craig

Interesting. The money for Mitchell who is not significantly rated by baseball America, versus the money spent on, say, the 11th rounder, speaks to how unreliable the rankings are. The same goes for Norwood who is ranked top 80. But really interesting that they like Michel that much. I wonder whether Willis also got some over slot? He talked about the negotiation being complicated, or something like that, which might imply more than just a standard fixed 100 K plus college.

Agree there, Dave. That's how I see it too. We've got around $1.2 in overslot, and if we spend it all on Cease we can get up to $1.5. But if we don't spend it on Cease, the only reduction in discretionary is 5% of Cease's slot, less than $15K. So we can spend up to $1.5 on Cease; up to $1.3 on Gilliam. Good middle-of-the-order hitters who are just plain good hitters and who have good power besides are the rarest and most valuable commodity in the game. Not likely that Gilliam is that or will become that, of course. But if Cease said no and forced you to settle for Gilliam, and in the unlikely event that Gilliam worked out, that might be one of those hugely lucky breaks that sets up championships. (Heh, perhaps kind of like wanting Appel but getting Bryant?) (I think of Cardinals with Pujols, Red Sox with Mo Vaughan, Texas with Josh Hamilton, Packers getting Aaron Rodgers after nobody called them to offer a decent trade for that pick, all of these are kinda lucky breaks that made huge impact.) It says something about how much the Cubs like Cease, though, that they want to focus so much money on him even while expecting him to need TJ. A healthy back-of-first-round guy still gets "only" around $1.5. If they liked him so well to schedule that kind of an offer for him, that clearly suggests they like his healthy stuff as top-half-of-first-round quality.

Thanks. Other than Gilliam, picks 1-27 were all guys they expected to sign. 28 and on is where they started all the no-expectation-to-sign rounds. So Gilliam is curiously out of place. Seems pretty likely that he was viewed as a more highly prioritized Cease-alternative than the later picks in the no-sign rounds. Hope it doesn't come to that, and Cease signs on. But in case he doesn't, it's nice to read that Gilliam is looking better than ever. Who knows, maybe they'll end up signing Gilliam and he'll become a good middle-of-the-order producer for years. Seems like an interesting fall-back plan.

Dont' think so. That was the Maples/Dunston draft, so maybe he got $100K or something, but I don't recall him being anything noteworthy. Low-minors baseball is so funny. Boise is winning 6-1, but the other team has already gotten three base runners thrown out stealing.

Hatley's numbers are really good, too. Before today, I think: Hatlay: 35K/7BB/1HR/27IP Pugliese: 42K/6BB/1HR/30IP Rivero: 54K/16BB/2HR/34IP Vizcaino: 26K/7BB/1HR/23IP. Rosscup: 18K/5BB/0HR/13IP Cervenka: 35K/12BB/1HR/27IP Some pretty fun K-rates in that group of relievers.

It's a weird stroke. He truncates it at the end, doesn't really have a free/full/complete follow-through. Unusual. Am I wrong, and is that common or recommended?

cal, you may have analyzed this elsewhere or picked up insights from Az Phil's stuff? Have we gotten any indication of who'll be rotation for Boise? I'm guessing Clifton will start. So, Ihrig organizational type guy; Leal, soft-tosser who's not likely much of a big-league prospect; presumably (hopefully?) Clifton. That would leave two other spots. I assume both of those will be either Latins or organizational late-round college picks? Seems like all the top-10-round draft picks will be relievers at Boise, right? Frazier, relief. Garner, relief. Conway, relief. McNeil, relief. Masek, relief. Lang, relief. (Did he make that roster? I'd imagine he's probably not long for the system anyway, given how hopelessly wild he is.) Kind of a shame that six picks from two drafts, 5 of them college guys, are not healthy enough or good enough to be more than short-season relievers at this point. O well, that's life when the draft focuses on pitchers.

Paniagua's 15K/0 runs over his last two starts. He's allowed more than 2 runs in only 1 outing since May 1st. He's had four straight excellent starts. (I believe his recent two-run start may have been both runs allowed in his last inning? Hope he can sequence some more good ones. Fun.

Thanks for update, dave. Nice to see Brink in. I wonder if he just wanted the $100K and wanted to get moving, so signed for slot? Or if he got a little extra? I'd guess a lot of signings will get reports in the next several days. 1. I'm sure it takes a little time to get physicals arranged and have signings made official. So my guess is a number of guys have headed or are heading to Arizona to get all that stuff wrapped up. 2. With Boise starting this weekend, college slot guys will want to get going. 3. Often guys have signed without it being in the media, but we first realize when Az Phil or somebody reports seeing them in Mesa, or they just show up on a roster or in a game once the games get started. 4. They may punch through the "just-get-it-done" easy signings first, and perhaps anybody in the organization can handle those, without needing attention from McLeod or Hoyer or Theo getting involved. But Hoyer is going to be involved with Sands, Cease, guys like that, or 3rd-day overslots like DJ Peters or whomever. John Knighton, not that complicated if it's a straight slot offer. May be that with Schwarber signed, that will open up overslot negotiations, too. 5. Perhaps some have been agreed upon, but just haven't been signed. AFter two summers dealing with Boras, they've probably established a policy of never finalizing and submitting an overslot and going into penalty mode, even if you expect some other signing will pull you out. Only submit/announce overslots when you've got the existing space. 6. Hoyer has to put work in. If he was focusing his work hours on Schwarber, perhaps he wasn't talking hard with Sands. But with Schwarber done, he can redirect attention. 7. A finalized deal firms up the money situation. A draft-night phone call can sort of establish what a kid wants. But it's not a signed contract, it may not be precise, and parents/agents can get greedy and change their tune. For example, HOyer might come out of Boras/Bryant pre-draft discussions thinking they've agreed at 90% slot; but Boras has all the leverage and can change his story and say full-slot or no deal. So, whatever they thought they'd agreed on with Schwarber or Sands, having the guy actually signed for that is freeing.

Where does that 80% thing come from? It's one thing to come back. It's another to come back uncompromised. I don't think 50% come back with the same command they used to have, and not everybody even gets their velocity back.

Just a note, the Peters the Cubs drafted, DJ the outfielder, was ranked 196. The Peters at 112, Dillon the LHP, was drafted in the 7th round by Texas. The impression I got from the notes was that DJ may not be real schoolish.

We can wish. But the "light" part might be the key there. This guy is not much at all like Kris Bryant, other than that the Cubs drafted both from college. Bryant hit 31 HR's last year, Schwarber 13 this year. That's kind of a big difference! If you took away 2/3 of Bryant's HR, I'm not sure how popular Bryant would be? Schwarber may well be the best power-hitting guy available in the college ranks this year. But Bryant's HR hitting is kind of unique.

That's true enough. Kind of. Even by the Mets at 10, though, they'd have needed to pretty much commit all their 5% money to go overslot enough to beat that contract. Would have been tough even by pick 10 to go there. 7-8-9 all took pitchers. Any of them could have gotten past $3.125 if they wanted the guy enough, but if you're in a different place regarding TINSNIP or whatever the acronym actually is, easy to see why they wouldn't have done that. AGain, obviously if they thought he'd be Babe Ruth or Bryant, they'd have happily extended themselves beyond $3.125. But, I don't think it's really that surprising that other teams wouldn't have evaluated Schwarber as highly as McLeod did relative to the alternatives. A lot of teams like pitchers, a lot of teams like speed/defense tools, a lot of teams like up-the-middle tools, a lot of teams go for high-ceiling/upside. Personally I'm good with the avoidance of pitcher risk, and I'm good with prioritizing the rare power+bat tool combination. But yeah, it's all about scouting. If Cubs scouting is bad, and he ends up hitting like Mike Olt and playing LF like Brooks Kieschnick, it will go down as a very dumb pick.

Heh, I was WAY wrong and WAY over on this one. I was guessing $3.8 and wouldn't have been surprised at $4.0. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Nobody seems to like the Zagunis pick much. We'll see. Pure scouting pick, as always. I very much like the strategy of going for a catcher over a pitcher, catchers are extremely rare commodities. I don't expect Schwarber is really going to stick at catcher. So need-wise a catcher made a ton of sense, and Zagunis seems to have the scouting to be good. Could be a case of "buy low". He had a down season power-wise, when you'd expect a junior should be getting more power-productive, not less. I was told that he had an oblique injury this spring; perhaps the Cubs felt that's what cost his power? Even so, though, even before this spring he'd been kind of a Vogelbach-like mostly-singles guy. Over 2/3 of his hits have been singles in each of his three seasons. Kind of curious, because the scouting reports all describe him as strong/solid. I suppose you get guys like Almora/Vogelbach/Soler and if they are just line-drive/groundball/oriented hitters, it is what it is and you're just not going to get a lot of balls lifted enough for HR's, perhaps not even a lot of doubles. College Zagunis was a strong contact-hitter. Over 3 seasons, his K-rate is exactly 10.0%. Somewhat different from Micah Gibbs, who was older (turned 22 draft summer), didn't scout as being that athletic, and had a 52K/238AB season on his record. Zagunis and Gibbs are also kind of flips because Zagunis is coming off a very down season, whereas Gibbs draft spring was way better than he'd been before as a hitter. Of course you never know when a guy is "on the rise", but kind of a buy low/buy high contrasts. Perhaps Zagunis will compare to a Darwin Barney style guy, only with less defense, a lot more walks, and more power potential.

The game is at Clearwater. Does Robbie Aaron really go to all the road games, such that he is actually at the game watching? milb.com has that game messed up, showing no relievers and listing Perakslis as having pitched all 8 innings with 12K/0BB. So I'm wondering if Robbie really has it right, and Zastrysny really did go 7? Or whether he got pulled after 5, and it was relievers K'ing people in 6th and 7th? If Aaron's got it right, that would have Z with 25K/2BB/20.2IP since his injury/rest. That sounds interesting. Kind of fun having him and Paniagua starting to look interesting after tough starts. And to have Tseng and Rosscup both back.

Thanks, Cal. Looks like a potentially interesting pool of pitchers. Some of the pitchers may have an opportunity to experience a bit of what it's like to be a big-league pitcher for the Cubs: very little run support! That roster looks really bad for run production. Baez and that's it, right? Schwarber/Zagunis might help a bit later on.

3rd day picks: *14 college. (4 seniors, 9 juniors, 1 sophomore, the Purdue lefty). *4 J2 (junior college guys, 20 years old now or will turn so in July) *11 HS *1 Martarano, he's 19. My signing predictions: *1 of the one Martarano *1 of the eleven HS pick. Kevonte Mitchell, 13th round. *3 of the four JC picks *11 of the 11 college picks. #11 Jordan Brink is the only obvious iffy one here. Thinking: 1. Assuming they sign everybody in the top-10, signing 16 3rd-day guys would get them to 26 signings total. Last year they signed 25, so that seems to be a reasonable guess for how many college guys they needed to select for organizational roster-fill. 2. I assume if they figured they needed more guys for roster-fill, they'd have drafted a couple more college guys in the last dozen. They can always roster-fill with undrafted college FA's. 3. I hope I'm underestimating, and they sign a couple of extras. Some variables: Jordan Brink, college junior, pick #11. He generally seemed to have scouted as better than 11th round, and BA had him #164. I'd think he'd decline $100K slot, and should choose to go back and get into >$200K range next year. But, the Cubs knew what their budget situation was following friday. With the fourth pick on Saturday, they should have been going for the best value available, with value analysis factoring signability. If he's expecting $250 and they can't overslot, for example, I don't think they'd draft him their. So, probably either they talked to him and knew he is willing to sign for $100K slot, for whatever reason; or else they decided he was appealing enough that they'll just pull $100K from the Cease money in order to get Brink. If Cease really wants to sign, losing $100K Brink cash isn't likely to change the Cease decision. HS Austin Willis 18th round: After Kevonte Mitchell, who was known to be singable, the only HS picks prior to the #28-40 range were Austin Willis at 18 and Isaiah Gilliam at 23. McLeod has already said they don't expect to sign Gilliam. But 18 is a place in the draft where they typically draft guys they think they can sign. By Niggemeyer and following at 28-40, those are mostly just flyers, or Cease-backup draft-and-follow guys, or "scout's choice" range. Anybody top-250 taken in the 28-40 range, you really aren't expecting to sign them. But in 18th Willis is different. And he's not a BA top-500 guy, so it's not certain that he's expecting $300+ K. So I assume they maybe drafted him "early" because either they like him quite a bit and wanted to make sure he'd be there as Cease-failure backup, or else because they think he may be signable with overslot they may have available. J2 Zayas (round 29) and Petrino (round 39): Probably not realistic that both sign. Iffy whether either will. Zayas had some former reputation, and he lasted till the "flyer" rounds. He had enough reputation that signing for $100K slot might be dumb? Petrino as a 39th rounder, if he's good and slot-signable he'd not be lasting till 39th. Maybe he's just a roster-fill guy, so getting to go pro plus get $100K will be a no-brainer for him. But if he actually has ambitions and talent, probably take another try next time.

Thanks for nice summary, CubsWin. One correction, Graves is a 23-year-old college senior, so the Cubs will sign him if they want him.

Parks, "fantastic", Manual "killing it". I'll take the over on both of those $3.3 and $0.85, Dave. Will be fun to see it play out. I'll be surprised if they go below $4/$1. Kyle, I think it's exactly because the Cubs evaluated Schwarber/Stinnett as worthy that they won't get subslotted that much.

Yeah, I hope you're right. I expect that they have informal agreement numbers with both Sands and Steele, and are prepared to pay that. My thinking is that they got a number from Cease, that they aren't prepared or probably able to reach that even with the 5%, but that they are confident that he wants to sign, and that they can come close enough so that he will. Combined with the argument they'll make about what care and rehab they'll provide; and the observation that with his freshman year lost and his sophomore year a rehab year, he may not really have a great window for becoming a top-ten pick as a junior either. So I expect McLeod figures Cease will end up signing rather than going back to school. But yeah, my guess is that it will take all of the available moneys, including the 5%, to get the top 10. Note: it wouldn't shock me, really, if they go somewhat overslot on Norwood, too. BA's list had Norwood at 79, only two spots behind Cease. While he's a college junior, he's only 20 and won't turn 21 till Christmas Eve. Even without leverage, a senior taken in rounds 1-3 can make a lot more than $201, and I'm sure he and agent could envision him earning a spot in the 3rd round or higher if given another chance. Perhaps he lasted till the 7th because teams knew he wasn't signing for 5th/6th/7th round money, and was demanding 4th-round-or-better cash? I predict we'll be disappointed by how much the Cubs offer to Schwarber and Stinnett. It wouldn't surprise me if neither are more than 20% under slot. Hope I'm wrong, that we do save heaps on those guys, that Cease comes in easy, and Sands/Steele/Norwood aren't really all that pricey, and they end up with many hundreds of thousands to spend on overslot Day 3 guys. There are certainly some interesting projectable prospects selected on Day 3.

Zero is my over-under for 3rd day overslots. I doubt they have any discretionary overslot money to spend on 3rd-day guys. 1. Mitchell, Griggs, Martarano, and a lot of the college junior/seniors will sign for slot, presumably. 2. Presumably Brink is one college junior who won't. 3. I'm hoping one or two of the HS picks will sign for slot $100K plus college scholarship. I hope that but don't expect that, and if one or two do take it, it's hard to guess which might or why. I'm pretty sure they have their budget well detailed as they work through day 2. Pretty certain that they exhausted it. *My expectation is that Cease is too high as is. If he doesn't move, he'll go unsigned. But given his poor situation, needing to lose his freshman year to elbow, I imagine he'll compromise and sign. If he doesn't, the overslot assigned to him will get reallocated to a couple Day 3 targets.

Not sure that means he'll take that opportunity, so I don't assume that means he's signing. But, doesn't give the impression that signing would be very shocking either.

Last year Cubs had 2nd pick in 6th round with a slot of $267. No idea how much if any discretionary money we'll have after rounds 1-10 sign. But lets say there is some, whether that be $200K or $1000K. If you make $300K offers to a lot of these guys who were ranked somewhere in the 150-250 range, that range wouldn't be too far off from 5th round money. Offer 5th round money to a dozen decent top-250 prospects, and maybe one or two will accept and want to get started. Last year, for example, Clifton ended up settling for $375. If you had a million to play with, you could hypothetically sign 5 of these guys at 5th-round slot. Maybe a couple will take that, sign, and hopefully work out.

If some money gets left available, maybe somebody will decide he wants to go pro. But Heh, this is just a setup. In ten years, one or two of these guys will turn out really well… for other teams on next draft. And we'll look back and say, "Man, why didn't we sign THAT guy…."