2015 Draft Archives - Page 10 of 10

Cotillo: Padres sign James Shields to four-year contract; 2015 draft order finalized

February 9, 2015 by Mike 162 Comments

According to Chris Cotillo, the Padres have signed right-hander James Shields to a four-year contract in the $72M to $76M range. It’s been a foregone conclusion that Shields, who grew up in the San Diego area, would sign with the Padres for about a week now. The two had been connected quite a bit. The Cubs, Marlins, and Blue Jays were also said to be in the mix these last few weeks.

As with Max Scherzer and Jon Lester, the Yankees were never seriously connected to Shields this offseason despite their obvious need for rotation help. Ownership and Brian Cashman said they were going to avoid big money long-term contracts that bought decline years in bulk this winter and they stuck to their guns. Can’t imagine many people expected that.

At this point the best free agent starter left on the market is righty Brandon Beachy, who is working his way back from his second Tommy John surgery and isn’t expected to be ready for the start of the season. After Beachy, the best available free agent hurlers are Roberto Hernandez, Chris Young, Joe Saunders, and Kevin Correia, all of whom are minor league contract guys. I don’t expect New York to get involved with any of them at this point.

The Padres are forfeiting the 13th overall pick to sign Shields, and, because of that, the Yankees’ first two picks in the 2015 draft move up a slot. Their natural first rounder moves up from 17th overall to 16th overall, and their supplemental first rounder (the compensation pick for David Robertson) moves from 31st to 30th overall. Based on last year’s slot values, the 16th and 30th overall picks come with $2.34M and $1.76M bonus slots, respectively.

The Yankees haven’t picked as high as 16th overall since taking Florida high school righty Matt Drews with the 13th overall pick in 1993. They haven’t had two of the top 30 picks since 1978, when they took California high school shortstop Rex Hudler and New York high school outfielder Matt Winters with 18th and 24th overall picks, respectively. Yeah, it’s been a while.

Now that Shields is off the board, all of the top non-Yoan Moncada free agents are signed and the 2015 draft order is more or less finalized. (The competitive balance lottery picks can still be traded before the draft.) The offseason is basically over barring a surprise trade. Pitchers and catchers will start reporting to Spring Training next week and the 2015 season will start to get underway. It’s about time.

Draft Links: 2015 Top Prospects, Changes, East Coast Pro

January 26, 2015 by Mike 39 Comments

After running Thursday through Saturday the last two years, the amateur draft is returning to its usual Monday through Wednesday slot this year. The draft is scheduled to run from June 8-10 this year, and right now the Yankees hold the 17th, 31st, and 57th overall picks. (The 31st pick is the compensation pick for David Robertson.)

This is only the second time in the last ten years New York has held three of the top 57 picks. The other instance came two years ago, when they landed 3B Eric Jagielo, OF Aaron Judge, and LHP Ian Clarkin with their first rounder and the compensation picks for Nick Swisher and Rafael Soriano. Here are some miscellaneous draft notes.

MLB.com’s Top 50 Draft Prospects

MLB.com has published their first round of 2015 draft prospect rankings, which are topped by Florida HS SS Brendan Rodgers (video above!). Duke RHP Michael Matuella and JuCo LHP Brady Aiken rank second and third, respectively. Aiken, as you might remember, didn’t sign with the Astros as the first overall pick in the 2014 draft and will be draft-eligible again because he’s going to a junior college, not a four-year school. As always, the MLB.com rankings include free scouting reports, 20-80 scouting scale grades, and video. Great resource.

You can’t really make the straight comparison, but, if you’re interested, MLB.com has Fullerton RHP Phil Bickford and Tennessee HS RHP Donny Everett ranked 17th and 31st, respectively, the Yankees top two draft slots. Bickford passed on signing with the Blue Jays as the tenth overall pick in the 2013 draft and Everett is one of the hardest throwing high school arms in the draft class. Overall, the 2015 class appears to be very heavy on pitchers with few impact position players available.

MLB, NCAA agree to move draft to July 1st

According to Peter Gammons, MLB and the NCAA have a “general agreement” to move the draft to July 1st with a July 15th signing deadline. This isn’t final yet — MLB can’t just change the date of the draft, the whole thing has to be collectively bargained and the MLBPA has to agree to it.

Moving the draft from the first week of June to July 1st doesn’t seem like much, but it will create a bunch of logistical headaches in the lower minors. (I wrote about them at CBS.) More than anything, moving the draft seems like a precursor to an international draft, which the owners have been trying to get for years to cut costs. The international signing period opens July 2nd of each year, remember. The timing if awfully interesting.

RHP Jacob Nix enrolls in IMG Academy for 2015

Nix, the Astros’ fifth rounder last year, is heading to the IMG Academy in Florida for post-graduate work this year, according to John Manuel. Nix was a second or third round talent last summer who fell into the fifth round due to bonus demands. Houston was set to pay him an above-slot bonus with the saving from their below-slot deal with Aiken, but, when the Aiken deal fell apart, they didn’t have the draft pool space to sign Nix and reneged on their agreement. The MLBPA filed a grievance on Nix’s behalf and won, so the Astros had to pay him the full $1.5M they agreed to give him originally.

Anyway, the post-graduate year at IMG means Nix will again be draft-eligible this year, and he’ll presumably slot in as a projected second or third rounder again. It’ll be interesting to see how teams treat him this year. They know Nix has money now, and the fact that he is re-entering the draft rather than going to a four-year college means he wants to turn pro. Could he be a below-slot guy this year? He doesn’t have much leverage. We’ll see. Nix is 6-foot-4 and has a mid-90s fastball, which is usually the kind of prospect the Yankees love. He could be a target for that 57th overall pick. (The highest draft pick in IMG history is, of course, John Ryan Murphy.)

Yankees bringing East Coast Pro to Tampa

According to Manuel, the Yankees are bringing the East Coast Pro to Tampa this summer. It is one of the top events on the summer scouting showcase circuit. The event will be held from July 27-30 — so we’re talking about 2016 draft picks, not 2015 — and feature 150 of the best high school players in the country. The event moves around each year, so it won’t be in Tampa long-term.

Just to be clear, scouts from every team will be in attendance, so this isn’t an exclusive workout for the Yankees. That said, only the Yankees will have access to the pitch tracking data available at Steinbrenner Field because they are the event host. The East Coast Pro has many big name alumni, including David Price, Justin Upton, David Wright, Zack Greinke, Madison Bumgarner, and Matt Harvey.

2015 Draft & International Free Agent Links: Rankings, Scouting Reports

November 23, 2014 by Mike 28 Comments

At the moment, the Yankees currently hold the 17th overall pick in the 2015 draft. They could still move up a few slots if the Marlins, Padres, Rays, Braves, and/or Brewers sign one of the nine unsigned qualified free agents, one of whom is David Robertson. All of the details are at our 2015 Draft Order page. Of course, the Yankees could also forfeit that 17th overall pick if they sign a qualified free agents. Here are some links about next year’s draft and international free agent class.

Both Baseball America and Keith Law/Chris Crawford wrote up their lists of the top 30 prospects for the 2015 draft. Both links are subscriber-only, unfortunately. LHP Brady Aiken, who didn’t sign with the Astros as the first overall pick in the 2014 draft, tops the ESPN list while Florida HS SS Brendan Rogers is atop the Baseball America list. Aiken is second. He’s heading to a junior college and will be draft-eligible again in 2015.
Draft to the Show put together a series of (free!) rankings and mini-scouting reports for the top prospects for the 2015 draft: top 15 high school pitchers, top 15 high school hitters, top 15 college pitchers, and top 15 college hitters. Seems like the strength of this draft is quick-moving college arms, which is a shame because it seems like you could pull any schmuck from the stands and get a 3.50 ERA these days.
Kiley McDaniel wrote up scouting reports for several of the top international prospects for the 2015-16 signing period. Because the Yankees exceeded their 2014-15 bonus pool, they won’t be able to sign a player for more than $300,000 in both the 2015-16 and 2016-17 signing periods. So I guess you can get to know the Yankees can’t sign as amateurs but will try to sign as free agents in ten years.

2015 Draft: Yankees have 19th overall pick

September 29, 2014 by Mike 142 Comments

Now that the 2014 regular season is over, the 2015 amateur draft order has been finalized. The Diamondbacks had baseball’s worst record at 64-98 and will pick first overall for the second time in team history. They selected Justin Upton with the top pick back in 2005. J.J. Cooper looked a possible first overall pick candidates earlier this month. There is no Upton/Stephen Strasburg/Bryce Harper-esque slam dunk prospect for next year’s draft, at least right now. Lots will change the next few months.

The Yankees finished the season with the 12th best record in baseball at 84-78 and will pick 19th overall next June. Here’s the full draft order. The Astros have a compensation pick (second overall) for failing to sign top pick LHP Brady Aiken this year, pushing everyone else back a slot. That’s why the Yankees are set to pick 19th instead of 18th. The last time the Yankees picked as high as 19th was 2005, when they took Oklahoma HS SS C.J. Henry with the 17th pick. The 19th pick came with a ~$2.1M draft pool value this year and the slots are expected to go up next year. It goes without saying the Yankees may forfeit this pick as free agent compensation.

2015 Draft: MLB announces competitive balance lottery results

July 23, 2014 by Mike 23 Comments

MLB announced the results of the competitive balance lottery today, awarding a total of 12 picks to small market, low revenue clubs. Obviously the Yankees did not get one. The full results are right here. It’s hard to understand a system in which the Cardinals are awarded competitive balance picks but not the Rays ~~or Athletics~~. Anyway, these picks can be traded! Just not in the offseason. What stupid system.