After three days, 50 rounds and (by my count) 16 total hours of selections, the 2010 MLB Draft has come to an end and the focus shifts to signing these player. Yesterday was your typical day of late round selections; the Yankees drafted mostly college players to fill out minor league rosters (those guys are important, they take a lot of the load off the actual prospects) plus a few high school lottery tickets, led by Pennsylvania righty Keenan Kish (34th round).
My summary of the Yanks’ draft strategy still applies simply because not much could have been done on Day Three to change things. In many ways this resembles the Eric Duncan-Tim Battle-Estee Harris draft of 2003, when the Yanks looked for athleticism and shot for the moon with upside. That might sound bad, but seven years ago the Yankees had no interest in using the farm system for developing players. They didn’t try develop players, they tried developed trade bait. The current Brian Cashman led regime certainly has a dedication in player development,which makes this draft much more promising. Scouting director Damon Oppenheimer drafted 20 high school players this year, easily the most in his six years at the Yanks’ helm. It’s very clear they were looking to not just infuse the farm system with some youth and upside, but develop that talent into cheap big league production.
Here’s what I assume is the last collection of links for this draft…
- You can see every pick the Yanks made here, and the best place to keep track of who signs and who doesn’t is NYY Fans. Of course we’ll keep you updated on the notable signings, and even the not so notable ones as well.
- First rounder Cito Culver said he’ll “almost certainly” sign with the Yanks, at which point he’d be assigned to the Yanks’ rookie level affiliate in the Gulf Coast League. I can’t imagine Culver wouldn’t sign, hard to pass up first round money.
- In case you didn’t notice, the Yanks took Paul O’Neill’s nephew Mike in the 42nd round yesterday. He better watch out, they’ll make him pay to replace the watercoolers in the minors.
- “I like what they did later on Day 2 more than what they did early,” said Keith Law in his recap of rounds 2-30. He notes that Mason Williams (4th) wants top-ten money (basically $2M), and that Evan Rutckyj (16th) is looking for a first round payday, which means at least $1.2M or so.
- “New York went after several highly regarded prep talents in the later rounds,” said Frankie Piliere in his Day Two analysis, “and while for most clubs this would be moot, considering the perceived price tag of high school talent late in the draft, the Yankees have the ability to throw money at these players and get them signed … Also striking about the Yankee strategy was their willingness to gamble on arms. Teams in their financial position can take a power arm with a flaw and see if they can turn him around, and that’s what they did taking right-handed college arms like Tommy Kahnle and Daniel Burawa. Both have not been stellar in college ball, but have the arms of back-of-the-‘pen type relievers.”
- Third baseman Rob Segedin (3rd) made Jeff Sachmann’s list of sleepers, in which he notes a studly combination of triple-slash stats (.430-.514-.780) and a microscopic 8% strikeout rate. For comparison’s sake, first rounder and consensus top college hitter Zack Cox put up a .424-.508-.603 batting line with a 13% strikeout rate. Remember though, doing what Cox did in the SEC is a lot tougher than doing what Segedin did in Conference USA. Segedin is a draft eligible sophomore, so he’s got a little bit of extra negotiating leverage.
- If you still haven’t had your fill, Jonathan Mayo looks ahead to next year’s draft and gives you ten names to keep an eye on. It’s obviously very early and a whole lot can change between now and then, but the 2011 draft is absolutely, positively stacked. There’s at least a dozen players that would have gone second overall this year, and Anthony Rendon of Rice probably would have gone ahead of Bryce Harper because it’s a similar bat much further along in it’s development.
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