|
|
Post by ramireja on Aug 23, 2021 13:35:22 GMT -5
I don't think we'll reach 149 pages for next year's draft, but we definitely won't if we don't get started on this right away.  . First post is a mock draft (already a month old?) from the gang over at Prospects Live: 1. Elijah Green - OF - HS (FL) 2. Carter Young - SS - Vanderbilt 3. Brooks Lee - SS - Cal Poly 4. Kevin Parada - C - Georgia Tech 5. Brock Porter - RHP - HS (MI) 6. Dylan Lesko - RHP - HS (GA) 7. Jace Jung - 2B/3B - Texas Tech 8. Brock Jones - OF - Stanford 9. Druw Jones Jr. - OF - HS (GA) 10. Reggie Crawford - 1B/LHP - UConn |
|
|
|
Post by Addam603 on Aug 23, 2021 13:42:04 GMT -5
I like the point about a lot of good prep arms for next year. The extra money from the additional 2nd round pick could be very useful in getting a high value high school pitcher at the end of the 1st round.
|
|
|
|
Post by ramireja on Aug 23, 2021 13:43:32 GMT -5
Perfect Game All-American Class was yesterday with the East pitching a no-hit win against the West. Top RHP prospects Dylan Lesko and Brock Porter apparently looked the part. Here is a Prospects Live write-up (courtesy of Joe Doyle) on three additional prospects who stood out yesterday: Luke Heyman - C - FL: Hit game's only HR off of a 94 mph FB Nazier Mule - RHP - NJ: Sat 97-99, T100 Brandon Barriera - LHP - FL: Sat 92-94, T95 w/ heavy FB, advanced secondaries Check out Doyle's twitter thread for loads of good video including a nasty Brock Porter changeup, a sweeping Barriera slider, and Mule gas (yes, I realize what I did there). |
|
|
|
Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Aug 23, 2021 14:00:57 GMT -5
Looking back at the last three drafts - Chase Petty, Nick Bitsko, Daniel Espino. Three examples, one from each year, of a flashy high-octane type prep arm that typically pops up into the 20's. I could definitely see the Sox jump into the market for that type of player with their first rounder, or if the college bats really are deep go with a high-floor hitter and let one of the signability pitchers fall to their first second rounder. Love the flexibility having that extra pick adds, though.
|
|
|
|
Post by julyanmorley on Aug 23, 2021 14:05:24 GMT -5
Last year's bonus pool was 11.4 million. Right now they're #23 in the draft order, which would give a pool of about 6.5 million based on last year's slots. The Fabian pick adds 1.8 million, which they could lose by signing a free agent. ERod and Martinez are both candidates to bring home a compensation pick in the B round - somewhere around pick #70 and $1 million.
If they max out on picks they're looking at a roughlythe 10th biggest pool. Lose the Fabian pick, but get one back would put them about 20th.
|
|
|
|
Post by greatscottcooper on Aug 23, 2021 15:00:17 GMT -5
Maybe the Sox should draft 20 HS arms. Wait....I'm sorry.....That's stupid.....no one would ever draft all pitchers.
|
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Aug 23, 2021 15:06:52 GMT -5
Maybe the Sox should draft 20 HS arms. Wait....I'm sorry.....That's stupid.....no one would ever draft all pitchers. The Angels draft honestly felt like a question someone would send into a podcast or Q&A column that a distinguished writer would summarily dismiss as a dumb question. |
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 23, 2021 15:40:20 GMT -5
Maybe the Sox should draft 20 HS arms. Wait....I'm sorry.....That's stupid.....no one would ever draft all pitchers. The Angels draft honestly felt like a question someone would send into a podcast or Q&A column that a distinguished writer would summarily dismiss as a dumb question. Not to hijack next year's draft thread with talk of this year's draft, but it's relevant for the former - it does seem like this was a one-year aberration for a lot of teams based on the paucity of data from the lost 2020 season. A lot of teams have cut back significantly on their scouting departments and are relying more on a data-driven approach, and it's just easier to get that kind of data on pitchers, so the teams may have felt more comfortable making informed decisions on pitchers this year. It wasn't just the Angels too. LAD drafted 2 hitters in 19 picks. CLE drafted 2 in 21 picks. SF's first 9 picks were pitchers. TB used just 2 of their last 15 picks on hitters. Toronto used 10 of their first 12 picks on pitchers (and 14 of their 19). And there were more runs like that. I think next year more teams will be more comfortable drafting hitters and we won't see this kind of thing so across the board. |
|
|
|
Post by ramireja on Aug 23, 2021 16:11:20 GMT -5
Related, I wonder if that meant the Red Sox were crossing off arms from their board at a feverish rate and ended up with mostly bats through Round 6 (Elmer Rodriguez, a somewhat off-the-board HS pick being the only pitcher). The 2021 draft was the only draft in the last 20 years that the Red Sox didn't select a college arm in the first 6 rounds.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 23, 2021 16:14:33 GMT -5
That's kinda been my theory. We either got a podcast question or I got a radio hit question about them going hitter-heavy and my guess was that it was due to other teams going to heavy on pitchers, so it left them with more hitters that they liked who were available.
|
|
|
|
Post by jaffinator on Aug 23, 2021 16:26:28 GMT -5
The fact that less information being available appeared to cause such conservative decision-making by so many teams in terms of just avoiding hitters entirely shows how needlessly risk averse sports executive decision making can be. So long as you don't presume the pandemic actually caused pitchers to develop better than hitters, that would simply create a situation in which drafting a hitter is more variable (less tape) but slightly better on average (fewer other teams are drafting them). Uncertainty in the 2020 draft already appears to have been capitalized on to some degree with a fair number of HS hitters severely out-playing their draft position when less info was available on them previously (Nick Yorke being one of them).
|
|
|
|
Post by greatscottcooper on Aug 23, 2021 19:56:59 GMT -5
Maybe the Sox should draft 20 HS arms. Wait....I'm sorry.....That's stupid.....no one would ever draft all pitchers. The Angels draft honestly felt like a question someone would send into a podcast or Q&A column that a distinguished writer would summarily dismiss as a dumb question. This is exactly what I was thinking when post this. In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind seeing them go for some prep arms at the top of the draft. I know this may be a bit of recency bias, and I know arms are riskier than bats but the Sox have had seemingly a lot of success drafting HS talent recently. But as always, I’d be happy with BPA |
|
radiohix
Veteran
'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
Posts: 6,607
|
Post by radiohix on Aug 23, 2021 20:23:39 GMT -5
The draftee I'm falling in love with for next year is IMG Academy catcher Brady Neal. He's 16-year-old LSU commit with a compact left handed swing.
He has reclassified from the 2023 to the 2022 draft classand he'll be one of the youngest players in the draft.
I know the hit rate on HS catchers is low but the kid is really good and worth the risk IMHO.
|
|
|
|
Post by Underwater Johnson on Aug 24, 2021 9:26:52 GMT -5
Okay, I'll be the first:
What are the odds that Kumar Rocker falls to the 20s?
[N.B. best Boston sports name, evah!]
Interesting that he doesn't show up on the mock above.
|
|
|
|
Post by greatscottcooper on Aug 24, 2021 10:18:05 GMT -5
Okay, I'll be the first: What are the odds that Kumar Rocker falls to the 20s? [N.B. best Boston sports name, evah!] Interesting that he doesn't show up on the mock above. I'd say 50/50 (cheap answer I know) If he has a season similiar to last he won't really do much do improve or decrease his value but he will have less leverage. There is definitely something wrong with his elbow, and it could easily be fixable, but who wants to invest top 10 money in a guy who needs rehabilitation? still, if he gets injured next year he could fall very far....like out of the top couple rounds far. |
|
|
|
Post by jaffinator on Aug 24, 2021 11:06:02 GMT -5
I wouldn't anticipate college pitching being as deep/prominent in the 2022 mlb draft as it was in 2021. Could help Rocker a bit.
|
|
|
|
Post by ramireja on Aug 24, 2021 11:11:06 GMT -5
Okay, I'll be the first: What are the odds that Kumar Rocker falls to the 20s? [N.B. best Boston sports name, evah!] Interesting that he doesn't show up on the mock above. That mock draft was put out before the signing deadline so doesn't include Rocker, or even Fabian. I won't estimate odds, but I'll say if Rocker is around in the 20s, its because he had TJ surgery or some other serious medical risk, or just wasn't very good and a team is banking on his prior performance. |
|
|
|
Post by ramireja on Aug 24, 2021 11:16:46 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 24, 2021 11:18:05 GMT -5
Note that Rocker isn't going to return to Vanderbilt. He's either going to play indy ball, I guess could play abroad, or just won't pitch, which might sound crazy until you realize that Nick Bitsko basically became a first-round pick based on workout film.
|
|
|
|
Post by manfred on Aug 24, 2021 11:23:05 GMT -5
Note that Rocker isn't going to return to Vanderbilt. He's either going to play indy ball, I guess could play abroad, or just won't pitch, which might sound crazy until you realize that Nick Bitsko basically became a first-round pick based on workout film. I wonder what the Mets saw that made them think twice? Might that be part of his decision? No reason to blow out your elbow in St. Paul. |
|
|
|
Post by incandenza on Aug 24, 2021 11:40:05 GMT -5
Note that Rocker isn't going to return to Vanderbilt. He's either going to play indy ball, I guess could play abroad, or just won't pitch, which might sound crazy until you realize that Nick Bitsko basically became a first-round pick based on workout film. I wonder what the Mets saw that made them think twice? Might that be part of his decision? No reason to blow out your elbow in St. Paul. Sure seems like it was terrible advice (presumably from Boras) to forgo the MLB MRI thing. Now his options are to pitch and risk injury, or to not pitch and presumably have teams be even more suspicious. If he does have some physical issue he ultimately can't hide it from whatever team agrees to sign him so why try to be cagey about it? Or if he/Boras think it's not a big physical issue then he could've just done the MRI and some team more willing than the Mets to accept the risk could've drafted him.
It's like with Fabian for me: a multimillion dollar signing bonus is a very large bird in the hand, and it just seems crazy to risk it for two in the bush.
But as for what he does now... Could he get a lucrative contract to play in Korea or something for a year? Would he be good enough for that level of competition?
|
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Aug 24, 2021 12:56:42 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by julyanmorley on Aug 24, 2021 13:25:08 GMT -5
How does it work, everyone that never signs in the draft is eligible to become a free agent when they're 25?
|
|
|
|
Post by incandenza on Aug 24, 2021 13:52:05 GMT -5
Why don't more players do this?
OPTION A: Go live in Japan as a celebrity for a few years, make a couple million dollars, enter MLB free agency at age 25. OPTION B: Ride buses and eat peanut butter sandwiches in the minor leagues for several years, don't hit free agency until you're like 29.
|
|
|
|
Post by julyanmorley on Aug 24, 2021 13:55:01 GMT -5
Boras has been trying to send draft picks to Japan for years. I remember there was talk with Strasburg. The kids must have no interest.
|
|
. First post is a mock draft (already a month old?) from the gang over at Prospects Live:
