PhillyPhan wrote:So whats the general consensus here?

i'm really happy with it

Baumann isn't optimistic and you shouldn't be either

love just about everything they've done so far.

Story on Rash from the local paper.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120605/SPORTS08/120605012/Alec-Rash-of-ADM-picked-by-Philadelphia-Phillies-in-2nd-round?nclick_check=1

FTN wrote:love just about everything they've done so far.

Interesting. I'm not sure I'm there so I'd be interested in your thoughts. Hard not to love Watson, Gueller and Rash though and that is the bulk of the value.

JE found some links that indicate that both Zach Green and Andrew Pullin have agreed to deals. Green's apparently was overslot so the Phillies must also have an underslot deal done elsewhere. Honestly, I think the new paradigm is that for the most part you will have a deal done or close with a guy when he is drafted. Will be nice to have these guys in GCL quickly.

I WANT COZENS MASHEN TATERS RAHT NAOW

Squire wrote:JE found some links that indicate that both Zach Green and Andrew Pullin have agreed to deals. Green's apparently was overslot so the Phillies must also have an underslot deal done elsewhere. Honestly, I think the new paradigm is that for the most part you will have a deal done or close with a guy when he is drafted. Will be nice to have these guys in GCL quickly.

I agree with guys signing quickly. Anyone want to talk a stab at a very crowded GCL lineup?

Could you draft a college senior in the first 10 rounds and agree with that player to sign him for basically nothing and then release him (making him a FA), thereby opening up more money in your draft pool for the other picks in the first 10 rounds?

My understanding is that you lose the pool money for picks you don't sign, so you can't take picks with no intention of signing them. I wonder if you could get around it this way.

In any event, I think the draft is much more interesting this way from a strategic perspective.

Trent Steele wrote:Could you draft a college senior in the first 10 rounds and agree with that player to sign him for basically nothing and then release him (making him a FA), thereby opening up more money in your draft pool for the other picks in the first 10 rounds?

My understanding is that you lose the pool money for picks you don't sign, so you can't take picks with no intention of signing them. I wonder if you could get around it this way.

I guess the answer is that the bonus for college seniors is likely to be so small that it probably makes this tactic unnecessary.

The sea of change regarding players attitudes on signing based on the formal MLB pay system is interesting. Players fairly immediately saying that they are on board and ready to sign and more incredibly reports of signing before breakfast the day after the draft.

PSUPhilliesPhan wrote:

Squire wrote:JE found some links that indicate that both Zach Green and Andrew Pullin have agreed to deals. Green's apparently was overslot so the Phillies must also have an underslot deal done elsewhere. Honestly, I think the new paradigm is that for the most part you will have a deal done or close with a guy when he is drafted. Will be nice to have these guys in GCL quickly.

I agree with guys signing quickly. Anyone want to talk a stab at a very crowded GCL lineup?

LF Larry Greene
CF Carlos Tocci
RF Dylan Cozens
3B Zach Green
SS Roman Quinn
2B Andrew Pullin
1B
C Willians Astudillo
DH

SP Shane Watson
SP Mitch Gueller
SP Alec Rash
SP Braden Shull
SP Miguel Nunez

Glaring lack of some dude with an awesome name. Who is this year's Gauntlett?!

Hoby Milner sounds like a cool name. Too bad he is the suck.

because of the bonus pools, the phillies probably had to take cozens where they did. if he wanted $400K, for instance, they had to realistically take him in the first 2 rounds unless they drafted a lot of cheap seniors. as i discussed in great length last year, people get way too married to the lists put out by ba, bp, and espn in terms of rankings. those lists are basically the opinion of one or two people at each place, and are just personal opinion. at the top, the first 20-30 guys, most teams are probably close to consensus of which guys are the 20 most talented. there will be a big difference in ordering of guys. but outside of the top 20-30, i'd bet if you looked at the draft boards of all 30 teams, there will be guys who are hundreds of spots apart. i bet a few other teams had cozens in their top 100-150. i bet some didn't have him on their board at all. the phillies have area scouts and crosscheckers who probably saw cozens play 20 times in the last 2-3 years. i know the phillies arizona scout, well, not really know him, but ive spoken to him a few times. hes very bright and gave me a lot of insight last year on the kenny giles signing. they didn't take cozens on a whim. they've no doubt seen him a ton, they've been following him, and he had an awesome pre-draft workout. so because ba wasn't on him, that doesn't mean anything. ba focuses on the showcase stars and big names, and they spend the bulk of their time focused on florida, texas, and california.

as ive said here and on my old site, the phillies do a tremendous job in assessing signability. they've only really lost 2 guys because of it, scott frazier and brandon workman, and in both cases, it appears the player changed his demands a few weeks before the signing deadline. they probably knew exactly what it would take to sign cozens and rash, and they drafted them at spots where they could pay the cost without blowing up their bonus pool. based on the comments from watson, they knew his exact price tag. gueller will sign.

they went with a lot of upside and potential. very few college seniors, and even the college seniors seem to be somewhat intriguing. im a fan of the drafting pitching and buying bats philosophy, so i like that they shifted more toward arms this year. they've had the most success developing pitching, and i think watson and gueller both look like excellent projectable arms.

its tough for me to really even evaluate the draft anymore. how much do we really know about any of these guys? again, the phillies have scouted all of these players for multiple years. i'm sure they have at least 6-7 detailed reports on all of the college guys they took. we have a few random articles, grainy youtube videos, and the comments from places like ba. ba takes all of their info second hand from scouts. it takes time. the nature of the draft and player development means that most of these guys won't make it. but i'm in no position to say "they should have taken this guy instead" because i really dont know. when i watch a guy pitch or swing a bat, my eyes say "yes" or "no", but im not a scout or anything. ive been right a few times and ive been wrong even more.

i think today is going to be a lot of college guys, and a few lesser touted high school prospects. the key is finding the high school kids from the lesser baseball areas (midwest, northeast) who really want to play baseball and don't want to go to college. maybe another braden schull. if the phillies can sign a few of their college seniors for under slot bonuses, can come in slightly under on cozens (slightly over on rash), they can sign a few guys after the 15th round for $175-300K. its all a balance.

but even if they get no one of note today, i think they got enough in watson and gueller to make the draft a success. if you draft one every day regular per year you are meeting the average. if you draft one all star it was a great draft. if you get 2 every day guys and one all star its a home run. i see more upside and probability in this group than, say, 2009. and without really analyzing it in depth, i think this draft stacks up or surpasses 2010 and 2011 as well. but we won't really know that for another 3-4 years.

FTN wrote:if the phillies can sign a few of their college seniors for under slot bonuses, can come in slightly under on cozens (slightly over on rash), they can sign a few guys after the 15th round for $175-300K.

There's fines for doing that now.

-- Players picked in rounds 11-40 can only have a maximum signing bonus of $100K
-- Teams that circumvent the bonus pool or the $100K restriction will be hit with fines:
- 0-5% over = 75% tax
- 5-10% over = 75% tax + lose your 1st-rd pick the following year
- 10-15% over = 100% tax + lose your 1st AND 2nd-rd picks the following year
- 15%+ over = 100% tax + lose your 1st-rd pick the following TWO years

thats not correct.

bonuses after the first 10 rounds still count against your total pool. so anything over $100K counts against your total allocated bonus amount.

more simply, the bonus pool max is for all picks in the first 10 rounds, plus anything over $100k spent after the 10th round.

So if your bonus pool is $5M and you spend $4.9M on your picks in the first 10 rounds, you could then sign one guy after the 10th round for $200K and you wouldn't go over your allotment.

FTN wrote:im a fan of the drafting pitching and buying bats philosophy

Can you expand on this

Thanks, I missed that one and just read up on it at BA.

Teams could also use savings to take swings at difficult signs in the 11th round and beyond. While any player after the 10th round who signs for more than $100,000 counts against the team's bonus pool, there are no rules or penalties for doing that. And because an unsigned player after the 10th round doesn't diminish a team's draft pool, there's less risk to taking a top talent in the 11th round than there is in the fifth. An unsigned fifth round player would cost a team more than $200,000 of its bonus pool. An unsigned 11th-round pick costs nothing.

So the Astros took Hunter Virant, ranked No. 53 on the BA 500, with the first pick of the 11th round (339 overall). If they don't sign Virant and he heads to UCLA, the Astros have lost an 11th-round pick. If they find they have saved enough money on their first 10 picks to sign him, Virant would give them a supplemental first-round talent.

“I think after people got through 10, I think they played it through 10 to see how much they could save in their pool,” White Sox scouting director Doug Laumann said. “Once they realized after 10 what they were going to have, then they went ahead and redistributed in 11, 12, 13 because they knew how much cushion they were going to have.”

And in a perverse incentive, because the first $100,000 for a player taken after the 10th round does not count against a team's budget, a team can stretch its bonus pool by taking better talent in later round. Say a team wants two players, one who will sign for $1,000 and the other who will sign for $250,000. If it takes the $250,000 player in the sixth round and the $1,000 player in the 11th, $250,000 counts against the budget. But reverse those two picks and only $150,000 counts against the pool. That explains why nine players in the BA 500 were picked in the 10th round, while 18 players in the BA 500 were taken in the 11th round.