May
18
2011 Draft: Kevin Goldstein’s Top 20 Prospects
ByIn a free Baseball Prospectus piece, Kevin Goldstein posted his list of the top 20 draft prospects with pros and cons for each. He has HS RHP Dylan Bundy ranked first overall, UCLA RHP Gerrit Cole second, Virginia LHP Danny Hultzen third, and Rice 3B Anthony Rendon fourth. This is the first time I’ve seen someone besides Cole or Rendon ranked first. Make sure you check it out, it’s not often you get a free look at 20 of the best available prospects.
Elsewhere in draft news, Jim Callis weighed in bonus demands made by Bundy and HS RHP Archie Bradley, Rendon’s long-term prospects at the hot corner, and the top catching prospects. It’s all free, and it’s all worth reading.
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Kevin Goldstein… has HS RHP Dylan Bundy ranked first overall…
(increases bonus demand from ridiculous 30M to ridonkulous 40M)
Such an exciting sentence if we had a 1st round pick.
I don’t even think I’d draft Bundy at #51 if he fell there. Not unless we’re prepared to give him 15M plus, which we’re probably not.
The bonus demands he’s throwing out are so insane it should scare everyone off, even us. Bundy’s pricing himself not just as the #1 overall talent in the draft, but as the best talent in draft history. I see only two scenarios happening:
1.) Bundy goes in the top 5 and signs in the 8-15M range
2.) Bundy goes outside of the top 5, nobody offers him more than 7M, and he says “Screw it, I’m the best HS arm ever, I’m going to school and I’ll go back in the draft 3 years from now and be a top-5 pick, Gerrit Cole style, and get 10-15M or more then.
If he falls all the way to #51, he’ll keep falling and falling and falling because he won’t just be a hard sign, he’ll be an impossible sign.
JMHO.
Don’t disagree, but there’s also …
3.) Bundy has no intention of going to college but its putting on a strong bluff. He goes outside the top 5 to a bigger market (payroll) team knowing he has a better chance of getting $10MM than he would if he was silent and went to a team that usually sits at/near slot.
Which, when we’re talking about a universally top 5 rated player, is probably worth it. Very high risk, but the reward is off the charts when sitting #51.
True, but I can’t imagine that he has no intention of going to college if he put out that outrageous of a demand. Too much of a risk of scaring away the teams with the top picks.
That being said, I wouldn’t at all be complaining if he were to miraculously fall to 51 and the Yanks expand their draft budget to bring him in.
I’d love it but I’m not holding my breath.
More or less the same here. I just know I’ll kick stuff if he’s there at #51 and we decide to pass. Then kick stuff much, much harder if he ends up signing whenever he is picked. And kick the entire world if its in division.
Hah, yeah I’d imagine I’d be throwing some shit around as well. That would be tough to swallow.
The issue with option 2 is that that may not be an option in thre years. The next CBA has the chance to change the draft, with hard slotting preventing someone from snagging big time money in the draft.
Yeah, but even a hard-slotted draft would still likely allow 7-12M slots for the top 5 picks. The players may agree to slotting, but not slotting where even the top players get rolled all the way back to sub 3M ranges.
If Bundy is still a top 5 pick, he’ll still approach 8 figures under a hard-slot draft. The purpose of slotting is to prevent elite talent from sliding (and to prevent teams form paying million-dollar bonuses outside of the first round).
Yeah, I agree that if there’s slotting it’s not going to be at tiny bonus levels.
Still, though, I think it has to play into Bundy’s thought process. He and his people have to consider the likelihood they think slotting has of coming into effect, the amount they estimate will go to various picks, the amount he’s offered now, and all the other usual factors.
I think the Yankees would be somewhat likely to pay Bundy if he fell all the way to #51. I do agree that he’s unlikely to be there at #51, but I don’t think it’s so clear cut the Yankees wouldn’t pick/sign him if he was. The talent gap there would be ridiculous. Other teams might just not be willing to meet his demands or have multiple top 50, top 100 picks to sign to big bonuses. It’s very unlikely he’s there, but if he is I would like to see the Yankees go for it. They haven’t given a HS player that much in the draft, but they’ve given big deals to one degree or another to guys like Contreras, Irabu, Matsui, Brackman, Sanchez, Wily Mo Pena… who had no US pro experience. Bundy might be a special case like that, especially after what they’ve just seen from failing to sign Cole.
Bradley may be more likely than Bundy, since he’s ranked lower by just about everyone and is still looking for big money. Castellanos fell to #44, which isn’t far from #51… Castellanos wasn’t ranked as a top 5 pick by most people entering the draft, but he still wanted that kind of money. He got it from the Tigers. I’d say Bundy is too likely to go in the top 5 to a team that wants to pay him to fall that far. Someone who top 10 teams might pass on who is looking for top 5 money and has a scholarship at one of the top football programs in the country? Could see him falling a bit more than Bundy. Someone like Bell who is represented by Boras maybe too (I have no idea who advises Bundy or Bradley). Purke or another injury question mark, sure.
We have to be the only two still reading this, but I’m game …
To know this, Law would need a source. Otherwise it would be his meaningless speculation… maybe everyone else likes Cole and Rendon, but sitting here in my own mind I’ve decided the Pirates don’t. No. Who cares? Unless the information came from a source, it’s meaningless. Law cites no source.
Goldstein just backed him up today. And I imagine its pedantic of me to point out the fact that not all sources want to be cited.
Last season not only did they give their first pick one of the biggest bonuses in the draft, they also gave their second pick one of the biggest and they also gave out the biggest bonus in IFA.
Which shows they aren’t cheap, just very aware of the balance between talent and cost. This isn’t a bad thing in a draft where you’re locked into your slot unless you’re taking non-talents like Matt Bush.
No, they didn’t. If they had drafted 3 of the next four guys, they would have saved money compared to Sanchez.
It’s just as likely they worked out a deal with Sanchez before the pick because he’s the guy they knew they wanted as it is they did it because he was cheap. You’re speculating about things that went on behind closed doors and drawing definitive conclusions. There’s a logical gap there.
I never called the Huntington admin cheap. I speculated they don’t just take the BPA if the BPA’s cost exceeds the value they place on him, especially in terms of their overall draft budget. There’s no real argument that Sanchez was a top 4 player at the time of that draft, is there? Which, again, doesn’t make them cheap, just cost conscious which, again, isn’t a bad thing.
Again, the Twins were smashed for picking Mauer over Prior. Teams have their own opinions on players. Valuing a catcher highly isn’t exactly crazy. It’s a premium position.
Mauer was rated much higher in his class than Sanchez was, that’s not even close to apples-to-apples. Ackley over Strasburg would have been akin to Mauer-over-Prior, Sanchez going from the late 20s on the lists to #4 is akin to other examples of that. And it really isn’t a big deal to me. I thought taking Culver wasn’t terrible because (1) its an up-the-middle position and (2), more importantly, if you love the guy and have a strong belief he won’t be there next round, you have to jump or he’s gone for a decade.
Pittsburgh gets no credit for taking a good player? They didn’t scout any of these guys and just randomly decided to sign a guy? Just threw a dart at a wall full of prospect’s pictures? No. They absolutely deserve credit for drafting the right guy.
You’re either being argumentative or disingenuous here. I said above “That its worked out is great for Pittsburgh and might very well validate their approach …” I have zero issue with a cost / talent balance. None. I’m a fucking accountant, that sort of thing gets me all worked up, especially done well. I’ve never said it was a cheap pick or a bad pick or anything, just that it was a pick with cost noticeably factored in. If anything, the reason it garners so much attention (drafting a lower rated player at a cost savings in the top 10) is because it did well versus so many prior screwups.
Just because some journalists didn’t feel Sanchez was a top prospect before the draft, that doesn’t mean the Pirates agreed with them at the time. You are jumping to huge conclusions about what went on behind closed doors. Sanchez absolutely might have been the BPA in the Pirates’ opinion. Value doesn’t mean you ignore talent… it’s about getting the most talent (in your opinion) for the money. If they didn’t think Sanchez was a good player to take there they literally had hundreds of other choices.
None of which I said. You’re arguing against the concept of someone calling the Pirates cheap/incompetent and hating Tony Sanchez, not any of my actual statements.
And of course they’ll factor value in. Every team does. I’m just reacting to people acting like they will definitely take Hultzen because Law said so, when Law himself said they are still looking at Cole and Rendon but might just take Hultzen.
I didn’t see anyone say it was now a foregone conclusion based on Klaw (or now Goldstein), just that (1) its makes sense, especially given the team and (2) there are valid reasons for going in this direction if they do.
Lets see if I fucked up an italic anywhere …
Son of a bitch. Lots of typing, all in the wrong thread. I’m the worst.
I still enjoyed it.
If I ever see you at a bar up here (I imagine you’ll be wearing an RAB shirt with “Rick in Boston” custom printed on the back), I’ll buy you a beer.
You can find me easily – I’m the only one in JP with an A-Rod t-shirt.
Centre St. Cafe FTW!
I did too. Where was this supposed to be? After reading, I’m intrigued.
The Klaw Mock thread.
“I imagine its pedantic of me to point out the fact that not all sources want to be cited.”
I specifically said “an unnamed source.” It’s one thing to say that he’s hearing the Pirates are leaning in this direction. What he said was “I’m having a hard time seeing Hultzen as the best player on the board, but under Neal Huntington the Pirates have long considered value relative to cost in their drafts, sometimes preferring to spend less in the first round when they see opportunities to spend their savings on other appealing prospects in later rounds. They’re still considering Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon, and I know they’ve done their due diligence on Dylan Bundy (but are very unlikely to take him).”
That doesn’t suggest to me that he knows the Pirates are taking Hultzen AT ALL. My problem is not with Law. He throws out the idea to get attention… it’s his job. He’s a journalist. It’s not irresponsible journalism even, because it might happen. My problem was with people on that thread who took that to mean Hultzen was going to Pittsburgh and then went on to suggest they were a super-cheap organization who would obviously pass on talent… the comment I responded to originally called it “par for the course.” Again, read what Law wrote. He didn’t say that the Pirates were taking Hultzen. He said maybe Pittsburgh will take him, maybe they won’t. He doesn’t cite their interest in Hultzen or anything he’s actually heard regarding this particular pick… he just cites general trends in the Pirates org. over the past several years. Ignoring last year pretty much entirely.
So are you mad at Goldstein for writing
“University of Virginia left-hander Danny Hultzen has been moving up all year and is now firmly in the mix for Pittsburgh”
rather than
“University of Virginia left-hander Danny Hultzen has been moving up all year and is now firmly in the mix for Pittsburgh according to unnamed sources”
?
“My problem was with people on that thread who took that to mean Hultzen was going to Pittsburgh and then went on to suggest they were a super-cheap organization who would obviously pass on talent… the comment I responded to originally called it “par for the course.” Again, read what Law wrote.”
Read that. Read what Law wrote. Read what Goldstein wrote.
In the quote you posted Goldstein did not say, “Hultzen is going to the Pirates.” He did not say “the Pirates are an organization that is value conscious to the point that they are likely to pass on the top talents in the draft because they don’t want to pay them.” He did not say “the Pirates took what they considered not to be a top 20 prospect #4 overall, gave him a bonus that matched slot money for #5, the 8th largest bonus in the draft… they did that to save money over drafting other prospects they had rated higher who signed for less money.”
All he said is that he’s in the mix for that pick. Like I said, I have no problem with what Law wrote but with the way people interpreted it. People took it at various point on the thread to mean that Hultzen was a Pirate and that Pittsburgh is cheap. I didn’t find either to be in-line with the evidence.
When you use quotes, make sure they’re actual quotes. Because I never said the Pirates didn’t consider Sanchez top 20, I said all the available publications didn’t consider him top 20. Big distinction that can easily be lost when someone is more concerned with proving a big picture point than with responding to an individual’s comments.
I was not quoting you. “He did not say” was not meant to mean you did say that… you are inferring that. That was the general tone of some comments on that thread. You jumped in gung-ho to prove the Sanchez pick was one where the Pirates took what they considered to be a lesser prospect and signed him to a cheaper deal… the second part is demonstrably false and the first is pure speculation… and that those other commenters were right regarding Hultzen and the #1 pick as well as the Pirates.
“I never said the Pirates didn’t consider Sanchez top 20, I said all the available publications didn’t consider him top 20.”
Were the available publications making the #4 pick? No. The Pirates were making the #4 pick. What matter is what the Pirates thought. Either you were making an irrelevant point or you were implying that those publications were a proxy for the Pirates’ draft board.
Jesus fucking Christ … don’t bother with the comments below because I can’t do another long one. I can’t even do this one any more with you either missing my points or just willfully ignoring them.
You are making ridiculous points and then getting upset when I point out how ridiculous they are. Why did you bring up the consensus if it had nothing to do with the Pirates opinion? You said that Sanchez was not a top 20 prospect… how would a normal person have read that?
Quoting myself: Because I never said the Pirates didn’t consider Sanchez top 20, I said all the available publications didn’t consider him top 20.
Not me, not the Pirates, not you, the fucking draft prospect rankings that we all fucking read. I was very, very clear about this. I was not stating it as some universal “Tony Sanchez is most absolutely the 24th best prospect in the 2009 draft. Not 23rd and not 25th, he is the 24th. That is locked in.”
(And semantically, yes, it was incorrect. Sanchez was exactly #20 with Goldstein. #30 on Klaw. #32 on BA. And I know you’ll hang on tight to that semantical argument and probably, in your fingers-in-your-ears debate style, now say that I believe that he was absolutely the 24th ranked prospect or that I claimed I saw him at #20 on the Pirates board. Because that would allow you to rant some more about things that I didn’t say.)
Again, who cares? Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. Your point about where the media rated Sanchez has about as much to do with the discussion as the year Hitler was born in. Who cares?
If you want to question the Pirates’ scouts… ok. That’s not the discussion we’re having though.
Listen… my two original points to you were
1. that Law was not saying the Pirates see more value in Hultzen than Cole/Rendon/whoever… he was saying that maybe they do. He made no attempt to say he knew who they valued how. He just said my guess is Hultzen based on their previous picks, but they’re considering everyone else too.
2. That this is speculation: “They showed with the Sanchez pick that talent alone isn’t their deciding factor, its talent plus cost.” You are assuming that’s why they made that pick. Period. You don’t know. Period. That was the basis of your argument, and it’s not a fact. It’s your speculation.
I don’t know how we got to this point, but that’s it. Those are my points: Law nor Goldstein even claims to know how the Pirates value the 3+ candidates for the #1 pick, and unless you have Pittsburgh’s 2009 draft board handy saying they didn’t think Sanchez was the top talent on the board is nothing but speculation. If you choose to disagree, so be it.
Address my post, don’t go off on a rehashing rant.
“Address my post, don’t go off on a rehashing rant.”
What?
I did.
“Again, who cares? Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. Your point about where the media rated Sanchez has about as much to do with the discussion as the year Hitler was born in. Who cares?
If you want to question the Pirates’ scouts… ok. That’s not the discussion we’re having though.”
Your point is that you didn’t say the Pirates had Sanchez #20, but the media did. I’ve already accepted this point hours ago. My response is who cares? It’s irrelevant how the media ranked him. What matters is how the Pirates ranked him. I’ve said that 100000000000000 times.
Here’s how you originally brought it up:
“B. 8th highest bonus in the 4th slot on a deal worked out beforehand. And I don’t believe in the top 20 of any major prospect list. (Not to mention 4 of the next 4 and 7 of the next 7 picks were all below the 4th overall pick and thus logically should receive a lower bonus.) You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.”
If you were not saying that the consensus media rankings did not make him not the BPA to the Pirates… what the hell were you saying? Were you just stringing together random sentences and not forming a paragraph?
“I don’t believe in the top 20 of any major prospect list.” Then a (), then “You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.” How on earth am I supposed to read that other than not being in the top 20 of any major prospect list made him not the BPA? That’s clearly what it says.
Again, you’re making points then getting angry when I point out that they’re illogical. I literally used your quote there. Please stop getting upset over your mistakes and acting like I’m making stuff up.
“Which shows they aren’t cheap, just very aware of the balance between talent and cost.”
It shows a recent trend of paying basically whatever it takes to add the top talent to their farm system, specifically with pitchers. Law cites a trend of being value conscious, but there is also a trend of spending big last year on the top talents. That could be a shift in organizational philosophy. On that thread people were calling it “par for the course” with the Pirates and stating logical fallacies about the Sanchez pick… you are apparently now leading the charge on the Sanchez pick, because clearly you had access to the Pirates board before the draft and think Sanchez signed for less than the other available players when he actually did not… good stuff!
“There’s no real argument that Sanchez was a top 4 player at the time of that draft, is there?”
Yes. There’s an argument that the Pirates thought Sanchez was a top 4 talent. Every person has different opinions on draft prospects. The Pirates took Sanchez #4, paid him the 8th highest bonus, and paid him more than other comparable (or better in the consensus eyes) prospects on the board… why did they do that if they thought the other players were better? They were that set on working out a deal with whatever prospect would take it before the draft? Even if it meant paying a guy they didn’t have in their top 10 the 8th highest bonus in the draft? Needless to say, the implication if they did that is that they’re incompetent. I have no idea if they are or not, but that’s implied in saying Sanchez wasn’t a top 20 prospect to the Pirates and the Pirates still choose to pay him basically slot for the #5 pick in the draft. That would be ridiculously incompetent. Isn’t it more likely they thought Sanchez was a good talent there and it helped that he’s sign before the draft? He didn’t even get more money than most of the other guys that were available there. You keep ignoring that fact. The Pirates were so hell-bent on saving $200,000 under slot that they passed on dozens of guys they had rated about Sanchez, some of whom would have taken the slot for the #4 pick? Your theory makes no logical sense.
“Mauer was rated much higher in his class than Sanchez was, that’s not even close to apples-to-apples.”
My point was clearly that the consensus view is not always the correct view. That’s just the most obvious example that jumped into my mind. Even though Mauer was highly rated, the Twins were still called cheap and berated for that decision… which only serves to strengthen my point that a consensus “they went for the safe/cheap pick over talent” is bullshit as often as it’s accurate.
“I’ve never said it was a cheap pick or a bad pick or anything, just that it was a pick with cost noticeably factored in.”
Again… this is not correct in my opinion. If you have some inside info of the Pirates war room… ok, you can say they factored cost in more than the usual pick (because cost is factored into every single pick… so I don’t see what the point of saying that is…). He got slot money for the #5 pick, and got more money than 5 of the next 7 picks… the evidence does not suggest that the Pirates saved much of any money compared to drafting a Mike Minor, Drew Storen, Mike Leake, Matt Hobgood, Alex White… etc. The evidence is just not there. All those guys signed for less than Sanchez. Either the Pirates are incompetent or they weren’t looking to save money any more than the teams around them… there’s really no other way around it because they spent about the same as the other teams around them.
“(drafting a lower rated player at a cost savings in the top 10) ”
AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! If you don’t have access to the Pirates draft board, you have no idea where they rated him. Why are you assuming that the Pirates rated prospects the same way as the media consensus? Even among media members there are huge disagreements on prospects. Why is every MLB org necessarily right in-line with the media consensus? They’re not. Keith Law or Kevin Goldstein’s prospect ranking are not the word of God. It’s one guy’s opinion, probably a guy who has only seen each kid play a few times. If he saw Sanchez on an 0-4 night and the Pirates on a 4-4 night… their opinions might be much different.
And, again, the Pirates didn’t save any money. If that was their plan, it backfired.
“None of which I said. You’re arguing against the concept of someone calling the Pirates cheap/incompetent and hating Tony Sanchez, not any of my actual statements.”
Bullshit. Read your comments. You specifically said that Sanchez was not a top 20 prospect according to the media outlets you read. I call you out for illogically using those media outlets as if they match the Pirates draft board, and you claim you never said it? That’s weak.
“(1) its makes sense, especially given the team”
I think people are overselling that case based on fallacies. I have said as much. If you disagree and want to spit in the face of all the evidence… ok. The Pirates didn’t sign 3 of the biggest bonuses any amateur signed for in 2010. Tony Sanchez was not in Law’s top 20, and the Pirates clearly don’t scout themselves and just rely on Law and Goldstein for their draft board. Tony Sanchez got paid less than the guys drafted around him. Good stuff. Really logical and consistent with reality.
If you have an opinion on something and want to state it, ok. When you start parading around speculation that doesn’t even match up with the evidence as fact? No.
It shows a recent trend of paying basically whatever it takes to add the top talent to their farm system, specifically with pitchers. Law cites a trend of being value conscious, but there is also a trend of spending big last year on the top talents. That could be a shift in organizational philosophy. On that thread people were calling it “par for the course” with the Pirates and stating logical fallacies about the Sanchez pick…
I think you’re misunderstanding a lot here. Being value conscious can entail overspending your budget if there is value available. It can also entail taking a guy no one had rated in the top 20 because he was the guy you thought was the best value.
you are apparently now leading the charge on the Sanchez pick, because clearly you had access to the Pirates board before the draft and think Sanchez signed for less than the other available players when he actually did not… good stuff!
He didn’t sign for less than other players available?
Q: Where was Shelby Miller ranked pre-draft, what did he sign for and where does he now sit on the prospect boards.
A: Higher than Sanchez, for more than Sanchez, higher than Sanchez.
So without any inside scoop (as you so cutely implied), I know that by paying more for a more highly rated player, they would currently have a more highly rated prospect. Right? And I can say all that without saying they were cheap or that Sanchez was a bad pick or any of that. Things can work out without being optimal, even in hindsight.
Yes. There’s an argument that the Pirates thought Sanchez was a top 4 talent. Every person has different opinions on draft prospects. The Pirates took Sanchez #4, paid him the 8th highest bonus, and paid him more than other comparable (or better in the consensus eyes) prospects on the board… why did they do that if they thought the other players were better? They were that set on working out a deal with whatever prospect would take it before the draft? Even if it meant paying a guy they didn’t have in their top 10 the 8th highest bonus in the draft? Needless to say, the implication if they did that is that they’re incompetent. I have no idea if they are or not, but that’s implied in saying Sanchez wasn’t a top 20 prospect to the Pirates and the Pirates still choose to pay him basically slot for the #5 pick in the draft. That would be ridiculously incompetent. Isn’t it more likely they thought Sanchez was a good talent there and it helped that he’s sign before the draft? He didn’t even get more money than most of the other guys that were available there. You keep ignoring that fact. The Pirates were so hell-bent on saving $200,000 under slot that they passed on dozens of guys they had rated about Sanchez, some of whom would have taken the slot for the #4 pick? Your theory makes no logical sense.
Now aren’t you the one implying inside knowledge? What a guy eventually signs for when being picked lower than #4 doesn’t imply anything about what he would have signed for had he been picked #4. You could make the argument that anyone signing for above slot after #4 would have requested above slot at #4 as well.
My point was clearly that the consensus view is not always the correct view. That’s just the most obvious example that jumped into my mind. Even though Mauer was highly rated, the Twins were still called cheap and berated for that decision… which only serves to strengthen my point that a consensus “they went for the safe/cheap pick over talent” is bullshit as often as it’s accurate.
The Padres were called cheap for taking Matt Bush over Verlander and others. Its because they were being cheap. And that doesn’t have any bearing here either.
Again… this is not correct in my opinion. If you have some inside info of the Pirates war room… ok, you can say they factored cost in more than the usual pick (because cost is factored into every single pick… so I don’t see what the point of saying that is…). He got slot money for the #5 pick, and got more money than 5 of the next 7 picks the evidence does not suggest that the Pirates saved much of any money compared to drafting a Mike Minor, Drew Storen, Mike Leake, Matt Hobgood, Alex White… etc. The evidence is just not there. All those guys signed for less than Sanchez. Either the Pirates are incompetent or they weren’t looking to save money any more than the teams around them… there’s really no other way around it because they spent about the same as the other teams around them.
I can’t tell if you don’t get this or you’re intentionally not getting it to attempt to prove your point. Mike Minor taking $2.42MM at the #7 spot says nothing of what he would have asked for at the #4 spot. Again, you’re the one implying knowledge here. Isn’t it also possible that the Pirates approached several players and Sanchez was the only one who would agree to go under slot? (Since you need things spelled out here, I’m not saying he did. I’m saying isn’t it possible he wasn’t the first guy they approached. Ok?)
AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! If you don’t have access to the Pirates draft board, you have no idea where they rated him. Why are you assuming that the Pirates rated prospects the same way as the media consensus? Even among media members there are huge disagreements on prospects. Why is every MLB org necessarily right in-line with the media consensus? They’re not. Keith Law or Kevin Goldstein’s prospect ranking are not the word of God. It’s one guy’s opinion, probably a guy who has only seen each kid play a few times. If he saw Sanchez on an 0-4 night and the Pirates on a 4-4 night… their opinions might be much different.
And, again, the Pirates didn’t save any money. If that was their plan, it backfired.
I handled all of this above. For a guy who thinks I’m assuming I know too much, you’re coming off as thinking you know waaay too much about what players would have asked for at #4.
Bullshit. Read your comments. You specifically said that Sanchez was not a top 20 prospect according to the media outlets you read. I call you out for illogically using those media outlets as if they match the Pirates draft board, and you claim you never said it? That’s weak.
The top 20 prospect comment was factual unless you have a source to say otherwise. Stating a fact isn’t a show of bias. And, once again, you thinking Sanchez was their guy and not a reach down the board is no different than me thinking he wouldn’t have been their pick in a hard slotted world. Neither of us know, only one of us gets angry and implies we do.
I think people are overselling that case based on fallacies. I have said as much. If you disagree and want to spit in the face of all the evidence… ok. The Pirates didn’t sign 3 of the biggest bonuses any amateur signed for in 2010. Tony Sanchez was not in Law’s top 20, and the Pirates clearly don’t scout themselves and just rely on Law and Goldstein for their draft board. Tony Sanchez got paid less than the guys drafted around him. Good stuff. Really logical and consistent with reality.
I’ll invite others to weigh in here. Me proclaiming myself right and you proclaiming yourself right does little to forward the discussion.
If you have an opinion on something and want to state it, ok. When you start parading around speculation that doesn’t even match up with the evidence as fact? No.
The facts that the Pirates didn’t reach down their board for Sanchez and the fact that all the players you’ve listed would have taken a comparable deal at #4. Right? Yeah.
Tried to get a little insight from Klaw but it didn’t really solve anything other than he thinks they talked to players other than Sanchez.
Dave (Somerville, MA)
Going back a few years, do you have any insight into Pittsburgh’s pick of Sanchez? Obviously it was a value pick, but do you know how many (if any) other players were approached about going at or slightly under slot? Where Sanchez might have fallen on their board?
Klaw (2:50 PM)
I had Sanchez in the 20s and that’s probably where he would have gone otherwise. I believe the Pirates talked to every player they might have considered there to get a sense of price tags and compare that to the values they saw on those players.
Again, I don’t care at all what Keith Law thought of Sanchez. I care what the Pirates thought of him.
If the Pirates had him in the 20s and gave him the 8th highest bonus (which lined up with the #5 slot)… they weren’t looking for value, they weren’t being cheap, they were just being stupid. If they asked a guy who ended up signing for less than $1.5 mill how much it would take to sign him and he said more than $2.5 mill… they got played and made a stupid decision. If they wanted to take a guy in the 20s on their board they didn’t think would get picked till the 20s and paid him $2.5 mill… they made a stupid decision.
Maybe the Pirates are stupid (given the state of their org I think that’s totally possible). Maybe the Pirates liked Sanchez more than Law.
“If they asked a guy who ended up signing for less than $1.5 mill how much it would take to sign him and he said more than $2.5 mill… they got played and made a stupid decision.”
Do you believe if the Pirates approached Mike Leake before the draft and asked what he’d amount he’d agree to in order to be the #4 overall pick, he would have said $2.2MM because that’s what he eventually signed for at #8?
(Note what I did here. I didn’t mockingly label you Mike Leake’s BFF or call you an idiot who thinks Mike Leake would have signed for the exact same amount at #8 as he would have at #4, I asked you to clarify a direct quote. Not even my interpretation of your quote or a paraphrase. Novel, huh?)
Read the quote you used. It says that if they bought his demands, they got played. If he said “I want $5 mill to sign” he was bluffing. Clearly he would not have started the bidding at what he’d ultimately take… it’s a negotiation. He did take $2.27 mill, though, so clearly he was willing to sign for that… he literally signed for that. There is no slotting in the MLB draft. Given his talents and leveraged, that was his market value. Perhaps at #4 he would have had a bit more perceived leverage since he knew the Pirates liked him as a top 4 pick (not talent necessarily, pick) whereas the Reds only like him top 8… but that’s not a huge difference. In 2008 #4 got $3.2 and #8 $2.6… it seems unrealistic for Leake to demand more than at most $1 mill for the 4 spot difference… at most. They failed to call anyone’s bluff *IF* they thought Sanchez was a lesser talent and still gave him #5 slot money. That’s all I’m saying.
VALUE is not about saving money. We both agree there… yet you think the Pirates took a much lesser prospect at a marginally lower cost in the name of value… I don’t get it. Law says in your quote that it is his opinion that they thought Sanchez was the best bang for the buck at a bonus of $2.5 mill. Did the Pirates think that the #20 prospect is worth $2.5 mill, but the #4 prospect isn’t worth more than that? They’d have to believe there was almost no drop off from 4 to 20 to believe that was the value play… or they have to really believe $0.5 to $1 mill would help them that much later in the draft… what are the chances? If they thought guys they had ranked well above Sanchez who ended up signing for less than $2.5 mill would not sign for somewhere just north of $2.5 mill… they got played. That they thought Sanchez at $2.5 mill was a better value than another prospect at, say, $3 mill, maybe $3.5 mill… seems like a pretty good indication that if they were looking for value in a rational way and not just idiots… they liked Sanchez an awful lot (and even then they could easily be idiots for liking Sanchez… who knows, but his results till AA this year were decent).
In 2008 the #4 pick for $3.2 mill, in 2010 he got $2.75 mill… Sanchez’s bonus just wasn’t out of line with those. It’s lower, but not much. If the Pirates took more than a “0.25-$0.7 mill” dip in the quality of player they got for that much savings… it wasn’t a value play.
Your first paragraph ignores that a player’s leverage jumps the minute he’s picked because now the team is locked in. So Leake could very easily say “not a penny less than $3.5MM” before he’s picked, since why not shoot the moon, then drop it to a reasonable middle ground in negotiations. I imagine that happens quite often, that several guys they spoke to would have eventually signed in the same range but that the certainty going into the draft was very important to them. That logic would also explain why the top players rarely/never sign pre-draft and why their negotiations often go down to the wire.
But more generally, I find your tactics really annoying, for lack of a bettr term. Having read other long tangents from you in the past, you’re a guy who gets the right way to think baseball and that serves you well against the “Posada Sux!” crowd. Its a binary argument, you think 0, he thinks 1 and his position likely won’t have any depth. The problem is when you get into a debate with someone who actually does know baseball, you can’t seem to realize that its a debate, not a shouting match or a soapbox and that you’re likely arguing 0 versus 0.1 and not 0 versus 1. For the most part, we agree, the Pirates have done a good job drafting under Huntington, Sanchez was not a non-prospect, moreover he has panned out which validates their maneuver, blah, blah, blah. But instead of debating the nuances, you have to make the other side a caricature of their opinion. Exaggerate the position plus add a bunch of semi-quotes and extrapolations of those quotes to the absurd (like above when you implied I couldn’t possibly understand the concept of Klaw/Goldstein/BA seeing a prospect in the 20s and Pittsburgh seeing him in the top 10, I must think they intentionally drafted their 20th ranked prospect). Then if you could work in a low humor, lower impact jab like “you think you have access to their draft board!!!”, all the better. Basically, instead of an interesting debate on a baseball message board about how, hypothetically, the Pirates talent-only draft board may have looked, a debate with a right answer but one we’ll never know, we got this. Form a caricature, go on long monologues against a generic stance rather than what’s presented, repeat. And I imagine it was as boring for everyone to read as it was frustrating for me to respond to.
(Of course, maybe I’m way off base. Maybe your tactics were totally successful and I did look like I couldn’t fathom a team properly weighting cost and talent. Who knows.)
“Your first paragraph ignores that a player’s leverage jumps the minute he’s picked because now the team is locked in. So Leake could very easily say “not a penny less than $3.5MM” before he’s picked, since why not shoot the moon, then drop it to a reasonable middle ground in negotiations. ”
I am not ignoring that at all. That’s my whole point. If the Pirates bought someone’s moon shot before they got picked… they got played. If they actually believed it would take $5 mill to sign a guy who signed for $1-3 mill… they got played. That’s what I’m saying. That’s why I literally said “Clearly he would not have started the bidding at what he’d ultimately take… it’s a negotiation.” If you say $2.5 up front it’s hard to get picked and then ask for $3 mill.
My whole point is that if they were so hell bent on agreeing to terms before the draft (at which point I doubt it’s a legally binding contract anyway) that they took what they considered to be a lesser player and paid him more… that was really dumb. I’ve left open the door to the Pirates just being dumb as often as possible. Maybe they’re dumb, but there’s also a simple explanation by which they’re not necessarily dumb: they valued Sanchez a lot higher than Law for whatever reason(s).
“The problem is when you get into a debate with someone who actually does know baseball, you can’t seem to realize that its a debate, not a shouting match or a soapbox and that you’re likely arguing 0 versus 0.1 and not 0 versus 1″
You don’t seem to appreciate the subtleties of an argument. This is not a binary argument where you are saying 0 and I am saying 1. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that the Pirates thought Sanchez was the BPA. What I have said is that unless you know for a fact they didn’t think that, saying he wasn’t is pure speculation. That there’s no point in parading around your speculation like it’s fact. Yet you keep insisting it’s fact. I am saying it’s not fact–and clearly it isn’t–you are saying it is fact–and clearly it’s not. See why you are the one being frustrating?
I did not make a caricature of your argument. Your argument was that you knew the Pirates draft board and Sanchez was not their BPA. That was the entire basis of your argument. That is not a caricature… it was your argument. You made a crappy, illogical argument, then got all upset when I pointed out that it was illogical.
I find your inability to acknowledge that you may be wrong to be really annoying. I didn’t come out and say as much though, and give my two cents about your commenting style. I wish you hadn’t taken it upon yourself to be the commenting police… especially after the illogical crap you’ve been dribbling all day.
You are so smug that you’re sure you are right even here and my commenting style is the problem. Not at all surprising you live in Boston. Unless you know the Pirates draft board, you cannot possibly argue what the players on it looked like. You literally followed up a sentence about him not being top 20 in the media with one about him clearly not being the BPA… yet you still cannot admit that you were wrong there. You were. Just admit it. When I err, I try to correct it. You are just so smug that you think you’re never wrong. If you point to a flaw in my argument I acknowledge it as such, if you don’t understand part of my argument I elaborate… the same is not true for you. You already know you’re right and the apparently what their draft board looked like. Again, if you don’t know their draft board you cannot possibly state as fact that they didn’t take the BPA in their opinion. It’s just not possible.
Above I literally quote how you brought up the Sanchez issue. I did not make a caricature of it, as you accuse me of doing. I still shot your argument to shit… because it’s a shit argument.
“B. 8th highest bonus in the 4th slot on a deal worked out beforehand. And I don’t believe in the top 20 of any major prospect list. (Not to mention 4 of the next 4 and 7 of the next 7 picks were all below the 4th overall pick and thus logically should receive a lower bonus.) You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.”
Yet you keep claiming incessantly that you never linked the not in the top 20 and BPA thoughts… accusing my of making that link up. It’s there, clear as day. You made it.
“And I don’t believe in the top 20 of any major prospect list.”
Who cares? The Pirates are not Keith Law, they are not Goldstein. Who cares what they think… unless… you link it to them.
“You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.”
Oh… holy cow… you do link it back to them. I would really like an apology for continually insisting I am making a strawman out of your argument. That was your argument.
“Not to mention 4 of the next 4 and 7 of the next 7 picks were all below the 4th overall pick and thus logically should receive a lower bonus.”
And again with this… being picked #5 instead of #4 doesn’t somehow dictate a $1 mill drop in bonus or something. It’s a marginal difference. If someone was drafted a few spots earlier I don’t see why you’d assume they’d command a much larger bonus.
Again when I present evidence you don’t address it. $3.2 and $2.75 mill… those are the bonuses the #4 picks in 2008 and 2010 got. How is Sanchez’s bonus totally out of line with those? It’s only slightly below Colon’s. Why would the Pirates expect a bunch of guys they liked more than Sanchez to command a bunch more than $3.2 mill or even the $2.7 mill slot? If they were looking for value–as both you and Law suggest–doesn’t it make sense they valued Sanchez a whole lot to give him $2.5 mill? That if they thought someone else was a much better prospect than Sanchez they might give him $3+ mill?
“But more generally, I find your tactics really annoying”
Honestly… I think all you find annoying is that I’m right and you’re wrong. I’ve also observed your comments here. You generally don’t have nuanced discussions. You generally make a logical one sentence remark to point out the error in an illogical comment. You do exactly what you accuse me of doing. You are rarely wrong. Here you’re clearly wrong. Yet you refuse to admit that your chain of logic–Sanchez was not a consensus top 20 prospect; therefore, Sanchez was not the BPA at #4 in the Pirates opinion–is fatally flawed. I have quoted your exact remarks on the subject… yet you accuse me of strawmaning you. Total crap.
Funny that it took all this for you to very nearly get my point …
“Sanchez was not a consensus top 20 prospect therefore, Sanchez was very likely not the BPA at #4 in the Pirates opinion but rather the best combination of talent and immediate signability.”
Never once did I claim I knew he wasn’t #4 BPA or that I saw their draft board, which was when you took a turn down Preposterous St. Of course, I invite you to quote where I claimed this was absolute fact. Direct quote, not your misguided attempt to frame my argument. Use the space below.
“Never once did I claim I knew he wasn’t #4 BPA”
Yes. You literally said that: “You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.”
You keep saying things, and then claiming you didn’t say them when I point out that they’re wrong. Again, you are too smug to consider that you might be wrong or make a mistake. Instead of admitting you did something wrong, you call me annoying for calling you out.
“Use the space below.”
You’re a real dick.
Yes. You literally said that: “You can’t just ignore all that; it was not simply a BPA pick.”
If that phrasing bothers you, there can’t be any such thing as BPA because every pick made is the BPA to the drafting team unless they come out and say “we took a guy we didn’t like all that much”. I would think Huntington himself would say it wasn’t “simply a BPA pick”, it was a pick combining talent and cost and signability. But that doesn’t interest you. Using the phrase BPA means seeing the draft board and whatever. If you’d like to get the last word, go ahead. Use the space below. Winky face.
The phrasing doesn’t “bother me”… the phrasing proves that you said he wasn’t a BPA pick. Said it definitively. Without qualification. You have denied that you said that to the point of personally insulting me. You have been wrong. You did say it. Period. The proper response is not “I never said that, you’re annoying for saying I said that.” You did say that. The proper response would be something more like “I said that, but I really meant this…” You went with the first approach, and I’m the annoying one…
“I would think Huntington himself would say it wasn’t “simply a BPA pick”, it was a pick combining talent and cost and signability. But that doesn’t interest you.”
A. No speculation on what you imagine in your head someone you don’t even know might say doesn’t really interest me in generally, but…
B. In this case… yeah, that’s what any GM with half a brain would say. That’s what the MLB draft is all about. I sort of took that as a given throughout this whole discussion. Getting value, though, does not mean you pay basically slot money to a guy you think is not nearly as valuable as that slot… that would be the opposite of getting good value.
That we assume the Pirates were looking for value (in their opinion) and that they signed Sanchez for $2.5 mill… that almost necessarily means they thought Sanchez was a good value at $2.5 mill. I’ve argued again and again using the $ for picks in 2008 and 2010 as well as the picks around him in 2009 that $2.5 mill is not that out of line with the #4 pick. It was about $200,000 below slot and $250,000 below what the 2010 #4 pick got. Whether or not he was literally the BPA on their board, it stands to reason based on what they paid him that he was close if they were looking for value, which we’ve both agreed they were. I’ve made this point over and over again.
All reasonable evidence points to the Pirates liking Sanchez almost as much as anyone else available, if they weren’t just being dumb and saving a few hundred thousand at the expense of passing what they felt was a whole army of much better prospects. If they were looking for value, it is implied that they thought Tony Sanchez was a better value at $2.5 mill than any other player at whatever they thought they’d sign for… We do not know exactly what the Pirates thought those guys would sign for or how steadfast they were in their desire to pre-negotiate a deal (even Law says…paraphrasing here… “I think they asked other prospects” he doesn’t suggest that he has any clue outside of his own speculation in the response he gave you), but it stands to reason that if they were not morons they knew that for a few hundred thousand more at most they could have had a lot of the other players available. If they liked those players more than Sanchez and were looking for value, why would they not pay those players a little bit more than Sanchez?
“Using the phrase BPA means seeing the draft board and whatever.”
Definitive statements are for when you have definitive facts… saying that you know something for a fact that you don’t know for a fact is just wrong. 90% of of the comments I make on this site are an attempt to point that out to people. That something is likely to happen does not mean it will happen. Likewise if we don’t know for sure what happened in the past, that something is more likely to have happened than something else… or we merely believe it’s more likely to have happened… doesn’t mean it did happen.
You said: “Said it definitively. Without qualification.”
You said: “You’re a real dick.”
But do you know me well enough to make that definitive statement? Without qualification?
I should have said “you’re BEING a real dick.” See how easy it is to admit a mistake?
Which time? You did it twice.
I am more than willing to admit it when I make a mistake. Any time I said you ARE a dick, I should have said you ARE BEING a real dick or in my opinion you are a real dick.
You are the one who keeps making statements and then instead of admitting they were incorrect insisting that you never made them.
You also mentioned Hitler atleast twice. This makes me wonder if you’re really Michael Kay.
You’re being a dick.
That didn’t read like a denial to me.
Yours doesn’t read like a denial either…
As far as Hitler… You’re taking it totally out of context. Again, being a dick.
Any time you want to apologize for falsely accusing me of making things up that you did in fact say and for generally being a dick to me… feel free. If you want to admit you made incorrect statements regarding Tony Sanchez, also feel free.
“I think you’re misunderstanding a lot here. Being value conscious can entail overspending your budget if there is value available. It can also entail taking a guy no one had rated in the top 20 because he was the guy you thought was the best value.”
I understand the concept. What I don’t understand is why people, including Law, are so sure that the Pirates don’t see value in Cole or Rendon. That they saw value in Taillon, but not those guys.
“Q: Where was Shelby Miller ranked pre-draft, what did he sign for and where does he now sit on the prospect boards.”
A. That’s one guy.
B. A bunch of other teams passed on him too. He was the 19th pick. 10 other teams besides the Pirates passed on him and signed a guy for less money. 1/3 of the league agreed with the Pirates there. As I’ve been saying every team considers value. The question is not whether the Pirates consider value, it’s whether the Pirates consider value to the point where they’ll pass on better players because they’re expensive. As you’re agreed the answer is no. They will sign players they think are worth it regardless of absolute cost… Therefore, one would have to know they think Hultzen is a better value to know they’d take him over Cole and Rendon. Law not Goldstein even pretends to know that… yet several RAB commenters did in that thread.
“So without any inside scoop (as you so cutely implied), I know that by paying more for a more highly rated player, they would currently have a more highly rated prospect. Right?”
No. You absolutely cannot say that. It’s called selection bias. You picked someone who has worked out. They could have spent more on Zack Wheeler, Jacob Turner, Tyler Matzek, Aaron Crow, Grant Green, Matt Purke, LeVon Washington, and probably other guys who fell for signability reasons… in some cases they’d get a better prospect today and in some cases they wouldn’t. Miller didn’t even get as much money as some of the other guys I mention.
“You could make the argument that anyone signing for above slot after #4 would have requested above slot at #4 as well.”
The slot was marginally above what Sanchez signed for. If the Pirates are taking lesser prospects to save marginal money, they are not being value conscious… they’re being cheap.
“The Padres were called cheap for taking Matt Bush over Verlander and others. Its because they were being cheap. And that doesn’t have any bearing here either.”
Do you bother to read what I write? Literally in the quote you are responding to I say, “which only serves to strengthen my point that a consensus “they went for the safe/cheap pick over talent” is bullshit as often as it’s accurate.” That it’s bs as often as true. I said that, you responded to it, and you implied that I basically said the opposite. Your reading comprehension needs some work.
“I can’t tell if you don’t get this or you’re intentionally not getting it to attempt to prove your point. Mike Minor taking $2.42MM at the #7 spot says nothing of what he would have asked for at the #4 spot.”
Yes it does. It doesn’t say exactly what he’d get, but it says literally what he was willing to and able to sign with an MLB team for. As you yourself have pointed out, other guys like Shelby Miller were able to get more money despite being drafted later. Again VALUE. If Sanchez was their #21 prospect and Minor/whoever was in their top 5 (and only 3 guys had been taken at that point), and it would take $100,000 or $200,000 more to sign him… that’s not looking for value but being cheap. I understand your point, and disagree.
“I’m saying isn’t it possible he wasn’t the first guy they approached. Ok?”
YES. YES. YES. That’s my fucking point that you can’t get through your skull because you’re so sure that you’re right. You are stating speculation as fact. “Maybe the Pirates did x, y, or z” is not the same as “the Pirates in fact did x.” See the difference? I don’t know what went on in the Pirates war room. I’m not claiming to. You are. That’s the difference.
“I handled all of this above. For a guy who thinks I’m assuming I know too much, you’re coming off as thinking you know waaay too much about what players would have asked for at #4.”
Not that I know what any one player would have asked for. That I know that if the Pirates had 10+ guys rated above Sanchez, that if most of them ended up signing for well less than Sanchez, that one of them would have been very likely to take an offer that guaranteed them #5 slot money. If you know you’re going #10-20, you have little leverage, it’s advantageous to make that deal. Therefore I think it’s very unlikely Sanchez was in the Pirates top 20, and probably close to #4. I don’t know for a fact where he was. If he was not in their top 20, though, they were in fact incompetent.
“The top 20 prospect comment was factual unless you have a source to say otherwise. Stating a fact isn’t a show of bias.”
It was 100% irrelevant to the conversation unless it had something to do with the Pirates’ opinion on Sanchez. Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. That is not biased, just a fact. Who the hell cares, though? It has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
“And, once again, you thinking Sanchez was their guy and not a reach down the board is no different than me thinking he wouldn’t have been their pick in a hard slotted world. Neither of us know, only one of us gets angry and implies we do.”
Yes. You. I have never said Sanchez was their guy. Never. I have said that it’s possible. That you are not stating facts, but opinions. You keep insisting you are right. You are the one implying you know. I have been very clear that I have no idea.
“The facts that the Pirates didn’t reach down their board for Sanchez and the fact that all the players you’ve listed would have taken a comparable deal at #4. Right? Yeah.”
The fact is that we don’t know what the Pirates board looked like. That’s all I’ve said. Yes, that is a fact. I am right. You are wrong for implying you know they reached down their board. Period. Period. End of discussion.
I don’t know for a 100% fact that no other player who ended up getting less than $2.5 mill would have taken the deal, but what are the chances they have a bunch of guys on their board ahead of Sanchez who ended up signing for less and none of them would have taken the deal? Not one? I’ll stick with the assumption Sanchez was a guy they felt had good value at #4, over assuming not one player out of maybe 17 or more would have acted in his own best interest.
Easy to see why that’s a paid service, good read. Now to find money.