Thought I would write some thoughts on the rest of the draft. The MLB reporter Maria Guardado nicely covered the picks here in this article. Please read to learn more about the picks. I will discuss what I think is the strategy with some of the picks, which were overdrafts.
ogc thoughts
The Giants had some selection oddities that should be pointed out, because it suggests an aggressive move to sign high school player(s).
Show Me Da Money
The Giants appear to have allotted money to sign HS player(s). Here’s my accounting.
The Giants had $8.4M in total bonus slots. Which the Giants can (and usually do) go over by 5%, which is $420K.
The Giants drafted Trevor Cohen in the third round, slot bonus of $935K. They should get a lot of savings here, especially if they worked out an agreement on a lower bonus, which most teams do (but the Giants, at least when Sabean was boss, often just picked the guy and hope for the best, which didn’t always work, costing them draft picks they couldn’t sign), because he wasn’t ranked well.
At best, he’s a 5th round talent (Perfect Games ranked him around there). ESPN had him ranked 7th round-ish. However, the major sources of draft rankings - Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs and MLB Pipeline - didn’t even rank him. Not even the gold standard Baseball America 500! Which puts him after round 16-17!!!
Since guys drafted after the 10th round can get $150K, if he gets $185K, that leaves $750K. And the Giants should be able to save $500K, a bit more than half. So I see them saving about $500-750K with this signing.
Also, Jordan Gottesman, their 6th round pick, is a 5th year senior, and those players often get much less than $100K, often only $5-10K. That slot is $371k, so I would think that they save at least another $300K and likely more than $350K.
Altogether, that’s roughly $1.2-1.5M extra in total among these picks and the allowed overage.
Signing High School Picks
And that will be used to sign their high school picks. They selected RHP Reid Worley in the 9th round, he of a unique pitch grip (really amazing to see, he must be double jointed) and got written up about because it generates over 3,000 RPM, which is reported to be elite even by MLB standards. His slot is $170K.
He is also like Cohen, unranked by the major draft rankings, and so technically could be viewed similarly as a low bonus option, but since he’s a HS player and has a college commitment, he has ton of leverage and will get a lot more.
Don’t know how much it will take. Hopefully the Giants have already spoken with his reps and have a good idea of what would buy him out, as that would ensure that they sign him. It would be irresponsible of them to not have gotten some intel on how much he wanted.
As an example, Webb was selected in the 4th round, and he got about $200K over slot (around $600K in total), to buy out his college commitment. If we assume a similar amount, that $600K is today maybe around $1.0-1.2M.
The point here is that there might be money left over, and perhaps more if he can be signed at a lower amount. Or maybe that whole amount is for him. We'll see how it plays out. The quicker the signing (a pick has already been signed!), the more likely the team and the player had negotiated. deal or discussed a range previously.
The Giants also drafted HS players with their 17th and 20th picks, RHP Luke Mensik and SS Elijah McNeal, respectively. I assume that should they fail to sign Worley for any reason (and the Giants have historically signed every one of their 1-10 round draftees, so they should be trying hard to sign him), they are the backups who they will use the saved money for. And if they save more, maybe even sign a second HS player. McNeal is a local kid, and the Giants have been more aggressive in pursuing local players with Holmes in charge of the draft.
Else they would have ended up saving money, and historically, the Giants have basically spent 105% of the signing bonus slot total, they have always spent close to their max, and I expect them to do so again. So I expect them to sign at least one high school draft pick, and perhaps even two, if they cobbled together enough savings.
They might even save more than the money above. In past drafts, I read about picks who fall to the Giants , and they end up getting more bonus money than their slot. I did not read about any like that this season. So, at maximum, they give each player the bonus slot money, and have the money I added up above. But if they can sign any of them for less (and many teams slice off some of their first round bonus money so that they can spend on others), that increases the odds of signing another HS pick.
Nice interview with Posey on KNBR:
ReplyDeletehttps://open.spotify.com/episode/34ZVijVXUtlNAeWR2xPC47?si=UR065djWQ3GRV3MWF5OECw
Talked a little about the draft, noted their overall focus on pitching and defense (says Kilen - key lin - is good defensively), and the need to keep the line moving, hence the focus on contact hitters who put together good at bats.
Of note: He says it’s important to know the person, that he plays the game hard, loves the game, keep teammates accountable, which matches what he said in his first interviews as boss, how they are looking for makeup and good character.