2023 MLB Draft Thread - Arjun Nimmala HS SS

[Schad]

Arjun Nimmala comes in at under-slot at $3 million! What a pick!

4th rounder HS RHP Landen Maroudis also signed (no official Tweet but there is a picture of him signing) and his deal will be over-slot.

Yeah, that's nuts. Shows how important it is for your area guys to do that legwork...seems like a lot of teams thought he was firm overslot, but given some of our later picks it seems likely we knew otherwise.

[polo007]

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[SharoneWright]

You just tell the kid he's young. Young young young. That's the risk we are assuming. And that's the risk other teams passed on. *(you avoid discussing his potential... lol)

Grab your bag and prove it! You have a 20++ year runway to win and cash in.

[Parataxis]

Maybe it's because I'm not a top recruit pro athlete, but I can't imagine at 18 turning down $3m because I wanted $4m, and going back to school instead.

So many variables. What if somebody hard slides into me, and my ACL goes pop? $3m is lifechanging money, even before you've proven anything.

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[Schad]

Just to put it in context: Nimmala was expected to go in the 8-15 range, got drafted 20th, and seems to have signed for equivalent money to somewhere around the 27th-30th pick.

And yeah, my position has always been that it's utterly insane to leave that money on the table. The reason it happens, though, is that while it's utterly insane for any individual player to leave it on the table, it's paradoxically also utterly insane for all players to leave it on the table, because then you're incentivizing teams to bid players down.

Were I an agent, I'd tell every kid with leverage (HSers, college jrs) to inform clubs that their number is slot + 5% wherever they're drafted (barring a deal to sign for below-slot to get drafted higher) rather than a firm dollar amount, because while you may not be maximizing the money for that kid, you aren't hurting players in the aggregate, and you're also ensuring that the kid doesn't take the enormous risks associated with not signing, either.

[Cyrus]

Something doesn't add up though schad. He was a top 10 talent supposedly, teams were scared of what his price was going to be, so he slid, to only sign for basically 2nd round money.

And only Jays knew he would sign for less?

[Schad]

Something doesn't add up though schad. He was a top 10 talent supposedly, teams were scared of what his price was going to be, so he slid, to only sign for basically 2nd round money.

And only Jays knew he would sign for less?

As soon as a player starts sliding, the rumours as to why start spreading. And generally if the player is a high schooler, the rumour is going to be that they're going to require big money to sign or are leaning college. If teams picking in the teens didn't have a good read on him, they'll probably pass.

It has happened before: Matthew Liberatore slid pretty hard in 2018, and the chatter was that he must have a big number and might even go undrafted. And then he signed with the Rays for $100k below slot (and $1.5-2.0m below what he'd been expected to receive pre-draft).

[Cyrus]

Something doesn't add up though schad. He was a top 10 talent supposedly, teams were scared of what his price was going to be, so he slid, to only sign for basically 2nd round money.

And only Jays knew he would sign for less?

As soon as a player starts sliding, the rumours as to why start spreading. And generally if the player is a high schooler, the rumour is going to be that they're going to require big money to sign or are leaning college. If teams picking in the teens didn't have a good read on him, they'll probably pass.

It has happened before: Matthew Liberatore slid pretty hard in 2018, and the chatter was that he must have a big number and might even go undrafted. And then he signed with the Rays for $100k below slot (and $1.5-2.0m below what he'd been expected to receive pre-draft).

I know it happens but generally there is like medical flag or something. I just find it hard to believe that teams doing their research and such don't know what the rough price of say top 50 to 100. It would seem almost neglect not knowing this.

I know sometime agents and players engineer artificial high price to get drafted to good situation or team with proven track record of developing the type of prospect you are.

Rumor was though few groups weren't sold Arjun as others were, worried about his hit tool? I mean if he's just a good/ great defensive short stop like Woodward or something, that's not really a first round type - top 10 player

[Schad]

I know it happens but generally there is like medical flag or something. I just find it hard to believe that teams doing their research and such don't know what the rough price of say top 50 to 100. It would seem almost neglect not knowing this.

I know sometime agents and players engineer artificial high price to get drafted to good situation or team with proven track record of developing the type of prospect you are.

Relationships also really matter there, from everything I've ever heard. If Nimmala and his reps were more circumspect with other teams, but felt comfortable with the Jays as a backstop should he slide, they might've gotten more precise information regarding what he'd accept. It's a vibes-based economy out there, and it's weirdly common for teams to come away from conversations with players with vastly different impressions of their signability.

Rumor was though few groups weren't sold Arjun as others were, worried about his hit tool? I mean if he's just a good/ great defensive short stop like Woodward or something, that's not really a first round type - top 10 player

Fangraphs (which had him lower than just about anyone overall) rated him 70/60 raw/game power...he's nothing like a Chris Woodward. Good chance he isn't a shortstop even, though they'll give him every chance there, because he's already pretty big and likely to get bigger. Most common comp is Nolan Gorman, a big, power-hitting 2B/3B who strikes out quite a bit.

[polo007]

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[Cyrus]

I know it happens but generally there is like medical flag or something. I just find it hard to believe that teams doing their research and such don't know what the rough price of say top 50 to 100. It would seem almost neglect not knowing this.

I know sometime agents and players engineer artificial high price to get drafted to good situation or team with proven track record of developing the type of prospect you are.

Relationships also really matter there, from everything I've ever heard. If Nimmala and his reps were more circumspect with other teams, but felt comfortable with the Jays as a backstop should he slide, they might've gotten more precise information regarding what he'd accept. It's a vibes-based economy out there, and it's weirdly common for teams to come away from conversations with players with vastly different impressions of their signability.

Rumor was though few groups weren't sold Arjun as others were, worried about his hit tool? I mean if he's just a good/ great defensive short stop like Woodward or something, that's not really a first round type - top 10 player

Fangraphs (which had him lower than just about anyone overall) rated him 70/60 raw/game power...he's nothing like a Chris Woodward. Good chance he isn't a shortstop even, though they'll give him every chance there, because he's already pretty big and likely to get bigger. Most common comp is Nolan Gorman, a big, power-hitting 2B/3B who strikes out quite a bit.

Keith Law mentioned that he had heard that Nimmala priced himself out of picks ahead of #20 which contributed to his "fall". The fact that the Jays took him, and then he came in under-slot makes me question if he had an arrangement with Toronto.

I highly doubt he cut a deal to move himself down and them took an under slot bonus. The difference between getting roughly slot value at, say, 15, and the bonus he got is almost $1.5m. That’s a lot to deliberately leave on the table, no matter how appealing it is to play near home or based on relationships.

My guess is he made bonus asks to other teams as if he still expected to go near the top 10, and as his stock slipped this spring a lot of teams bowed out. Then the Jays knew/bet that he wasn’t really serious about going to college and dared him to turn down $3m.

[Schad]

My guess is he made bonus asks to other teams as if he still expected to go near the top 10, and as his stock slipped this spring a lot of teams bowed out. Then the Jays knew/bet that he wasn’t really serious about going to college and dared him to turn down $3m.

Extremely unlikely to the point of impossibility that the Jays didn't know. The tipoff is their other picks: if Nimmala doesn't sign, we lose his slot bonus from the pool. That in turn means that there's no money with which to give Maroudis that above-slot deal, at which point he doesn't sign and we lose his slot bonus as well. No chance they'd have potentially walked away from this draft with only one pick in the top 150 on a hunch (and there's no chance Nimmala would have signed this quickly either).

[Cyrus]

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[Cyrus]

My guess is he made bonus asks to other teams as if he still expected to go near the top 10, and as his stock slipped this spring a lot of teams bowed out. Then the Jays knew/bet that he wasn’t really serious about going to college and dared him to turn down $3m.

Extremely unlikely to the point of impossibility that the Jays didn't know. The tipoff is their other picks: if Nimmala doesn't sign, we lose his slot bonus from the pool. That in turn means that there's no money with which to give Maroudis that above-slot deal, at which point he doesn't sign and we lose his slot bonus as well. No chance they'd have potentially walked away from this draft with only one pick in the top 150 on a hunch (and there's no chance Nimmala would have signed this quickly either).

Poor phrased, but what I was trying to say is, his stock was slipping and Jays read the market correctly on him, ofcourse they knew his rough price, which is why like i said earlier, weird other teams had no idea, but jays did?

[Cyrus]

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So the Jays have 6 of their 9 picks signed.
Slot for those picks is $5,397,400
Add in the 5% on those, you get to $5,667,270

Total for those 6 of their top 9 picks signed is $5,660,900

[-MetA4-]

My guess is he made bonus asks to other teams as if he still expected to go near the top 10, and as his stock slipped this spring a lot of teams bowed out. Then the Jays knew/bet that he wasn’t really serious about going to college and dared him to turn down $3m.

But the last few weeks leading up to the draft he was already being mocked in the ~15-20 range by everyone, so why would he be expecting to go Top 10? He wasn't a guy who "shockingly" fell on draft day. Would his representative not adjust their expectation considering that his "fall" was gradual and documented and known leading into the draft?

It makes even less sense to say that he was expecting to go Top 10 and get paid Top 10 money, and then on draft day he just randomly decides he wants to sign for any amount, even $750K under the slot at pick #20?

For your last point, I don't believe for one second that the Jays, who already lost their 2nd round pick, decided to draft a player who was allegedly asking for a lot of money and then "dared" him to take a considerable underslot deal at a pick that is already on the player's "low" end. This is the strongest draft in the last 5-10 years, if that "dare" fails you are essentially left with no money to spend in this draft. That would be a complete blunder. And furthermore, that just isn't how this FO operates the draft. In 6 years, they have not missed on signing a single Top 10 round selection. They are batting 1.000. They aren't batting 1.000 by daring players to take considerably less money than they are allegedly asking for; if that was a practice they employed you would see them fail to sign picks.

The Jays clearly knew that $3 mill was his price tag, also proven by their confidence with their remaining draft picks. They obviously can't draft Maroudis and play it on-track with later picks if Nimmala was telling them his price was $4+ million. So if Keith Law is correct, then the question would be why he was telling certain teams one price tag, and then signalling to the Jays he'd sign for $3 million?

My guess is that his reps knew and saw that he was falling into a range of the draft wherein things could get wonky for him, and they were able to secure a position for him with a team that they really liked. I do think that there is something to the Jays having a competitive advantage with negotiating with these Florida HS kids, and I think they have a better reputation w/ regards to player development than people probably give credit for which probably gives them bargaining power.

I don't think they took a guess and "dared him" which again could have completely killed their entire draft. There was no reason to do that considering that Chase Davis was there available to them as well and he ended up signing for slot at #21. That's a college hitter with big tools who the Jays would also be interested in.

[JTT]

I think that the idea he fell so dramatically is overblown as well. In a draft with so many high floor players, it’s easy to understand risk averse teams choosing to draft elsewhere. There also seems to be quite a bit of, dare I say, manipulation in the mlb draft. Agent and teams negotiating to get their guy where they want at price x. As stated earlier, the draft with its spending allocations would be too complex otherwise.

[Schad]

My guess is that his reps knew and saw that he was falling into a range of the draft wherein things could get wonky for him, and they were able to secure a position for him with a team that they really liked.

Yup. And that's why the relationships matter: the MLB draft moves quickly, so if you're his reps, you need to know several picks ahead that the teams in between aren't intending to pick him, and you also need to have enough trust in the Jays' scouting team that you can call them up and say "he's yours for $3m" and i) the Jays want him enough that you can take that risk, because leaking it could hurt your position if the Jays are looking elsewhere (and baseball scouts leak every damned thing), and ii) be confident they aren't going to see that as a chance to try to leverage him down to an even lower number.

[-MetA4-]

Yup. And that's why the relationships matter: the MLB draft moves quickly, so if you're his reps, you need to know several picks ahead that the teams in between aren't intending to pick him, and you also need to have enough trust in the Jays' scouting team that you can call them up and say "he's yours for $3m" and i) the Jays want him enough that you can take that risk, because leaking it could hurt your position if the Jays are looking elsewhere (and baseball scouts leak every damned thing), and ii) be confident they aren't going to see that as a chance to try to leverage him down to an even lower number.

Yup, it's all about securing a landing spot. I think the Jays played their position perfectly and likely benefited big time. It's also possible that Nimmala's reps just blundered and panicked. But for a guy like that who "falls", the worry is that if you get past the teams that you know have been seriously scouting you, it's possible that teams picking after pass as well because they simply haven't devoted much time to scouting you. So even though you are "ranked high and BPA at this point", it's not a given that teams in the 20's will just jump to take a 17 year old if they have spent more time scouting other targets who they feel more comfortable with.

So far, #22 overall pick Colt Emerson signed overslot for $3.8 mill, the Yanks signed #26 overall pick George Lombard Jr. for $3.3 mill, and Seattle signed #29 overall pick Jonny Farmelo for $3.2 mill. On paper we won big time.