2016 MLB Amateur Player Draft

[Ranma]

Sheff is signed for $1.85 Ms.

I think that's slightly over slot value.
Awesome. I expect him here in 2017.

You're right. The overage is practically negligible, which should still leave a decent amount of money to sign the last guy on my priority list from this draft class: Graham Ashcraft. I'm actually glad we got everyone else secured including mystery prospect Ramon Rodriguez before Ashcraft. Aside from maybe Smeltzer, Ashcraft was the lowest priority of the group even if I consider him to be a key draftee.

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• SS Gavin Lux: Apparently, our SS of the future albeit with limited upside.
• C Will Smith: A really solid catching prospect whose addition helps address the positional depth lacking in our developmental pipeline.
• RHP Jordan Sheffield: Should be the heir apparent to Kenley Jansen as our future closer.
• RHP Mitchell White: Intriguing and mysterious pitching talent with 4-pitch repertoire with sudden late helium.
• RHP Dustin May: A projectable arm with high spin rate who is supposedly already in the fold.
• OF D.J. Peters: A right-handed power bat that exhibits limited elements of other athletic ability.
• LHP Devin Smeltzer: A capable LOOGY with no fear and high compete level.
• RHP Anthony Gonsolin: A 2-way player the Dodgers deemed more valuable as a pitcher.
• SS Kevin Lachance: A versatile speedster with great makeup as a role player and project who can possibly play CF as well.
• RHP A.J. Alexy: A rubber arm with flashes of a 4-pitch repertoire that includes a knuckleball.
• RHP Graham Ashcraft: A hard thrower who touches 99 mph with a wipeout slider who needs to learn how to pitch.
• C Ramon Rodriguez: A personal curiosity who will hopefully further address our need for catchers in the minors.

[Ranma]

John Manuel, Baseball America (6/16/16)

“Of the guys I’ve played with, seen and coached,” Ribas said, “he’s the best I’ve seen. He struck out 120 guys or whatever (actually 118), and he could have struck out 170. He’s just so new to pitching.”
...

“I think the rehab played a part in it,” White said. “I think physical maturation was another. Maybe this is too simple, but I got in shape. I had better habits. I ate better, worked out better, got stronger, learned to use my legs.”

And when White got healthy, he pitched well. Very well. He led the Broncos with 29 relief appearances last year, going 3-2, 3.62 with 40 strikeouts in 32 innings and picked up five saves after becoming Santa Clara’s closer. He got more work in pitching for Lima in the Great Lakes League last summer, but no one, not even Ribas, saw this season coming.

White took off early and kept gaining steam as his stuff got better. By his last two starts, the 6-foot-4, 207-pounder had become a monster.

“He just started throwing a changeup (in March),” Ribas said, “and he’d getting swings and misses with changeups. He learned a cutter last year; I mean, he’s 93-95 with natural cut, but now he throws a true cutter at 87-90. When it’s bad, it morphs into a low-80s slider, speeding up guys’ bats with it, but when he’s 86-90, it’s untouchable to both sides of the plate. And he has an overhand hammer (curve), 77-80, and it’s a bastard.”

Mitchell White Sows A Whirlwind With Whiffs

[Neddy]

the more I think about it, i just don't see Gavin Lux making in to the bigs in dodger blue. defensively strong SSs with rather unimpressive offensive projection are a dime a dozen and a ton of them from dominican/PR-can/Venezuelan/etc type of latin baseball academies and they can be had for cheap at 16. I don't like where he comes from, a baseball baron land of Wisconsin, late riseer with many scouts doubting his legitimacy of being a first rounder, some even questioning if he merited being in top 5 rounds at all. maybe I am being harsh on the kid, but his ceiling looks like a poor man's Cezar Izturis to me. baseball america called him a true 5 tool prospect but their own site's video of Lux's batting practice shows him missing a practice toss entirely and getting out of balance and popping up when he should be crushing those soft tosses that are not meant to fool anyone or thrown with any real velocity. he sure has "twitchy" stances in the box, he has short stances and have a quick, short and compact swing, but he didn't have to adjust to low and outside corner backdoor slide or tailing out 2 seamer. if any, I felt like the kid may need to take some ritalin.

one thing he has going for him, is that he is damn young. if I had a kid after undergrad right away, he would be at the age of my first born. for last remaining ball players of my age in the majors like Ichiro or Colon, Lux is literally their sons' age. being young, anything is possible. maybe he can gain that muscle mass and true power at the position without losng his agility and defensive instincts. but most of them don't. I would rather bet on Seager turning himself into the next Cal or Nomar and stay there for the most of his career, if not all of it rather than to hope Lux becomes the next Troy Tulowitzki or even prime Rafael Furcal.

we have a glut of talent in the OF, with more coming up soon. if Ethier was healthy, even without counting guys who can play infield, we would be sporting Puig/Joc/Trace/SVS/Ethier with Alex Verdugo coming up. again, this is without Kendrick and **** in the fold. I think we can package a deal, say Ethier and Lux plus some filler for a major piece to a team who may want a salary dump of a good player with a long term deal in perhaps a rebuilding franchise who can use a (percieved to be) top prospect to add to their plan.

[Quake Griffin]

the more I think about it, i just don't see Gavin Lux making in to the bigs in dodger blue. defensively strong SSs with rather unimpressive offensive projection are a dime a dozen and a ton of them from dominican/PR-can/Venezuelan/etc type of latin baseball academies and they can be had for cheap at 16. I don't like where he comes from, a baseball baron land of Wisconsin, late riseer with many scouts doubting his legitimacy of being a first rounder, some even questioning if he merited being in top 5 rounds at all. maybe I am being harsh on the kid, but his ceiling looks like a poor man's Cezar Izturis to me. baseball america called him a true 5 tool prospect but their own site's video of Lux's batting practice shows him missing a practice toss entirely and getting out of balance and popping up when he should be crushing those soft tosses that are not meant to fool anyone or thrown with any real velocity. he sure has "twitchy" stances in the box, he has short stances and have a quick, short and compact swing, but he didn't have to adjust to low and outside corner backdoor slide or tailing out 2 seamer. if any, I felt like the kid may need to take some ritalin.

one thing he has going for him, is that he is damn young. if I had a kid after undergrad right away, he would be at the age of my first born. for last remaining ball players of my age in the majors like Ichiro or Colon, Lux is literally their sons' age. being young, anything is possible. maybe he can gain that muscle mass and true power at the position without losng his agility and defensive instincts. but most of them don't. I would rather bet on Seager turning himself into the next Cal or Nomar and stay there for the most of his career, if not all of it rather than to hope Lux becomes the next Troy Tulowitzki or even prime Rafael Furcal.

we have a glut of talent in the OF, with more coming up soon. if Ethier was healthy, even without counting guys who can play infield, we would be sporting Puig/Joc/Trace/SVS/Ethier with Alex Verdugo coming up. again, this is without Kendrick and **** in the fold. I think we can package a deal, say Ethier and Lux plus some filler for a major piece to a team who may want a salary dump of a good player with a long term deal in perhaps a rebuilding franchise who can use a (percieved to be) top prospect to add to their plan.

Lux can't be traded until after the WS.

So someone would be trading for Ethier at age 35 and Ethier can block the trade.

Given that it would have to come after the WS. I'm tying A-Gon to this kid wen shipping him out.

[Neddy]

the more I think about it, i just don't see Gavin Lux making in to the bigs in dodger blue. defensively strong SSs with rather unimpressive offensive projection are a dime a dozen and a ton of them from dominican/PR-can/Venezuelan/etc type of latin baseball academies and they can be had for cheap at 16. I don't like where he comes from, a baseball baron land of Wisconsin, late riseer with many scouts doubting his legitimacy of being a first rounder, some even questioning if he merited being in top 5 rounds at all. maybe I am being harsh on the kid, but his ceiling looks like a poor man's Cezar Izturis to me. baseball america called him a true 5 tool prospect but their own site's video of Lux's batting practice shows him missing a practice toss entirely and getting out of balance and popping up when he should be crushing those soft tosses that are not meant to fool anyone or thrown with any real velocity. he sure has "twitchy" stances in the box, he has short stances and have a quick, short and compact swing, but he didn't have to adjust to low and outside corner backdoor slide or tailing out 2 seamer. if any, I felt like the kid may need to take some ritalin.

one thing he has going for him, is that he is damn young. if I had a kid after undergrad right away, he would be at the age of my first born. for last remaining ball players of my age in the majors like Ichiro or Colon, Lux is literally their sons' age. being young, anything is possible. maybe he can gain that muscle mass and true power at the position without losng his agility and defensive instincts. but most of them don't. I would rather bet on Seager turning himself into the next Cal or Nomar and stay there for the most of his career, if not all of it rather than to hope Lux becomes the next Troy Tulowitzki or even prime Rafael Furcal.

we have a glut of talent in the OF, with more coming up soon. if Ethier was healthy, even without counting guys who can play infield, we would be sporting Puig/Joc/Trace/SVS/Ethier with Alex Verdugo coming up. again, this is without Kendrick and **** in the fold. I think we can package a deal, say Ethier and Lux plus some filler for a major piece to a team who may want a salary dump of a good player with a long term deal in perhaps a rebuilding franchise who can use a (percieved to be) top prospect to add to their plan.

Lux can't be traded until after the WS.

So someone would be trading for Ethier at age 35 and Ethier can block the trade.

Given that it would have to come after the WS. I'm tying A-Gon to this kid wen shipping him out.

there would be a riot along the Gonzo fans in LA, but yeah, I agree.

and boy am I glad Ned Colletti is gone. otherwise he could be sending Gonzo and Puig out to the Reds for Bruce and Votto. have you seen Joey Votto's contract? U G L Y

[Ranma]

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[Quake Griffin]

Damn.

Can never underestimate a high school prospects ability to bet on himself.

I know you wanted him to round off the class.

[Ranma]

If we had to lose somebody from the list of identified key 2016 draftees, I would have preferred it be either Smeltzer or Ashcraft, so while a bit disappointing for our already lackluster draft haul, it's not really a big deal. I want to reiterate that I actually like quite a lot of the players we've drafted and that my criticism is only for the lacking sizzle given our 3 1st-round and compensatory draft picks. However, I'm particularly optimistic about Sheffield, White, and Alexy from this draft class.

Anyway, here's a name to keep an eye on for the 2017 draft class even though it is unlikely that we'll have a chance at him: Alex Scherff. Plus, Seth Beer was someone who I identified as an early target who would have been available in this past draft but he chose to graduate high school early in order to go to college. Now, he also looks to be out of reach for us down the line given his rapid rise. Oh, by the way, Beer switched gears from a world-class swimmer to play baseball because he loved the team aspect of the game. He also graduated high school early in order to play for Clemson right away. I'm actually happy for this accomplished kid and his family.

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[Quake Griffin]

question.

being a rookie at this draft thing.
How do teams convince players to take under slot value???

[Ranma]

question.

being a rookie at this draft thing.
How do teams convince players to take under slot value???

I'm not sure I can answer this question thoroughly enough, but from my understanding, it depends on a bunch of variables depending on the prospect. For the most part, it comes down to the prospect's expectations in terms of salary demands and leverage with alternative options.

The 1st overall pick, Mickey Moniak, signed for under-slot value because nobody has ever received the $9.015 million before ever since the salary slot system was instituted and that amount has steadily increased over the years. Until someone breaks the bank, teams have used the 1st overall pick's salary slot to draft highly-rated prospects who are not necessarily BPA in order use the savings from their signings to apply elsewhere with their other draft picks. That situation doesn't really apply to us, although we do employ such tactics to a lesser extent.

We've previously discussed before how a prospect's salary demands can be used to try to direct him to a big-money team. This particularly applies to Scott Boras' clients. This year, that seems to have happened with Matt Manning. It was rumored that he was asking for a $5 million signing bonus, but as it turned out, he signed for $3.5 million after being drafted by the Tigers. Then again, the salary demands themselves have dropped a prospect down the draft board. Todd Van Poppel comes to mind as well as Blake Rutherford who almost fell to our draft slot.

Another factor, would be leverage and maybe a genuine desire to go to college. Sometimes teams have to really overpay in order for a prospect to forgo such opportunities he's been looking forward to. Zach Lee, for instance, was expected to go to LSU to compete in both baseball and football as a QB, but McCourt surprisingly authorized a $5.25 signing bonus for us to sway him to give up those pursuits.

College is typically used as leverage in negotiations, which typically has seniors without college eligibility left at a disadvantage. However, even then, prospects have used academies and independent leagues as alternatives in this strategy to a lesser extent. Luke Hochevar backed out of an agreement with us to pitch in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball. This eventually led us to draft Clayton Kershaw the following year, but it did enable him the opportunity to go 1st overall with a higher signing bonus. This doesn't always work as Kyle Funkhouser learned the hard way. The Dodgers supposedly offered him around a $2 million signing bonus but he went back to school to try to recover his profile as a projected top-10 pick. He ended up being drafted in the 4th round by the Tigers and signing over slot at $750,000.

Typically, teams will contact a draft pick ahead of time and get a feel for their salary expectations and do negotiations ahead of the draft, which goes into the calculations of setting their draft strategy, but there are times that a prospect's inclination is already known ahead of time based on the preliminary reporting that is widely known among scouts. Gavin Lux wasn't aware the Dodgers had targeted him but he was an easy sign given his known desire to head to MLB as soon as possible even if he did sign for over slot at a negligible value.

The Dodgers seemed to have overdrafted a couple of prospects ahead of their respective draft positions in order to use those savings to pursue prospects drafted later, namely A.J. Alexy (successfully) and Graham Ashcraft (unsuccessfully). I'm still quite curious how the Dodgers convinced both Anthony Gonsolin (9th-round pick) and Kevin LaChance (10th-round pick) to sign for practically nothing at $2,500 apiece. While both are college seniors, I actually liked both better than Ashcraft even if neither had as high an upside and ceiling as him. It seems like the Dodgers leveraged their position in negotiations with both of them so that they could be drafted higher than their respective draft positions warranted. Both kids were probably just happy with the opportunity to pursue MLB careers but I have a feeling they may have been promised better opportunities down the line to a little extent.

Gonsonlin and LaChance may not be really hyped prospects, but they are appealing. Gonsolin is a 2-way player who focused primarily as a hitter while the Dodgers are now trying him out as a pitcher. LaChance is a speedster who exhibits versatility that promises to be a future role player for a big-league ballclub.

In any case, that's all I got on the matter at the moment.