Draft pick deadline: well, ****. No money, mo' problems

[Mike Hunt]

I think it'd be interesting to see a team just sign every single player they draft, regardless of how high they have to go above slot, and see what the repercussions are. I know baseball prospects are especially hit and miss but aren't most of these numbers pretty reasonable risks to take for the rewards?

[Schad]

I think it'd be interesting to see a team just sign every single player they draft, regardless of how high they have to go above slot, and see what the repercussions are. I know baseball prospects are especially hit and miss but aren't most of these numbers pretty reasonable risks to take for the rewards?

Yep. Let's say you spend $10m on bonuses (an extremely high number if you don't have a top-3 pick...for the sake of the discussion, lets say none are major-league deals) over your top eight players. Only two of them amount to anything...one gets out of the gates reasonably well and is on their way to being a core player, though possibly not a star. The other is a useful role player, but nothing special (say, a fourth guy out of the bullpen). In their first three years, the two players combine to make a shade under $3m, bringing the total spent on the eight draftees to $13m.

Which seems really bad...except that the WAR value for a decent but not particularly good reliever (say, Shawn Camp) is roughly $2m/year, and for a good hitter at least $5m/year and typically quite a bit higher. So that $13m in expenses returns more than $20m in value even though the draft itself looks like an utter disaster (and compared to what it'd likely produce in reality, it is); expensive prospects still make for cheap players.

[Schad]

Hmm...Law stated today that the Jays didn't ink Barrett because they discovered at the last moment that he has arm troubles. If so, this one isn't on Rogers (no such relief with the Paxton and Eliopolous situations though), but the failure of our scouts to do their due diligence prior to the draft. That's extremely unusual; our staff has done a terrific job with the predraft legwork. I wonder if Barrett was drafted because another target or targets went off the board earlier than expected.

[Hoopstarr]

Other things we've learned since signing day, or can at least safely assume...

- Beeston was solely in charge of the Paxton negotiations (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/gl ... le1256172/). He says Paxton wanted to sign but they had to draw the line.

- Based on the above, and recent team activity, JP no longer has the final say on personnel decisions and is officially the team's "bag man" as Schad said. He's doing the dirty work and taking the public blame while the team transitions to new management or even new ownership.

- According to Keith Law on the FAN today, the Jays were off by "about $700,000" in the Eliopoulous and Paxton deals. Wow. To put it in perspective, Jose Bautista makes more than 3 times that this year. This was the amount that kept them from re-stocking the farm with some very nice prospects?

- If the Jays lose Scutaro and Barajas to FA, they'll have 9 picks in the first 3 rounds next year. Hooraaaay! Because we know they'll sign them next year right? And they will surely take value picks with those 9? And there's no problem with holding the farm system back a year as a result? Oh right, who are we kidding here.

[-MetA4-]

Hmm...Law stated today that the Jays didn't ink Barrett because they discovered at the last moment that he has arm troubles. If so, this one isn't on Rogers (no such relief with the Paxton and Eliopolous situations though), but the failure of our scouts to do their due diligence prior to the draft. That's extremely unusual; our staff has done a terrific job with the predraft legwork. I wonder if Barrett was drafted because another target or targets went off the board earlier than expected.

So they wanted to sign Barrett, found out he's hurt, and then decided to do absolutely nothing with that now unused money?

If Barrett is hurt then not signing him is reasonable...however...the fact that that unused money wasn't used to help either sign Eliopolous/Paxton OR more late round HS/JUCO kids over slot should tell you everything you need to go.

I've yet to see anyone come up with a logical argument that supports the idea that we HAD the money to sign all these kids but decided not to for whatever reason (be it an unknown injury, or just not wanting to go that far over slot).

[Mike Hunt]

Yesterday JP was on the Gameplan and said something about signing late rounders for more money that usual and said we should "give credit" to the ownership. I'd absolutely be willing to do that were it not for the fact that 3/4 of the early picks went unsigned.

That kind of reminded me of my apartment building. It needs new elevators (these break down weekly) but, they're not willing to replace them. They do paint our apartments every two years if we ask them to though, so we're expected to be thankful for that while we're carrying our groceries up a dozen flights of stairs (ok, I live on the 7th but, I'm lazy).

[Garmfay]

"Supplemental first-round draft pick James Paxton (37th overall) and the Blue Jays were only $350,000 apart in contract talks this week, according to Baseball America, but the Blue Jays would not budge from their offer of $1-million. The publication said the left-handed pitcher and his agent, Scott Boras, came off his $1.5-million asking price and were willing to sign for $1.35-million"

As for Eliopoulos, it is suggested that "the Jays offered more than half a million and he wanted at least a million. Law said it was an "insignificant amount" in his view so we are talking about probably a few hundred thousand."

Seriously 350k off. How cheap can they be?

[jalenrose#5]

Eliopolos I thought was a reach where he was picked. Not sure if he's worth the million or so...as for Paxton, a first round draft pick with signability concerns..for 1.35 million?!?!?!?!, not saying it's a bargain, but it's a reasonable amount for a first rounder who has the potential to be great in the Erik Bedard mold.

I will never give the ownership credit for signing Webb in the 18th to a similar contract, yet you let a local Canadian boy slip away for what..one less lamborghini that one of the head guys at Rogers drives to work every morning.

It''s a sick day we live in now guys.

[Michael Bradley]

Another thing to remember about draft picks is they become prospects, and prospects become trade assets. The three guys we did not sign may or may not have panned out, but they still could have been useful pieces to move down the road if it came to that. I mean, for a few hundred thousand, why cheap out? I can understand if they were millions apart, but $300-500k does not seem like a significant difference, especially when the team could easily recoup that by moving guys on the MLB roster (which they did with Rios, Rolen, etc).

If they cheaped out on the draft over a few hundred thousand, then the $100 million 2010 payroll rumor seems to have less credibility. I liked the idea of keeping Halladay, trading off a few expensive pieces, and trying to make a run in 2010, but that looks less and less likely given ownership's intentions. In which case, I would have dealt Halladay to Texas if they were offering Feliz and Smoak. This team is not going to improve in 2010 with payroll remaining stagnant, and one of our best trade chips (Rios) was moved for nothing, so the talent base has eroded even further. Just a horrible situation to be in. Nothing to look forward to on the farm and an ownership group who will likely pocket the MLB savings instead of reinvesting. A lot of apathy.

[Hoopstarr]

"Supplemental first-round draft pick James Paxton (37th overall) and the Blue Jays were only $350,000 apart in contract talks this week, according to Baseball America, but the Blue Jays would not budge from their offer of $1-million. The publication said the left-handed pitcher and his agent, Scott Boras, came off his $1.5-million asking price and were willing to sign for $1.35-million"

As for Eliopoulos, it is suggested that "the Jays offered more than half a million and he wanted at least a million. Law said it was an "insignificant amount" in his view so we are talking about probably a few hundred thousand."

Seriously 350k off. How cheap can they be?

That's unbelievable. I just looked it up and 7 players below Paxton got more than 1.35 million, and 7 players below Eliopoulos got more than 1 million. Teams paying those players included Oakland, KC, and Pittsburgh, and of course New York and Boston. Again, unbelievable.

[Schad]

"Supplemental first-round draft pick James Paxton (37th overall) and the Blue Jays were only $350,000 apart in contract talks this week, according to Baseball America, but the Blue Jays would not budge from their offer of $1-million. The publication said the left-handed pitcher and his agent, Scott Boras, came off his $1.5-million asking price and were willing to sign for $1.35-million"

Good god. I thought Met's $1.2-1.3m was probably in the ballpark, and it looks like it was. $1m is barely above his slot number...if we were holding fast to that and believing Boras of all people would cave, that's insane. Paxton wanted to be paid like a first rounder (and for good reason, since he would have been one if not for his demands); if we weren't willing to pay him like one, they had no business drafting him.

And i'm a little surprised that Eliopolous was asking a cool million, but I guess I shouldn't be...Marisnick got the same amount, after all. Sounds like the Jays were putting up something like $650k (triangulating from what Law said before), and the difference between 'em is a large percentage but a small number; standing on principle is cool and all, but it's the teams that 'cave' that end up with all the talent.

[Hoopstarr]

"Supplemental first-round draft pick James Paxton (37th overall) and the Blue Jays were only $350,000 apart in contract talks this week, according to Baseball America, but the Blue Jays would not budge from their offer of $1-million. The publication said the left-handed pitcher and his agent, Scott Boras, came off his $1.5-million asking price and were willing to sign for $1.35-million"

As for Eliopoulos, it is suggested that "the Jays offered more than half a million and he wanted at least a million. Law said it was an "insignificant amount" in his view so we are talking about probably a few hundred thousand."

Seriously 350k off. How cheap can they be?

That's unbelievable. I just looked it up and 7 players below Paxton got more than 1.35 million, and 7 players below Eliopoulos got more than 1 million. Teams paying those players included Oakland, KC, and Pittsburgh, and of course New York and Boston. Again, unbelievable.

And more from Bob Elliott:

The Jays made a slot money offer of $530,000 to Eliopoulos. The offer was denied and a request was made for $700,000.

http://www.canadianbaseballnetwork.com/node/6555

FML

[Schad]

I can believe a lot of horrible things about our ownership, but I can't believe that they'd reject $700k. I just can't, because that would be the dumbest **** thing I'd ever heard. If true, it looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

[-MetA4-]

This is a bit amusing to me because if anyone has been on Battersbox (Schad I think you got an account there?) they'd see that I've been arguing up the ass for about 2-3 days now, and literally everything I've said has become more and more apparent as fact.

Yet theres still a handful of people that want to seriously argue that we had the money all along and just decided not to hand it out.

[Hoopstarr]

There seems to apologists all over the Jays blogosphere and they're starting to realize that the first instincts of the "reactionaries" were accurate all along.

[Mustard_Tiger]

Stoeten (and others) need to stop being such apologists for this horrible ownership...that's all I know.