The final signings came in and the Giants were able to sign all their first ten rounds of picks, and 28 of their first 29. The big signings was finally getting #2 Martin Agosta and #3 Mac Williamson to sign on their respective dotted lines. However, they mostly struck out with their final picks, failing to sign any of their final 7 picks (including 4 high schoolers and 2 JCs).
Giants Thoughts
They ended up $56,200 over budget, resulting in a 75% fine for going over, but no loss of future draft picks. They finally signed #2 pick Martin Agosta (grew up Giants fan) and #3 Mac Williamson (wild swinging power hitter) by signing the former by about the same amount above as the latter by the same amount below (Agosta got $20,200 above his slot, or $612,500; Mac got $20,300 below, or $390,000). Essentially, Agosta got what Mac was willing to give up.
Given that the loss of a draft pick would have took another $50,000 or so, I don't see why the Giants just didn't give Agosta the amount they felt that Mac would eventually sign under for, in order to get him into professional ball sooner, rather than wait until the last minute. The penalty for going over by that much is pretty much an immaterial accounting error in terms of size. As long as they didn't go over the budget, they were fine.
Though the similar could be said for Agosta, why did he have to fight for that final $20K? That $20K extra just cost him extra development time he could have had right now. It is not like he's a top prospect that far back in the draft, he will need all the development and training he can get, and hopefully start good professional habits this off-season, instead of waiting until next year. If signing sooner, like Stratton, got him to the majors by even one month sooner, he would earn over $80K for that extra month of playing time. Heck, if it got him to the majors even a week early, there's the extra $20K. And after taxes and agent fee, he will probably net under $10K total. I never understand prospects fighting for that final dollar when the amount is that small.
They also signed #4 Steven Okert for $29,900 below (or $270,000 with slot of $299,900) which covered the Giants going over on #6 Steve Johnson (nice reliever arm picked up late) with $180,000 vs. $168,300 slot. Everyone else among the Top 10 picks were at slot except for the previously noted signing of Shilo McCall (doing well in rookie ball so far) for $74,400 over slot. Given that equals the over-budget amount quoted by Baseball America, that implies that the Giants did not pay any pick above the 10th round over $100,000.
They signed more pitchers than position players again, with 16 pitchers, one pitcher/INF, and 14 position players (3 C, 1 C/3B, 1 1B/OF, 1 2B, 2 SS, and 6 OF) selected and signed. Again, more pitchers than position players, even though the average major league team is composed of 13 position players and 12 pitchers. They have been working the volume angle for pitchers for a long time.
There was 1 high school player and 30 college players. Some have a problem with the lack of high school players, but with the two top international free agents signed by the Giants (Gustavo Cabrera and Natanael Javier), this does not bother me, they will probably have a great potential to do something than any of the high schoolers they could have potentially drafted after the 10th round.
I also expect the Giants to pick up some players as not drafted free agents, they usually try to sign some. I think they have found a few promising prospect that way (only Jeremy Accardo comes to mind, though I'm not absolutely sure he was one, maybe it was another pitcher).
OGC! now that the dust has settled, it turns out the Giants spent 500K on their 11-40 picks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2012/07/bonus-spending-by-team/
http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2012/07/bonus-pool-spending/
They made up for a lack of bold moves with their signing of Cabrera and Javier for sure.
However, not getting Tella (who must have had demands over 100K I imagine) and only netting one HS player in the whole shebang wasn't my cup of tea. You have to imagine Hollick took a bit more cash than most to get out of his pro-league/OH ST commitments, but they signed 21 other players for 400-450K. I want more than what they put down, but I'm willing to wait and see what they do next year, and was encouraged by the bold move of grabbing Gustavo Cabrera who looks like a serious Blue Chip talent.
The Doyers grab Hanley Ramirez, these are the types of moves we'll see from that ownership group. I don't expect the Giants to match those moves. I do expect them to make small amounts available (such as an additional 500K for a couple of HS high upside arms in the draft as many, many MLB teams did this year). So we'll see how it goes. They won't be able to compete on a strict spending level, which is why smart drafting (with high upside) is so important.
In this draft class, I really like Stratton and Agosta, and I like Williamson more than most the prospect hounds at MCC or DrB. It goes sideways after that for me, but I do like the sleeper potential of several players: Ryan Jones, Matt Duffy, Andrew Cain as well as young Shilo McCall on the position side, Okert and Johnson seem OK, and Gardeck, Zeigler and Chris Fern on the pitching seem like nice sleepers.
The Giants signed NINE LHP. (Drafted 10) I think that tells us something: they realize LOOGYS are damn expensive and are trolling for some replacements. That, unlike the McCall negotiations, looks like a clear and excellent strategy to me.
Hope you're having a good summer. The Giants are playing lights out ball, I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm going to a wedding this weekend filled to the teeth with Doyer fans just in time for the showdown series. I hope our boys come correct some more. Beat LA!
Thanks for passing that on. Clearly, not that much spending on rounds 11-40, but really, the level of potential back that far in the draft is pretty low.
DeleteI studied the draft picks around the 20th round, seeing that as a fulcrum point for rounds 11-40 in terms of probability and potential (been meaning to post the results on MCC for Nivra, or was that Nirva?), and reached the conclusion that the odds of finding a good player in rounds 11-40 is approximately that of a back of the first round draft pick, which is more than I would have thought, but when spread across 30 picks, is pretty low odds.
Especially with little wiggle room in terms of overspending in rounds 11-40, I'm glad the Giants decided to devote more of their efforts on signing some good international free agents than trying to squeeze every last drop of prospectdom out of rounds 11-40. There is not enough potential left by that point that trying to do any extra gyrations might benefit you on a handful of picks - at best - in those rounds. In terms of earthquake temblors, what teams did in rounds 11-40 registered under 1.0 for me because if you look at rounds 11-13, very few teams did anything, mainly because by then, there were very few players you could do that with. Taking a high school player does not mean he has great potential. Some, yes, but enough to care about, I don't really think so.
Meanwhile, what the Giants did with Cabrera and Javier is more like 5 on the Richter Scale for me, a significant move, though not major like when they got Villalona and RafRod, and almost Mateo.
Manipulating rounds 11-40 is like trying to get every last drop out of that beat-up piece of lemon you just squeeze over your salmon. There ain't much left, but you just got to have that last drop. I would rather work on a new lemon.
About your point about spending $500K on a high school pitcher in that range: how many prospects actually signed for above $100K after round 10? As I noted, I looked at rounds 11-13, there were not many high schoolers signed there.
DeleteYeah, LA will be spenders, but as I noted on DrB, you can't spend your way to relevance. It can only help keep you there and forestall your rebuilding efforts for a little while. The Dodgers have a good core in Kemp and Kershaw and maybe Ethier (he's actually kind of old already), but are pretty weak in most other places. I'm not ready to worry about them until they get Dempster and/or Greinke.
Yeah, I really like Gustavo too.
Nice point about LHP. Could also mean that they are light in the system, or that it happened that LHP was what was on their board at that time.
I am having a nice summer, thanks, same to you. Still not fully recovered with my front teeth, so I'm worried this might be permanent. But otherwise, doing very well, especially at work. Lots of fun work, and people are appreciating my work, even as psuedo-analytical as Roger claims it to be (since all I do here is what I do at work, analyzing). Had a nice vacation, though my sister and I got on each other's nerves by the end of the trip.
Hope you have a great time at the wedding! And hopefully the Giants, most probably sans Sandoval, can put down the dirty Dawgs and win the series. A sweep would be even sweeter, but without Sandoval, I'll be happy with a series win, as that would get us an additional game in-between us, instead of bringing them closer.
This goes to a little philosophical difference between us: I'm going to say it is worth it to make small moves for small amounts of money and squeeze it. I'll cherry pick the example of Clayton Blackburn from last year, a player who has a good chance to be a consensus top 5 prospect for us next round of Top 20 Farm lists.
DeleteAnd just like with Michael Tucker, I think teams always have to be developing at the same time as competing, taking time off/foot off the accelerator just goes against what I think a baseball club should do. I realize there is only so much money to go around, but I also think if you don't spend or even worse punt, you'll never get the chances. Its buying lottery tickets. Old conversation...
Well, I've looked at some of the teams picks, there were a few guys I was surprised didn't sign, and a few that I was shocked signed for so little. I gave some of these examples before, but Steve Golden, a local HS OF got signed by the Phils (13th Round). The Mets were one of the most aggressive HS drafting teams: I was surprised they didn't sign their 3rd round pick Stankiewicz, and I was surprised they got their 7th rounder Corey Oswalt signed for so little. The Mets signed both Flaxen and Sobel in their teen picks, both highly rated by BA.
To buy out HS players its a minimum of 50K, just glancing at what happened with teams in the 11-20 most have at least 2 HS players sprinkled in. One player I would have loved for the Gints to take a chance on was the Braves 16th rounder Fernelys Sanchez. I was very surprised they got him signed. The Yanks missed on highly touted Vincent Jackson and Ty Moore, but hit on a bunch of other HS, including Jose Mesa Jr. The Indians grabbed Fernelys Sanchez teammate Nelson Rodriguez from Washington HS (NY). The Cards signed Max Foody in the 12th. It was earlier but the Marlins got my white whale Ron Miller in the 9th, for slot.
Pretty much every team did a mix. I'll let it go for the year, but I want to see a little more max effort. You throw in Sabean's comments about HS players being a pain in the ass to scout, and I get the impression the Giants just aren't that interested in the high upside youts. Which is funny, because they've actually been quite good at hitting on em, particularly pitchers.
I think its safe to say its a agree to disagree situation. I'm all good with that. And I agree these are longshots, its just that I want the longshot tickets riding in the Gints pockets.
I've thought the Doyers were dangerous from the start, but Hanley R doesn't scare. Some better pitching would though. We'll see how it turns out.
Enjoyed the post and the exchange between you and Shank.
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