forgoing the top 30 prospects, dwindling bonus pools severely damage teams’ ability to pay for any talent at all. By employing this strategy, Boston and Chicago can essentially punt drafts in which they might have expected to extract little value in the first place. In exchange, they take full reign to obtain as much talent as they wish in the coming draft – and the talent will be there. Even as restrictions pressure draftees to sign close to slot nevertheless talent falls due to signability, particularly when coming from high school. In the scenario above, a team is looking at one 7-figure talent, maybe two if slots can be shifted. Compare that to what they might obtain with 40 limit free selections.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 24, 2014 7:33:34 GMT -5
Yup, I understood all that. Still feel the same.
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Post by jmei on Dec 24, 2014 7:39:46 GMT -5
You can't lock up guys in the draft the way you can in IFA, though. Other teams will call your bluff and draft someone even if he claims he won't sign below X, and that HSer will either have to take what the team is offering them or go to school. I mean, have you heard of even a single case of this kind of thing where a team (other than with the no. 1 overall pick) "locks up" a player in the draft the way you see in IFA?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 24, 2014 7:51:12 GMT -5
You can't lock up guys in the draft the way you can in IFA, though. Other teams will call your bluff and draft someone even if he claims he won't sign below X, and that HSer will either have to take what the team is offering them or go to school. I mean, have you heard of even a single case of this kind of thing where a team (other than with the no. 1 overall pick) "locks up" a player in the draft the way you see in IFA? See for example Jon Denney, who had a deal with the Royals lined up before the Sox took him. Now that I think about it, I wonder if he was bitter about that...
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 24, 2014 8:16:43 GMT -5
You can't lock up guys in the draft the way you can in IFA, though. Other teams will call your bluff and draft someone even if he claims he won't sign below X, and that HSer will either have to take what the team is offering them or go to school. I mean, have you heard of even a single case of this kind of thing where a team (other than with the no. 1 overall pick) "locks up" a player in the draft the way you see in IFA? We don't know either way because as of yet, no team has exceeded the draft allotment.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 24, 2014 8:29:11 GMT -5
You can't lock up guys in the draft the way you can in IFA, though. Other teams will call your bluff and draft someone even if he claims he won't sign below X, and that HSer will either have to take what the team is offering them or go to school. I mean, have you heard of even a single case of this kind of thing where a team (other than with the no. 1 overall pick) "locks up" a player in the draft the way you see in IFA? We don't know either way because as of yet, no team has exceeded the draft allotment. Ray, his point is that it's not likely enough that there aren't enough "tough-sign" guys to go around so that a team will be able to draft enough of them to even make it worth trying, which is part of my point. Seriously, there are very few talents that would make this strategy worth it that fall and would sign anymore. It's not like IFA where you can just bundle up as many top talents as possible. The closest thing we've seen is probably the Astros in the Correa-McCullers-Ruiz draft, so maybe if they're going to go over the cap they draft Buxton instead of Correa, but would there have been more guys available to them who would've signed? Not sure there were.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 24, 2014 8:41:11 GMT -5
I understand what you are saying except that such a strategy wouldn't be limited to tough signs, and that was the author's point. Yes, some would sign elsewhere anyways and yes some teams would call the bluff but I can't see the majority of teams risking it when the general status quo is to take guys you are sure you can sign to a number that fits within your game plan. That's particularly true for the third through 10th rounds where you don't get another pick the following year. So for the early round talents you can cubbyhole, they are likely to be there for a while particularly since slot money decreases.
ADD:
In any study I've ever seen, the first round actual value far exceeds the average slot amount. Let's say conservatively that a first round pick is worth $5m. If the Sox got a first rounder in the seventh round for just a million over slot, they are financially ahead. It wouldn't have to be limited to tough signs. If a player was estimated to go in a slot with $1.5m attached and the Sox offered $2.5m, they are still ahead and that offer makes the player a tough sign for that slot.
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