craig

Roederer and Riley Thompson have officially signed. No $$ listed yet, to my knowledge.

There has been interests/speculation regarding Parker, 28th-round HS pitcher who came to Wrigley. Two rounds prior was another HS guy, outfielder Julian Boyd. In between was a JC pitcher who I believe has signed. Do we know anything about Boyd, and think he might be signable? My recall is that he was a Nevada commit, and had a football injury. I guess I'm just thinking that *IF* the Cubs think they can/will sign Parker in 28, why would they draft Boyd at 26 unless they also thought he at least MIGHT be signable too? After those HS selections, they go college until 33; the Puerto Rican HS kid signed at 34, but otherwise I think 33-40 HS picks are probably all going to school. But I wonder if 26 and 28 might be in discussion? No idea what if any tools Boyd is supposed to have.

Thompson signed. Not much of a believer in the wildmen, but interesting wildcard/longshot.

Yeah, that's still a pretty decent kitty. Roederer will get a chunk, but there will still be some left, I think. I've got no idea with Andy WEber. If he frees up another $100+ underslot, wouldn't be surprised whatsoever. No idea how much has perhaps already been gobbled up by 3rd day guys who have already signed, or intend to. Thompson, Sanders, Pagan, Slaughter, Reindl, Parker, there are a number of guys who might be worth some over-slot. Parker, waiting till 28 doesn't suggest the expectation to sign him, on the face of it. Not sure he's really worth all that much, myself. But, might also imagine a deal where if parents are big on education and non-baseball factors, that Theo and the Cubs are REALLY good salemen, and can really spin the organization for supporting and valuing the whole person etc. So if mother is worried that son is going to be treated like a piece of meat, perhaps the Wrigley visit would have really put those concerns to rest? Not taking other trips strongly suggests to me the family liked what they heard from the Cubs, and he was telling other teams that he wouldn't sign with them. I kinda think there's a pretty good chance he'll get signed, too. LSU Slaughter, he's s sophomore? Didn't realize. Weird. He's already a good half-year older than most of the juniors. (Richan, Roberts, Mort, Artis are all many months younger than Slaughter. How good is the Razorback reliever? Is he good enough to command overslot? Or is he a guy you expect to get for $125K, or perhaps even less?

Tom, how dated would that video of Franklin be? From last summer? Or woudl that be pretty up-to-date? I'm seeing June 5, 2018 on the thing, is that when it was actually taken? Wes has linked twitter of Franklin saying he's officially a Cub.

Yup, thanks. That last bottom line is the one that counts. Mine is roundoff error, but I'm still within $3K. $985K is a non-trivial amount of discretionary dollars to play with. They may have liked your guy Roederer a lot, and perhaps it took more to buy him off that the $1.1 for Davis, will be interesting to see. HRubes mentioned Mitchell Parker. One of his potential schools already said that the Cubs had made him a "decent" offer. I've got to assume that means variably north of 3rd-day slot, so I think he's probably in play. With most of that $985 already available (if Hoerner has already signed off, as opposed to simply having agreed to terms, but not having the contract in the mlb office), I woldn't think they'd need to hold up on completing some or most of their overslots. Last year Estrada had to wait till the end, because his $$ would't be free till Lange signed off. But once Hoerner is official, then they'll have all but like $30K available for wrapping up Roederer and then etc.

Not sure I'm tracking, but upon completion of top-10's, that opens up the full $376K in overage, and should make more overage available. So how can the last line, with the full $376 in overage included, show less discretionary $$ than the second last line, which does not assume the full overage yet? My numbers have $607K underslot, counting Roberts + $376 overage = $983 sum discretionary. I'm not sure the website where I got my slot numbers had them exactly right, plus I roundoff a bit, so I don't doubt I'm off by a couple of K.

Wow, crazy, that's like 10th-round slot, less than Mort got and no more than senior-sign 22-going-on-23 Casey. Really unexpected that low. By my count, that now puts the Cubs with $983K available for overslot signings. If Roederer and Franlin absorb all of that, that will be very surprising as well. I wonder if the Cubs like the Louisville wildman more than we think, or something? And or the LSU wildman as well? Maybe Pagan? IN past 5 years, I think Clifton's the only 3rd-day who's overslotted by >$100k, and Kevonte Mitchell the only other who's gotten as much as $200K total. Hard to understand the strategy until we know where the overslot cash gets applied.

Yeah, and Lacy and Thomas are excelling in SB rotation. If success in low-minors constitutes success, that's a pretty good start. Not sure any of these guys are going to have stuff that carries up well, so pretty hesitant and cautious. Kind of different from the Bryant draft, where there was considerable focus on college pitchers (Zastryzny, Skulina, Masek, Frazier, Garner, Wilson, but then senior-sign 10th rounder Zach Godley ended up signing for $35K and being the guy who's gotten over 50 big-league starts. Masek and Frazier, those guys never even got off the ground.

Not sure if they've got some formula set up. But it looks to me like other than Hoerner (suppposedly slot), Richan (significant underslot) and Artis (overslot), that the other 4 college picks have all been coming in about 10% underslot, more or less. Wonder if that will be about the same with Roberts and WEber too, or not? Slots are $400's and $300's, so maybe Roberts $40K under and Weber $30K under? Herron: 520 570 -50 Mort 140 159 -19 Casey 130 145 -15 Reynolds 125 137 -12 I admit I was kinda surprised that 8-10 were all coming in with such modest $10-20K sub-slots, that's different from a lot of earlier Cub drafts.

Not sure I'm tracking, and apologies for asking because I'm sure this has been discussed before. But, I'll ask anyway! :) Q1: What's the difference between the bottom two lines, and why is the bottom one smaller? *Are you only including the 5% for guys actually signed in 2nd-last, but last one assumes the full 10-rounds overage will become available because they'll sign? But if the latter, then the remaining overslot would get bigger, not less.... Note: I look at this a more simplistic way based off of $7.5M pool, because I assume they'll all sign. 1. $376 overage will become available. 2. $314 under slot for those signed thus far Sum = $690 So, $690 overslot available to to finish off rounds 1-10 and apply to any 3rd-day overslots. That seems like more than plenty to handle Roederer and Franklin, unless they liked those guys a whole lot more than I realize.

"One of the players who showed off some of the loudest tools of the day was impressive center fielder Ezequiel Pagan ... has present strength ..... confidence in his ability. He was very relaxed and comfortable at the plate showing even a little bit of swagger as well...... He was timed at 4.12 seconds to first base from the left side and has run a 6.6 60-yard dash .... Pagan made long strides in the outfield and garnered good reads off fly balls. Pagan has very loud tools and they showed during his two games played on Friday." "... not strong yet but has lots of physical projection.... Good student...." Craig, Wes just sent me this on him. Thanks for report. Sounds like a writeup that might go for a $1M international signee, or for a 2nd or 3rd rounder. Seems VERY favorable for a 13th rounder, can see why Cubs are excited. Wonder if he's just a kid who loves baseball and wants to get going, so $125K bonus to go chase the dream is all good? Or if some of the underslot savings are going his way? He's still only 17, so lots of time to get stronger and mature. Fun and exciting pick, I'd say!

Do we have any scouting info on the Puero Rican kid in round 13?

This seems like good logic, but pending Roederer's deal, it's fallacious. *DAvis basically signed for slot. They didn't need Richan to underslot to help there. *Unless Roederer gets significantly more than Davis did, he could have been covered by the the 5% overage. *And if they did want to pay Roederer significantly more than Davis, they still have freed up several hundred K more with 8-10 senior signs. Conclusion: Richan pick did NOT need to be sub-slotted in order to sign Davis and Roederer.

Thanks, Cal, that was a **really** interesting interview to listen to. A lot of insights into how they think about prospects, and what they saw in guys rounds 1-5. Multiple references to analytics and stuff, including for not only Roberts but also Richan. Thought it interesting that he didn't really mention anybody after Franklin, other than 13th rounder Ezequiel Pagan, who's 17. Doubt he'd mention him if they don't assume he's signable? I believe the Robert/Mekkes analogy was that their fastballs will play out better than their velocities might suggest. (For whatever reason; Mekkes has the remarkable extension, not sure what it is they see with Roberts....)

From what I see when I read - his peak fastball velocity isn’t as high as the others mostly never showed that in the pros anyway. Otherwise those guys don’t really have anything over him that really really matters. Johnson had his breaking ball but a significant injury history and mediocre mound skills. Skulina was tall or something but didn't have any standout skills, tools, or performance. Stinnet's big skill was missing bats that one year but otherwise didn't have much going for him. Richan just seems more well rounded. He gave up hits in college but wasn’t really knocked around - not many XBHs or HRs (6 HRs his last two seasons over 166+ IP, including just 1 in 2017), and the quantity of hits could be a product of being a groundball guy in front of a college defense. I don't really see scattering some hits as a more damning flaw than lots of injuries, no discernible skills, or being a one trick pony. I believe there's more to work with here than is being credited.. Tom, I think your point is well taken. Why are we sure Richan's a bad pick? Logic Premises: 1. Slow bad fastball 2. No good secondary 3. Overall mediocre stuff. Evidence to support premises: Proven bad ERA, lots of hits, several very lukewarm media scouting reports. Given the premises, the conclusion of bad pick and limited upside seem fair. Tom, I think your comparison to failed picks is somewhat non-helpful. Saying he's no worse than a bunch of busts doesn't really help; we want somebody better! Still, those guys each had stuff to hope on. Johnson throws plenty hard, and has a plenty good secondary pitch, at times. Excellent stuff. Vandy coach-Cubs coordinator-Brewers coach loved him, and projected him as a high-end control guy with a plus/fast fastball and a plus slider, and a promising change. Skulina's reports had a big fastball and a very promising slider. So, based on what media reports told us, each of those looked to have promising big-league stuff, reason to hope. In each case, the control/command never came, and in Skulina's case the pro velocity declined. But, there were reasons to hope. Any prospect, the hope assumes they will develop and improve, and control/command is always part of the hope for pitchers; not that many draft-picks have big-league control already during draft spring. Richan seems to have less velocity than any of them, and no single pitch that's been ID'd as excellent.... by us on this board or by the limited media scouting reports. But I'm inclined to kinda trust the Cubs scouts. 1. They've got 20+ of them, and tools to be measuring spin rates and stuff. Maybe they see healthy spin rates and DO see already good secondaries with potential for plus secondaries? 2. Media reports were mediocre/slow fastball; McLeod talked about 94 regularly. 3. Seems like most of the good pitchers in the league are mostly working in the 90-93 range most of the time anyway, so while Richan's doesn't seem fast, it may be in the same standard range where most guys work, and probably as fast as Lange or any of the picks last year. Perhaps they feel his velocity is just fine, and not much different from Darvish or Chatwood, or the Brewers guys who have been shutting us out? 4. This will sound cheesy, but yeah, I do tend to figure that when the Cubs pick a guy, they do it with a lot of info and in a thoughtful, logical, well-reasoned way. I don't know what their scouting input was, but I just kinda assume they had thorough scouting that justifies the pick where it was made. 5. Think a lot of their recent college pitchers have been doing reasonably well. Lange, Abbott, Thompson, Uelman, all are doing pretty well, and Little was getting better too. Thomas and Lacy also. Hatch, Miller, Robinson, Rucker, those guys have been doing pretty decent also. So, maybe the Cubs scouting deserves a little benefit-of-the-doubt? I understand the converse too, though; not sure any of those guys have stuff to go beyond decent A+/AA pitchers. Not sure yet whether any of them will have enough stuff to win in the majors. So, I understand the logic that maybe the Cubs scouts do NOT desrve any benefit-of-the-doubt, at leat not yet.... I looked at Richan's numbers, and I may not be recalling right or maybe didn't calculate right but I think his BABIP-against was like >.350 this season. Crazy high. Perhaps that reflects really blah stuff; or that his low walk-rate is just because he'll groove a meatball fastball rather than allow a walk. Totally possible. But maybe he really did just have a lot of bad luck, and bad defense. Hoping he works out well and the cubs scouts are vindicated.

It will be interesting to see how the Cubs spending does play out. How much will Roederer and franklin get? I've kind of gotten used to Cubs going senior-sign cheap in rounds 8-10, sometimes 7 too. But some things may be different this year? Paying Artis a little OVER in round 7? Reynolds almost full in 10? I wonder if, with other teams often dropping out in rounds 7-10, if they've felt that by going slot in those rounds, they can actually get some good value on guys who want to sign and want the status of being 2nd-day picks? There was reference to "decent" offer to 28th round pick Parker. Maybe they do think there are also some guys who'd sign for $150+ on 3rd day, and with two rookie-league teams they want to add more volume? Will we see a couple of 3rd-days who get modest overslot? Not huge, but $100K here or there? Hard to figure the value of sub-slotting richan without knowing what the cash gets spent on; and then it will take years to figure if any of that is worthwhile.

I don't really follow the "system is the system, and there is a need for underslot" logic, with regards to Richan and the Cubs draft. Unless there are some surprises ahead. With Davis signing for $1.1 slot, why would there be any "need" to underslot in the Richan pick? I may be wrong, but I don't imagine Roederer or Franklin are getting $0.5M over..... With Davis and Hoerner signing for slot, they could certainly have covered Roederer with overage, and taken a full-slot guy at Richan's pick. I don't think they had to go cheap, or had to significantly compromise quality (as perceived by Cub scouts). If they didn't need to, then why did they? I hypothesize that they just liked the guy, and viewed the subslot not as a need but as an opportunity. If they like the guy just as well as slot guys, why not take the equally good Richan AND free up the cash? Win-win. I may be wrong. Maybe they love both Roederer and Franklin, and need to hit $1M for each of them or close. *IF* they like Franlin to the tune of >$800K, then they needed to create some cash somewhere. (If so, I'm actually more excited about Franklin, that would be pretty intriguing) But I'm kinda thinking they just scouted Richan as being worth the pick, with the sub-slot cash freed as being value added. Kind of how they talk about Schwarber.

Casey will be 23 this winter, and pitched 95 innings. A lot of pro pitchers his age go well over 100 innings in a season. From his angle. He's going to be 23 next season. His college-over-pro choice, and recent affirmation that it was the right choice because he wants to be prepared for life after baseball, suggests he's thoughtful and interested in post-baseball career. I'm sure he'd like to give pro ball a shot... for a while. But I'd think from his side, I'd like that trial to happen ASAP. The sooner I get going, the sooner I can figure out whether my stuff can magically tick up and whether I'm going to magically become a big-league prospect. Assuming not, the sooner I can decide when to retire and get on with post-baseball career. If I were in his shoes, I think I'd probably like to pitch 30-45 innings already this summer, and get up to full-season for a bunch of them. Then have all of next season to see how it goes, and see if I can do well at Myrtle at age 23, and perhaps have some success in AA. If things go well next year, stick to it. But if I realize I just don't have the stuff that the big-league prospects have, the spin rate, the movement, the velocity; and if I'm giving up gobs of HR's like I did in college; I might like to reach that decision ASAP, and retire after next season, and get going with a real career. so the Cubs might really be doing me a favor to let me get a decent chunk of game innings this summer and see how it goes. Of course maybe he just loves to play baseball, and will be happy to bounce around for as many years as he can, even if only as a roster-fill minor-leaguer, and then maybe hook up with an indy-league team for as long as he can after he gets cut from organized ball. Some guys just love the game and don't want to give it up.

Yeah. Cubs made their valuation and don't seem to care what other teams thought. Their valuation may be (or maybe isn't) way different from what other teams evaluated. Whatever, lets just hope they are vindicated.

Will be really curious to see how Roberts progresses. Hadn't realized he was so small. Lists at 5'11" 170, that's not your average pitcher build. So the guy seems to be an outlier in every way, size as well as relief-background and limited velocity. One of the other things I noticed was how relatively young several of the college guys are. Often a college junior will be have-way or more from age 21 to age 22, like Fogey Herron who'll turn 22 in July. Hoerner: just turned 21 within the last month. Richan, end of March. Herron's a fogey, almost 22 (in July). Roberts: 20 (turns 21 on 4th-of-July) WEber: 20, won't turn 21 till end of July. Artis: turned 21 end of March Mort: just turned 21 a couple weeks ago. OK, Derek Casey is a super-fossil. Turned 22 way back in Feb, so he'll open next camp at age 23. I'm just interested in the age, because guys can mature a lot around that age. So a guy like WEber, I like it that he'll play almost all next season at age 21. If it turns out he's just a true-blue hitter, in full-season at age 21, then age isn't really against him.

That doesn't instill me with a lot of confidence... I do count Hannemann as a raw guy who didn't work out even though he went to college. There are definitely parallels between Hannemann and Davis. I know Davis is the better athlete and has a higher upside. Brennen Davis actually has one of the highest ceilings in the entire draft... I just don't think he reaches it or even gets close. I believe Kiley McDaniel mentioned how some scouts were worried his bat was a 30 or 40. I don't count IFAs with amateur draft picks. I'm strictly talking about the draft and the scouts involved with the MLB draft. I don't want to compare Gleyber and Eloy against our draft picks because it creates weird comparisons and we lack a lot of knowledge about how they scout internationally. It's not fair to compare Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber to Gleyber Torres and Miguel Amaya and so on. MLB teams scout those kids at a very young age and come to agreements when they are 14 or 15. Sometimes even younger now... I do totally give credit to the international scouts for doing a great job and signing some top prospects. I think we need to ask UK what he thinks and what other scouts think of the Cubs 2018 draft class. All of your points are legit. Hannaman like Wilson was a raw hitting prospect, and the Cubs are 0-2. Even if they are O-2 thus far, that still doesn't prove they'll be 0-4 after this draft. (Even after Rizzo starts a game 0-2, that doesn't mean he'll never get a hit later.... ) Your point on Eloy/Gleber vs Davis/Roederer is valid. Different scouts involved, to some degree. (McLeod and others are involved with big-ticket internationals as well as high-round draftees, though, so it's not a totally different scouting group). It's the same development system at play whether a teenager was scouted by a draft scout or an international scout. You are certainly right that Law had a non-gush report on Roederer, and some scouts question Davis's bat. So you may be correct that the Cubs have crummy scouts and drafted badly. That's certainly a plausible judgment to make. And even if it isn't, it's less than likely that some HS guys picked in the 60-80 range are going to success and prove otherwise. I guess I'm just arguing two points: 1. The Cubs strategy was to draft for upside, and in their scouting perception, dumb/ignorant/naive/misguided as that may be, they thought they were taking two upside guys. 2. The Cubs put in a lot of effort on those two players, more so than did Law or Kiley, and believe the two guys have pretty significant upside. So maybe some difference in scouting opinion, it happens often. It may well be that Law and Kiley and Kiley's sources are good scouts, and the Cubs are bad scouts, so the Cubs may be dumb to believe that. But hopefully we'll get lucky and the Cubs scouts will be vindicated.

Interesting article in the Athletic about the Cubs draft, with some good quotes from Dorey etc.. https://theathletic.com/384762/2018/06/07/an-inside-look-at-how-the-cubs-2018-draft-class-came-together/ Show, I hope you're wrong. I think some of your arguments are a little mixed. Seems to me that one argument is: 1. Cubs haven't done well outside of the first round thus far (I agree), so they won't do well outside of the first round in this draft either. 2. A second argument is that have failed with raw prospects before, so will fail with Roederer and Davis. 3. A third is that they didn't draft upside guys. You may well be right. But I think your second argument is the hinge one. I think Wilson is the only $$-HS guy they've signed. Hanneman is another example of a raw guy who didn't work out, but he was college already. The others, Crawfords and the like, those are 3rd-day picks. So to me, it seems like the Cubs record with HS-hitters like Roederer and Davis is pretty much wilson and that's it. I agree, Wilson's been a hopeless failure, and a wasted pick. But I'm not sure failing on one HS pick, and then also some 3rd-day guys, I think that's a small data pool on which to conclude a trend. So I'm optimistic re both Roederer and Davis. I think your 3rd argument is somewhat confusing. You complain that they didn't select upside guys, when to my perspective they took two such in Davis and Roederer. Reading what Dorey said, they were very much looking for upside guys, and ID'd Davis and Roederer as such. So the attempt is clearly there. You've already concluded that their attempts will fail, and you'll probably be correct. (Most 60-80 picks fail, especially HS ones....) But that's a scouting evaluation on your part, I think, (or a scouting failure on their part), more than a strategic failure. If in fact they did fail. My thinking is that although some of their HS guys have failed (Wilson and Sierra), they've had good luck with Gleyber and Eloy and Amara. So I'm not sure it's as well established and conclusive that they will fail to identify and develop teenage hitting prospects.

INteresting thoughts, Toonster. I'm not sure I view the draft in the same way. I don't think diversity in a draft is critical. If a couple of drafts focus on pitching, and then one focuses on infielders, I don't mind the "focused" drafts at all. Goal is to get major leaguers, and that's hard; so I won't be surprised at all if the draft doesn't produce many useful big-leaguers. Lots of drafts don't. And with two high-risk HS guys as picks 2 + 3, the chance of missing on both is pretty significant. But I also think the chance of hitting pretty strongly with one or the other is also pretty meaningful, and is maybe higher than with some of the college guys available at that area. But yeah, I had no complaint with focusing. Think maybe the scouts can do a more thorough job if they know what they're focusing on in a particular draft? I think you've been kind of negative about the recent pitching-focused drafts. Certainly Hudson year hasn't looked too hot, but that was a hitter-oriented draft. Last and previous years were pitchign, yes. But, 2015 they weren't starting till round 3. Given nothing 1st or 2nd rounds, I think Hatch, Miller, Clark, Robinson, Swarmer, Mekkes, that's really doing pretty well. Three AA starters this fast, two A+ starters, and Mekkes, I don't think that's too bad starting with 3rd-rounder. Last year: Lange, Abbott, and Thompson are all already at Myrtle, and pitching pretty well. (K/BB rates are really good.) Little, Uelman, and Lacy are all starting at South Bend, and showing some variable promise. And Estrada seems to look promising in Mesa. So, not sure that was a bad draft. The goal is to create big-league value, so the fact those pitchers are clustering in A-, A+, and AA, and there isn't much position-support for them, I don't think that changes the chances that those drafts will be big-leauge productive, given that they didn't strt till round 3 in the Hatch draft. Of course we're all minor-league fans, but the goal isn't to have balanced A-ball teams, it's to produce big-leaguers. So I don't mind having some very imperfect, imbalanced minor-league teams.

Both Cease and Estrada were 6th-round picks. Maybe this will be the round? D.J. Wilson was 4th round, he's the only other million-dollar superslot I can recall. (Well, obviously Sands and Steele, too...)