2011 Draft: Day One Links
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The Yankees used the 51st overall pick in the draft to select Dante Bichette Jr. last night, the fourth straight year (and sixth time in eight years) they’ve selected a high school player with their top choice. Much like the regular season, the baseball draft is a marathon and not a sprint, and there are still two days and 49 more rounds left in this thing. Rounds two through 30 will take place later today (beginning at noon ET), which I’ll again be liveblogging. Until then, let’s round up some links that recap day one and look ahead to day two…
- It’s worth noting that the Yankees announced Bichette as a third baseman both at the podium and in the press release. He figures to move to left field down the road, but they’re going to see if he can stick at the hot corner first. Might as well, no harm in trying. If you want to follow him on Twitter, Bichette’s handle is @Dante19Jr.
- Jason Churchill of ESPN broke down all of yesterday’s picks (first round, sandwich, Insider req’d), saying this about Bichette: “He has good makeup and is a future outfielder with a strong arm and some power potential. The hit tool is a question, however.” That’s a pretty big question when you’re talking about a corner outfielder.
- Keith Law posted a winners and losers type of post (Insider only), and the Yankees made neither category. I guess that’s good. The winners were basically all the teams with extra picks, the losers the teams that really cheaped out (Braves, Rangers, Dodgers).
- Within that same post, KLaw listed his best available players. Here’s the same from Baseball America (no subs. req’d). Of those players, it’s worth noting that Josh Bell may be unsignable and that Matt Purke’s shoulder is a huge, huge question mark. The Yankees have been linked to Dillon Howard though, and we’re well behind the point where his talent says he should have gone. I get the feeling that Bell will fall big time, into the double digit rounds. Just a hunch though.
- MLB Draft Insider did a pass/fail post, giving the Yankees a failing grade for the Bichette pick. “There are far too many good talents still out there for this to be acceptable from the Yankees.” Well then.
The Yankees will be picking 28th in each round from this point forward (save for the silly compensation third round, which is all of one pick), so their first choice is 88th overall today. They’ve gone overslot for day two players consistently during the Damon Oppenheimer era, which is where they’ve had most of their success. I can’t imagine they won’t do the same today.
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The Mason Williams Watch
the baseball draft is the crappiest crapshoot in all of crapshoot city….
Both Law and BA have 10 of their top 50 players remaining available heading into today. If we draft one of them (from either list) at #88, thus meaning that we picked a top 50 talent at #88 and an 80ish talent at #51, will people stop bitching and complaining about the Bichette pick?
(Somehow I doubt it.)
If we draft 10 of them, we still could have had 11, right? Bitch on, bitchers!
(I should probably go on record as saying I don’t like the pick not because I know anything, just based on position. I’d always rather an upside SP or an up-the-middle guy than someone on one of the 4 corners. Which is to say that if I were a Mets fan, after the 2008 first round I would have probably said “dammit, a college 1B over (insert any number of highly ranked prospects that fit my preferences)”. And I would have been wrong there too. Because I know nothing about the individuals, just their profiles.)
I like that general strategy, but it’s harder to pull off when you’re drafting down in the 20s/30s/40s/50s. Most of the up-the-middle talents who can actually hit better than David Eckstein are long gone.
In a vacuum, yes, I’d prefer to draft a guy who can play a passable C/2B/SS/CF over a corners guy, but at #51, you take what you can get. If Bichette can only play 3B/RF/LF but can hit, we’ll find room for him.
Absolutely. Bichette just falls into a worst case (fan reaction standpoint) scenario because (1) there was still a seemingly better version of him (HS masher destined for the corner OF) available in Bell, signability noted, along with (2) a very highly rated SP the Yanks had been linked to in Howard and (3) leading up to the draft, there was a decent amount of “some scouts like Bichette but I really don’t” by the major services. So put Culver in there and atleast we can say “I know nothing about this kid, but he’s cold weather and they say he should stick at SS so that’s nice”. With Bichette, we’d already been hearing about downsides long before he was drafted.
(Of course, all that means nothing now. He’s a Yankee and I hope he’s the next Pujols but without necessitating a move to 1B.)
And for the record, yes, I wasn’t a huge fan of the pick, just because I would have rather added a projectable pitcher, but I can’t slam the pick because there’s still 49 rounds to go.
The Yankees could easily draft 9 projectable pitchers with their next 9 picks, and all my theoretical bitching and moaning I could have done about the D-Bitch pick would then look incredibly foolish.
The only thing dumber than criticizing a draft hours after it has happened (and thus, years before you have any idea of what these players will become) is criticizing a 1,500 player draft after only 4% of it has actually happened.
This Pass/Fail post is utterly ridiculous. Every team should get an incomplete, because you don’t know who they’re picking yet in rounds 2-50.
Does pass/fail guy scout or just read scouting reports and spit out the opinions as his own?
I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t wait for a later pick to get a player that they most likely would be able to get at that point. Go for the elite talent 1st that you can’t get later.
Maybe they did just that. Everyone slammed the Cito pick initially as being a reach who would be available in later rounds, until word came out that several clubs picking immediately after us like Cito in the sandwich round or early second round.
Bichette isn’t a sexy name, but he’s got plus power potential and major league bloodlines. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him drafted somewhere between #52 and #87.
I disagree. I think Bichette is a very sexy name. It sounds exotic.
Unsexy: http://www.camdenchat.com/2007/10/23/75037/102
Please start to go over slot like crazy Yankees. Spend some money!
No Purke.
+1 inflamed shoulder
He has Hughes Shoulder.
Who gives a damn, make him a closer. lol but seriously, his potential is off the charts
Again, he was at 85mph this year. 85.
Only three 51st picks have ever had a positive WAR over 2.
1966 Frank Duffy 6.7
1985 Barry Larking 68.9
1990 Chris Haney 2.6
This is not relevant.
Ok, it’s sort of interesting, but it doesn’t really change what Bichette will do. Plenty of players picked later than that have turned out to produce.
It would be interesting (but still not worthwhile in any predictive sense) to see what the average WAR of each draft slot has been historically, to see if there’s any big dropoff points where there’s just hardly any talent left and the average WAR for the draft slot (and all slots after it) drops off like a stone.
Obviously, late finds like Pujols/Pettitte/Posada will skew the results, though, making it a largely fruitless hypothetical.
This is one of my favorite article of all time, and I believe a prerequisite read to anyone before they follow draft day coverage.
http://baseballanalysts.com/ar.....ks_and.php
That long tail seems to indicate there’s not a ton of historical difference between #51 and #88.
Agreed, it looks as though a team should extract some decent value from a Top 10 pick, but the following 40 picks are about equal, and then its a complete crapshoot after that.
It’s a nice summary of why teams like the Royals, Pirates, etc. have struggled in the last 2 decades, but also why teams like the Rays and Sox could come out big winners in this draft -> no so much for their scouting prowess, but the fact that they were simply able to punch more lottery tickets.
here is link to all of them from BF
http://www.baseball-reference......g&
I wrote this up yesterday at TYA and was corrected on the Larkin point; he didn’t sign from the 51st pick.
Yeah, he went to school and the Reds popped him again three years later, only with the 4th OVERALL pick in that 1985 draft.
So if we manage to get Howard with our next pick, will all be forgiven?
NEVAR
Probably not because if you’re unhappy with Bichette versus _______ then you’ll likely be unhappy with Bichette and Howard versus _______ and Howard. Its unrecoverable. The sky is falling.
Before draft, there was a lot of rumors that Josh Bell has a pre-draft agreement of sort with Detroit for about 6 million. The way I see it , either the Tigers draft him with their second round pick or he falls to the double digit round Austin Wilson style.
Josh Osich still on the board surprises me. 90-93 LHP with pretty good stuff and signable, odd that he’s not picked yet.
I expect him, Maples, Dickerson, and Susac to go in 2nd and 3rd. Zych would probably go pretty soon, 97 mph fastball and pretty polished, wouldn’t be shocked if a contender pick him and he can help out really quick.
Curious about Norris, he’s not good enough to demand Matzek money, somebody should have already signed him and dared him to pass on it by this point. He can’t seriously pass up a 2-3 million offer.
I still love that Natinals draft. Rendon (at 2B?), Meyer, and Goodwin? To join Zimmerman, Zimmerman, Strasburg, Harper, Ramos, Cole, Norris, Werth, Storen, Desmond, and Espinosa? Quality.
They’re building a nice talent collection in the DMV. If they pick up a few pieces this summer for Jason Marquis or Pudge Rodriguez, maybe pull off that rumored B.J. Upton trade, and make a splash in free agency this winter (C.J. Wilson? Prince Fielder? Carlos Beltran?), they can be a quality team in that NL East mix soon.
Any and all of which will make the Werth signing look even more gross as time progresses.
Eh, sometimes you need to spend money just to show players you’re willing to spend money and you’re attempting to be a contender.
That Werth contract will probably be an albatross in Years 5, 6, and 7, but he’ll be a productive bat in the first 4 years and maybe his presence (in addition to Zimmerman and the kids) convinces a guy like C.J. Wilson or Prince Fielder that taking Washington’s money isn’t equivalent to spending the next 7 years on a perennial loser.
Don’t forget that the Nats probably had the high offer on Teixeira and he picked NYY over them. Players want to get paid and they want to win. Thus, teams that only have money and don’t have a legacy of winning often need to overpay for a few guys to get their winning ways kickstarted.
It’s a dangerous deal, but I see the logic behind it for the Nats.
The Mets did that with Glavine and it did not work out all that well, but by the tine they got around to Pedro it almost did.
I mean, Game 7 in the NLCS and all that. I agree, it’s hard to take the Nationals to task, especially when they keep missing on the highest-end talent (Lee, Greinke).
Draft Bryan Brickhouse and pay the snot outta him!
Pretty excited about today’s picks
If Yanks want to add to catching depth in the system, there is Riley Moore.
What time do they start today? The draft that is
It says right in the post.
I was not elected to read, I was elected to lead.
Indeed
So I’m just going to say that I dont feel strongly either way about the pick. See what happens to the kid in 3 years.
But with that said, I scoped out that YouTube video and noticed a couple of things.
1. He’s got some power. His swing (as a sophomore mind you) was pretty consistent except for one or two he pulled off of early. Otherwise pretty good hand eye coordination.
2. He had 11 homeruns in that showcase, just behind another sophomore that year, Bryce Harper. The exit velocities were a bit slower for Bichette but in the same range.
3. There was a snippet of him in the Yankees Tampa complex for youth team tryouts or drills. As a SOPHOMORE Obviously the team has known of and followed him for quite some time.
Lets gove the kid a shot first ok? Hes a Yankee now and Im pulling for him
All I hear going into the draft is to the sign the best available player. The Yankees did not appear to do that. Also a player with no future defensive value and a lot of work with the bat at 18 and a first round pick is a little to raw for my taste without necessarily the talent to back it up.
All I hear going into the draft is to the sign the best available player.
That’s a bit of a boversimplification.
We shouldn’t draft the best player available, we should attempt to end up with the best 50 available, signable players. That means mixing in some signable guys with tools/skills we like with BPA guys who will fall to us. It’s hard to judge that based off on only one pick.
Look at the Rays, since they’re the only team that has a large enough sample already with 9-10 picks. They’ve mixed in some high-upside, BPA guys with some signable guys who will move quickly and provide depth and value.
You just have to wait for the whole 50 rounds to see what happens. Or at least wait until after today where the first 30 rounds are done and most of the top talents have been drafted to somewhere.
That is understandable, however I would rather see a more aggressive first round pick.
Me too, but the point I’m making is, maybe if we make that more aggressive pick at #51, there isn’t a player as good as Bichette at #88. And perhaps that more aggressive pick at #51 (like Bell, Norris, etc.) is still there at #88.
So the strategy of Bichette + see what falls to #88 can net in a better pair of players than Bell/Norris/etc. at #51 and some other lesser player at #88.
It’s a crapshoot within a crapshoot.
At a certain point, though, you need to be able to trust your player development staff. There are some things you (arguably) cannot teach, like fastball velocity and power.
Maybe the Yankees have confidence that their player development and coaching staff can correct the problems in Bichette’s swing which would allow him to hit for average and power.
(Granted I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m not really the biggest fan of the pick given other names that were on the board, but at the same time, those were just names on the board. I’m hardly qualified to say they are actually better talents just because they’re more renown.)
…actually, another thing. There’s really no reason to trust the word of a Keith Law (much as I personally love reading the guy) over anonymous Yankee scout #3 whose job is actually on the line when it comes to evaluating and drafting. If Keith Law misses on a prospect, well, ESPN’s probably not going to fire him.
But anonymous Yankee scout #3 has every incentive in the world to say, “Damon, I’m telling you, take Bichette with your first pick.”
Law and company often make evaluations on very limited first hand information. They don’t see every player in the draft live and the ones they do see might be only once. Teams don’t just go down the BA list and pick guys because they have seen these players more and have more info on them than they do.
Agreed, but this can go both ways. Scout #3 and Law might both see the same flaw but Scout #3, after seeing the kid another 5 times, might talk himself around the flaw or decide its fixable when maybe its not. More looks doesn’t always mean better judgment.
You’re right, but in dealing with such a small sample I think as a general rule I’d say more looks is better. Especially with HS kids who besides being young play against such varying levels of comp both across the country and even within their own schedule.
i hope jr can succeed in the minors and become a good MLB player, especially after the “laughing” tweet Law had last night. What an ass
Yeah, maybe I missed his tone there… but that seemed totally unprofessional to me. Perhaps he didn’t mean he was laughing *at* the Yankees… just found some random humor in it. Seemed malicious, though.
He also made a comment before the season about Arodys being a throw in for the Javy deal that was apparently supposed to be a joke, but the humor was really hard to find. Maybe he just has a weird sense of humor.
A “pass/fail” grade? Go back to Massachusetts, pinko!
The over reaction is a little extreme but I understand why the fans are so upset about the pick.
The position question on Bichette is interesting.
Agree that he should be kept at 3B until he absolutely can’t play there anymore.
While the consensus is that he is not a 3B long-term… I see a lot in the Yankees history to suggest they might disagree. Jorge, Cano, Soriano, and Montero being the most obvious prospect examples of keeping a young bat at a position the consensus doubted he could play as long as his defense isn’t totally unacceptable and succeeding (to varying extents… obviously Montero hasn’t made it, but he’s a top prospect at least)… with a recent model Jeter as another example. Maybe late model Bernie as well.
Not even a given Bichette’s bat plays, but I can see him sticking primarily at 3B at least until his hypothetical MLB debut.
Is there a chat today for day two of the draft?
Just about meaningless. About the same chance he makes the Yankees as this Weiner guy makes President.
You can say that for most of the players drafted today.