2015 Cubs Picks Discussion

[Tryptamine]

Yet another guy with a middle of the bullpen ceiling.

[toonsterwu]

This draft has pretty much been at very best meh so far. 3 players in a row that are signability guys with no one drafted who is going to likely take more than slot.

Isn't it possible they are saving money on some of these 3-10 rounds with "signability" guys (since you'd lose the pool if they go unsigned) and will reach for a couple guys starting in round 11? I'm happy with the first few picks and will reserve any more judgement until after tomorrow (and even then nobody really knows for years how these guys will all play out).

 

Very possible. For all the talk that happens on draft day, reality is, if we get one solid player from this draft, it's a fine enough draft. There's definitely enough talent from what's been picked to get a solid guy or two.

 

I think Raisin's probably right and they'll probably pop one guy after the 10th round and try to see if they can convince him to sign. There's a fair amount of intriguing prep guys that have slipped through so far.

[Guest]

5 straight seniors to end today. Let's assume they saved $750k in space there and saved another $250-$500k on Happ. I assume Hudson is going to get some of that - let's say Happ's money. Then, they have about $1 million to work with tomorrow. Carson Sands younger brother Cole? Kyle Molnar? Joe DeMers?

 

EDIT: Wilson probably goes over slot too. Maybe they only have $500-$750k left over. Just looking at their first 10 picks, I don't see how they don't have some money. Might not be 7 figure Cease money but at least some mid-6 figure bonus (Clifton) should be in play.

[Guest]

CUBS CONCLUDE SECOND DAY OF 2015 MLB PLAYER DRAFT

 

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

 

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs today completed the second day of the 2015 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. The club thus far has selected 10 players. The third and final day of the draft is tomorrow with rounds 11-40.

 

The Cubs selected left-handed pitcher Bryan Hudson out of Alton (Ill.) High School with their third pick, and took outfielder Darryl Wilson out of Canton South High School in Ohio with their fourth selection. In the fifth round, the Cubs selected left-handed pitcher Ryan Kellogg from Arizona State University.

 

Hudson was recommended by area scout Stan Zielinski, Wilson was recommended by area scout Daniel Carte and Kellogg was recommended by area scout Steve McFarland.

 

Hudson, 18, went 10-2 with five shutouts and a 0.50 ERA in 70.1 innings while striking out 152 hitters in 15 appearances (13 starts) for the Alton Redbirds this past season. The southpaw limited opponents to a .138 batting average to go along with a 0.90 WHIP. He averaged 19.45 strikeouts per nine innings all while posting a 5.24 strikeout to walk ratio (29 walks).

 

The six-foot, eight-inch 220-pound lefthander, who has committed to the University of Missouri, helped lead the Redbirds to a school-record 30 wins in 2015, including a second-place tie in the Southwestern Conference with an

11-3 mark. He finished his career at Alton High School with a school record 25 wins and 323 strikeouts, while posting a 1.32 ERA (29 ER/198.0 IP). Hudson is a three-time All Southwestern Conference pitcher, a two-time All-State Performer for the Illinois Coaches Association and a two-time All-State Performer for Prep Baseball Report.

 

Wilson, 18, batted .545 with a 1.000 slugging percentage, 30 RBI and 30 stolen bases for the Canton South Wildcats this season. The left-handed hitting outfielder led the Wildcats to their first Division II regional final appearance in school history and to their fourth-consecutive district title. He was named to the Central – All Region First Team and was honored as a 2015 Perfect Game Second Team All-American. He has committed to Vanderbilt University.

 

Kellogg, 21, went 9-2 with two complete games (one shutout) and a 3.60 ERA (46 ER/115.0 IP) in 16 starts for Arizona State this season. The southpaw led the Sun Devils in wins for the third-straight season, and recorded a career-best 92 strikeouts compared to just 23 walks while limiting opponents to a .274 batting average (121-for-441). He tossed a five-hit, complete game shutout to go along with a season-best 11 strikeouts, May 14 vs. Washington State. The junior became just the eighth Sun Devil in school history to be honored as a three-time First Team All-Pac-12 member.

 

A three-year letter winner, Kellogg’s 28-career wins rank 10th in school history and fourth among left-handed pitchers. His 62 walks in three years are the fewest in school history among pitchers with at least 300.0 career innings. As a freshman, he tossed the 10th no-hitter in Pac-10/12 history, March 23, 2013 at Oregon State, en route to earning Freshman All-America honors from Baseball America and Louisville Slugger.

 

Through the first two days, the Cubs have selected six pitchers (three right-handed and three left-handed), three outfielders and one infielder. Additionally, the Cubs have selected eight college players and two high school players.

 

Here is a look at Chicago’s first 10 selections from the 2015 First-Year Player Draft:

 

Rd (pick)   Player         Pos.      School                  Birthday   B  T   Ht.    Wt.
1 (9)    Ian Happ          OF   University of Cincinnati      8/12/94   S  R   6-0    205
2 (47)   Donnie Dewees     OF   University of North Florida   9/29/93   L  L   5-11   180
3 (82)   Bryan Hudson      LHP  Alton H.S. (Ill.)              5/8/97   L  L   6-8    220 
4 (113)  Darryl Wilson     OF   Canton South H.S. (Ohio)      10/8/96   L  L   5-8    177
5 (143)  Ryan Kellogg      LHP  Arizona State University       2/4/94   R  L   6-6    230
6 (173)  Dave Berg         RHP  UCLA                          3/28/93   R  R   6-0    190
7 (203)  Craig Brooks      RHP  Catawba College (N.C.)        9/23/92   R  R   5-10   180
8 (233)  Preston Morrison  RHP  TCU                           7/19/93   R  R   6-2    185
9 (263)  Tyler Peitzmeier  LHP  Cal State – Fullerton         2/26/93   L  L   6-2    210
10 (293) Vimael Machin     SS   VCU                           9/25/93   L  R   5-11   185

[davell]

5 straight seniors to end today. Let's assume they saved $750k in space there and saved another $250-$500k on Happ. I assume Hudson is going to get some of that - let's say Happ's money. Then, they have about $1 million to work with tomorrow. Carson Sands younger brother Cole? Kyle Molnar? Joe DeMers?

 

EDIT: Wilson probably goes over slot too. Maybe they only have $500-$750k left over. Just looking at their first 10 picks, I don't see how they don't have some money. Might not be 7 figure Cease money but at least some mid-6 figure bonus (Clifton) should be in play.

 

I think a good bit will be decided on whether Happ is 250 or 500 under.....I can see Hudson signing at a mill(taking up the 250), but it's also conceivable he signs at slot, in my opinion. He's an Illinois kid anyway, it wouldn't shock me, at least. But I figure it's a mill or so. I'm hoping Wilson signs for slot, the Vandy thing worries me though.

 

At any rate, with 5 straight senior signs, plus Happ, Im hopeful we've got room for one Sands, DeMers type.

[TruffleShuffle]

I see we haven't learned much from last year, when lots of people complained about three safe college picks to start the draft and wondered what the hell the Cubs were thinking.

[Guest]

I see we haven't learned much from last year, when lots of people complained about three safe college picks to start the draft and wondered what the hell the Cubs were thinking.

Who is we?

 

Also, this year's draft looks very little like last year's considering they had already picked Sands, Steele and Cease at this point last year (with a much bigger pool to work with).

[mul21]

5 straight seniors to end today. Let's assume they saved $750k in space there and saved another $250-$500k on Happ. I assume Hudson is going to get some of that - let's say Happ's money. Then, they have about $1 million to work with tomorrow. Carson Sands younger brother Cole? Kyle Molnar? Joe DeMers?

 

EDIT: Wilson probably goes over slot too. Maybe they only have $500-$750k left over. Just looking at their first 10 picks, I don't see how they don't have some money. Might not be 7 figure Cease money but at least some mid-6 figure bonus (Clifton) should be in play.

 

I think a good bit will be decided on whether Happ is 250 or 500 under.....I can see Hudson signing at a mill(taking up the 250), but it's also conceivable he signs at slot, in my opinion. He's an Illinois kid anyway, it wouldn't shock me, at least. But I figure it's a mill or so. I'm hoping Wilson signs for slot, the Vandy thing worries me though.

 

At any rate, with 5 straight senior signs, plus Happ, Im hopeful we've got room for one Sands, DeMers type.

 

being an Illinois kid likely is irrelevant. it's a near 100% guarantee he's a Cardinals fan.

[Little Slide Rooter]

At the end of the day, how thin is the line between an exciting draft and a boring one?

 

Going back to 2011 when we went overslot crazy, we did a good job starting to reload a baron farm system. But outside of rounds 1&2, how exciting is it looking today?

 

3: DeVoss ($375K:)Gone. Out of baseball.

4. Zych ($400K:) Gone. Traded/sold to Seattle. Was looking decent at one point.

5. Scott ($275K:) Doing well for himself between A+/AA, but just turned 23

6. Gretzky ($375K:) Gone. Hanging on in the Angels' system, but I suspect it's more to do with the namd than anything else.

7. Schlecht ($275K:) Gone. Out of baseball. Never made his was past Rookie league.

8. Lockhart ($385K:) Exists: Perennial top 30 place holder.

11. Dunston (1.275K) Hanging in there. Doubt he'll ever do much more than that.

13. Martin (250K) Ditto.

14. Maples (2.5MM) Ugh

25. Shoulders (295K) Gone. But nobody can take away his 2013 Minor League Name of the Year award. And he had one insanely hot streak early last year. Has a .152/.219/.242 line with 0 HR between Texas' A+/AAA affiliates.

26. Jensen (225K) Looking good when healthy.

27. Easterling (200K) Gone. But whatever he's doing, I'll bet he looks damn sexy doing it.

[jersey cubs fan]

Well that was a Henry draft and he was bad at his job.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Well that was a Henry draft and he was bad at his job.

 

Kind of my point. What made that draft so exciting was grabbing the shiniest toys they could, and then throwing as much money as they could to get them.

 

This draft may be full of yawners, but I trust that they did a lot of homework on these guys. And with the exception of #1, I wouldn't be at all surprised if 3-4 years from now, this year's uninspiring picks aren't doing as well or better than the guys that made that draft so exciting.

[ScrubMD]

If you really want to barf:

 

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/draft.jsp?c_id=chc&year=2010

[TruffleShuffle]

I see we haven't learned much from last year, when lots of people complained about three safe college picks to start the draft and wondered what the hell the Cubs were thinking.

Who is we?

 

Also, this year's draft looks very little like last year's considering they had already picked Sands, Steele and Cease at this point last year (with a much bigger pool to work with).

 

obviously the later draft slot gives the cubs fewer options to walk away with prizes like sands, steele and cease. but it's kind of dumb to complain about it being a vanilla draft, since they still haven't picked anybody who looks like a big overslot, and the last few picks clearly suggest that there will be at least one big overslot signing to be drafted tomorrow.

[Guest]

I see we haven't learned much from last year, when lots of people complained about three safe college picks to start the draft and wondered what the hell the Cubs were thinking.

Who is we?

 

Also, this year's draft looks very little like last year's considering they had already picked Sands, Steele and Cease at this point last year (with a much bigger pool to work with).

 

obviously the later draft slot gives the cubs fewer options to walk away with prizes like sands, steele and cease. but it's kind of dumb to complain about it being a vanilla draft, since they still haven't picked anybody who looks like a big overslot, and the last few picks clearly suggest that there will be at least one big overslot signing to be drafted tomorrow.

Then say that instead of making condescending statements about people not learning from last year when that draft goes completely against your point.

[toonsterwu]

Well that was a Henry draft and he was bad at his job.

 

Kind of my point. What made that draft so exciting was grabbing the shiniest toys they could, and then throwing as much money as they could to get them.

 

This draft may be full of yawners, but I trust that they did a lot of homework on these guys. And with the exception of #1, I wouldn't be at all surprised if 3-4 years from now, this year's uninspiring picks aren't doing as well or better than the guys that made that draft so exciting.

 

I think there's a tendency, and I've noted this before, to glorify this regime. I like a lot of what they've done (actually, the only move, off the top, that I immediately disliked right away was early ... when they let Flaherty go when there was a need for a utility player in the upper levels ... and then subsequently put Jeff Bianchi on the 40 man temporarily ... of course, later that winter, they lucked into Valbuena and Cardenas, capably replacing Flaherty/LeMahieu). That said, all regimes can have bad drafts, and I've made the argument before that McLeod's run in San Diego wasn't all that inspiring (2011 was better than 2010, but he had a lot of high picks in 2011). I mean, Andrew Friedman and Billy Beane are two noted guys ... and their systems have gone dry at times in recent years for their respective organizations at the time. Epstein's run in Boston had moments where his system was relatively over-hyped (I made that argument several years back as well, when everyone was talking up all the arms they had ... a lot of them never, ever panned out, and same goes for some of those bats). We don't even have to go that far ... the Cubs 2012 draft isn't all that inspiring right now, and 3 years is a fair amount of time to judge things, and 2013 is anchored by Kris Bryant but besides that, we're probably looking at Trevor Clifton as the next most intriguing guy from that draft as of now.

 

Of course, that comes with the benefit of hindsight. I've always argued that all drafts in all major sports need to be judged from two prisms - hindsight is obviously the one that makes the grades, but judging at the time is certainly a fair assessment. Of course, as noted, we always need to remember that simply getting 1 solid major leaguer from a draft is actually fairly solid, and getting 2-3 is actually great.

 

My issue, if I have one with this draft (again ... I'm not disappointed ... I'm just not excited so far ... and for all the talk about 11-40th round guys ... there's no guarantee we sign them ... ) isn't the "vanilla-ness" of this draft - it's that we drafted a lot of similar guys. We drafted 3 guys who look like pen arms (although I would certainly try Craig Brooks in the rotation first), a couple pitchability arms, two under-sized hit tool OF's (albeit on totally different timelines which does make it relatively okay). I prefer a diverse draft in terms of talent and even positions, as there's certainly enough areas in our system that could use filling in.

 

Functionally, at the end of the day, the issue is with the draft system, and the draft system itself is hindering MLB's efforts to make the draft more exciting. I'm not sure what answer is out there (perhaps hard-slotting through the first 3 rounds?, and then soft-slot numbers for the next 7-10 rounds?).

 

_____

 

As a side note, the 2010 draft looks bad at the top ... but there's a chance four guys from that draft could see decent MLB careers (Szczur, Jokisch, Beeler, and Aaron Kurcz is actually doing okay in the upper levels as a pen arm). No studs from that draft, but honestly ... getting 4 guys up the AAA with a shot at the bigs ... isn't bad. Not great, but not bad. That draft will always look bad because of the top of the draft (although back then, Golden was largely thought of as a good value pick, and same goes for Gibbs). I think 2009 looks worse right now (that said, Brett Jackson hanging on in AAA, LeMahieu is a steady big leaguer now, though, and Justin Bour has probably even surprised the biggest optimists). 2008 was the draft that got me mildly excited back in the day, and in some respects, that draft has faired relatively well (Cashner, Flaherty's a solid big league role guy, Josh Harrison, and Tony Campana and Jeff Beliveau reached the bigs, which is an achievement). 2008 had one of my favorite minor league names - Rebel Ridling.

[Guest]

As a side note, the 2010 draft looks bad at the top ... but there's a chance four guys from that draft could see decent MLB careers (Szczur, Jokisch, Beeler, and Aaron Kurcz is actually doing okay in the upper levels as a pen arm). No studs from that draft, but honestly ... getting 4 guys up the AAA with a shot at the bigs ... isn't bad. Not great, but not bad.

 

I think that's pretty unequivocally bad, myself.

 

That said, the 2011 draft is a good example, there's a bunch of guys who were cause for draft day excitement and then again when they were able to be signed. Gretzky, Lockhart, Dunston, Martin, Maples, Shoulders, the Cubs absolutely won the day(s) of the draft. The certainty about what prospects are better than others after the first...5 picks(not rounds, picks) or so, and sometimes not even then(Schwarber) is vastly, vastly overstated.

[Guest]

Now here's a really bad draft: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/draft.jsp?c_id=chc&year=2005

[UMFan83]

Now here's a really bad draft: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/draft.jsp?c_id=chc&year=2005

 

That has to be the worst draft haul in baseball history

[KrisBryantisaBeast]

Now here's a really bad draft: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/draft.jsp?c_id=chc&year=2005

 

That has to be the worst draft haul in baseball history

 

Did any of those guys even play a game in the major leagues?

[davell]

Veal did. If anyone else did, I don't remember it.

[SouthSideRyan]

Veal did. If anyone else did, I don't remember it.

 

Tyler Graham who I've never heard of, picked up 2 PAs with the D-Backs in 2012

 

ETA: He didn't sign with us though(drafted by and signed with the Giants the following year)so not sure if that'd count.

 

Looks like he was a September call-up strictly to be a pinch runner.

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm excited for 2017 when Kris Bryant passes the following guys for career WAR by a Cubs position player draftee:

 

Last 10 years: Darwin Barney

This Century: Geovany Soto

25 years: Doug Glanville

30 years: Rick Wilkins

[Guest]

I'm excited for 2017 when Kris Bryant passes the following guys for career WAR by a Cubs position player draftee:

 

Last 10 years: Darwin Barney

This Century: Geovany Soto

25 years: Doug Glanville

30 years: Rick Wilkins

Should keep this bookmarked for any discussion about why the Cubs have sucked so often.

[davell]

Veal did. If anyone else did, I don't remember it.

 

Tyler Graham who I've never heard of, picked up 2 PAs with the D-Backs in 2012

 

ETA: He didn't sign with us though(drafted by and signed with the Giants the following year)so not sure if that'd count.

 

Looks like he was a September call-up strictly to be a pinch runner.

 

Damn, never heard of him either.

[TruffleShuffle]

Then say that instead of making condescending statements about people not learning from last year when that draft goes completely against your point.

 

no it doesn't. people jumped to conclusions too early about the draft last year when all the signs were that the cubs were going to bring in at least one overslot. now all the signs are that the cubs will bring in at least one overslot. they're clearly going to spend as much as they can without losing a first round pick, since that's what they've done every year since the new rules came in.

 

as an aside, i wonder if there would be a team which will see a particular draft year as being really strong, and just draft all the overslot players who fall. i kind of doubt it, just because you'd have to pay 100% luxury tax on all of those signings, plus sacrificing your next two first round picks. rules are just too punitive to go with a strategy like that.