The 2020 MLB Draft will start this Wednesday in a modified five round format to account for COVID-19 and its impact on the league. To keep it succinct - I do not think this is in the best long term interests of the sport. Of course, while you have to avoid ruin in the short term to worry about the long term, I don’t think the sport of baseball is in any real danger of that (except from the team owners who seem hellbent on falling further behind the NBA and NFL).
The A’s, as you probably know, are at the center of this considering their decision to not pay minor leaguers, though they have since decided against this and to move forward with paying them. As a human, I am happy John Fisher decided to do this, as even $400/week can help immensely when you are making very little money otherwise. Of course, I would love for the players to be paid more than that, but it’s better than nothing. As a fan, however, I am certainly worried that the always cost conscious A’s just put a huge target on their back and that moving forward with the payments will not undo the PR damage around the league. This will manifest itself in several ways, including draft prospects likely floating higher signing bonus numbers to the A’s than they do to other organizations. I would not be surprised if the A’s (or Angels) also cut deals by significantly overdrafting players in order to save money.
Anyway, venturing into our happy world and assuming these things will not factor into the draft, let’s prognosticate on who I like more than consensus as well as who I think the A’s might pick. They have the 26th pick overall, followed by numbers 58, 98, 127, and 157 for a total bonus pool amount of $5,241,500. I will reiterate that, as always, I am not a professional, though I did recently read Future Value by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel and highly recommend it.
I think the top options for the A’s here are college hitters with tools and, though they haven’t often lead with college pitching, it’s also an option. They’ve recently leaned tools, some modicum over performance, and some defensive chops over their previous reliance on pure performance, and the only two pitchers they’ve taken in the first round in the last 10 years are Sonny Gray and AJ Puk, both of whom slid down the board on draft day. They’ve also typically stayed away from taking chances on Northeast and Midwest players early in the draft, preferring the Southeast, Texas, and California.
This leaves me with a handful of options for projecting who the A’s will pick:
- Jordan Westburg, SS, Mississippi St
- Dillon Dingler, C, Ohio St
- Aaron Sabato, 1B, UNC
- Casey Martin, SS, Arkansas
- Freddy Zamora, SS, Miami
- Nick Loftin, SS, Baylor
- Justin Foscue, 2B/3B, Mississippi St
I think Zamora would be a bit of an overdraft, though they haven’t been shy about that in the past (Matt Chapman, Richie Martin, Austin Beck, Kyler Murray, and Addison Russell were all considered reaches to varying degrees). Loftin feels a lot like Chad Pennington, while Westburg has major Logan Davidson vibes. Casey Martin is a tooled-up likely SS who sells out for power, but really struggled to start the year. Sabato is a right/right first baseman who has absolutely mashed in his first two years at UNC while showing plate discipline. Dingler is a converted C who doesn’t seem likely to reach the A’s, despite being defensively focused and robot umps seemingly inevitable.
There’s also a slew of college right handers, and picking from that group is nigh impossible as it will likely come down to a combination of who is available and who the A’s were able to see before the shutdown. The list includes, but is not limited to, Slade Cecconi, Bobby Miller, Chris McMahon, Tanner Burns, Carmen Mlodzinski, CJ Van Eyk, and Bryce Jarvis. Personally, Cecconi and Jarvis are the most appealing of that group.
I would be very happy with Dingler and satisfied with Zamora or Foscue, but ecstatic with either Pete Crow-Armstrong (HS CF) or Ed Howard (HS SS). Crow-Armstrong seems to be rising up boards late, while Howard is falling for some reason, despite being a guaranteed shortstop with some feel for hitting who is about average in age for his class and from a cold weather state.
Dingler, PCA, and Howard are some of the best players that I seem to like more than the consensus, along with a slew of other players: Carson Tucker, Nick Yorke, Casey Schmitt, Alex Freeland, Werner Blakely, Ben Ramirez, Freddy Zamora, Carson Taylor, Chase Davis, Kyle Harrison, Stevie Emanuels, TJ Nichols, Kala’i Rosario, Jacob Misiorowski, Gino Groover, Grayson Hitt, Jaren Shelby, Jamal O’Guinn, Brandon McIlwain, Steven Ondina, Jordan Walker, Blake Dunn, Petey Halpin, Levi Prater, Tanner Murray.
We will certainly see how it plays out, and unfortunately, not all of the A’s problems can be solved tomorrow. I am getting more and more down on the A’s long term future, and a decent amount of that can be tied back to recent draft blunders. The most notable one is clearly picking Kyler Murray and then having to sit by and watch him tear up college football on his way to the Heisman and the number one pick in the NFL draft. The A’s did not receive anything from this pick except for some returned bonus money, but we’re going to suppose they received a compensatory pick in the 2019 Draft and consider what they may have done in that situation.
The A’s would have received the number 10 pick in the draft as compensation in this scenario, which would have resulted in a bonus pool of about $10,243,000, or $4,638,100 more than they had (Note: the A’s traded what ended up being pick #40 in the Profar trade, which had a slot value of $1,856,700. What could have been…). I actually think the number 10 pick would have been the same, and the A’s would have picked Hunter Bishop. Michael Holmes, the Giants amateur director last year, came over from the A’s the prior winter and Bishop also definitely fits the A’s type as a toolsy collegiate position player with a chance to stay up the middle.
So what happens then? I’ve looked through a few mocks from right before the 2019 draft to figure out what this alternate scenario may have entailed. I think the Giants would have been picking between Jackson Rutledge and Bryson Stott, which works out rather nicely because the Phillies, who did take Stott, appear to be making the same decision. The Nationals are the next team truly affected since Rutledge was their pick, and it seems like the industry thought they would either take Matthew Allan or George Kirby. Allan slid several rounds before the Mets scooped him up and met his bonus demands, so if the Nats took him, then the rest of the draft is relatively unaffected. If they take Kirby, then the Mariners are next in line. They were connected to several players before the draft, though some were off the board by this pick. It seems Kody Hoese and Anthony Volpe were both options, with more smoke around Volpe. If they take Volpe, then nothing else changes until the A’s pick. If they take Hoese, then it’s possible the Dodgers would then take Logan Davidson at number 25, leaving the A’s hanging.
It’s certainly possible the A’s would not have taken Davidson anyway after picking Bishop, who signed with the Giants for $600,000 under slot, and instead opted to move a high schooler down a bit. I’m not sure this would have happened, though, since the A’s have not gone underslot to their first round pick in recent memory. Instead, it seems likely they would have either opted to still take Davidson if he was available, take another college hitter such as Kameron Misner, or maybe tried to go below slot with this pick since they have done that with their second pick on several occasions. Looking through the A’s history, there isn’t exactly a similar situation, but they haven’t taken a high schooler with a pick in the competitive balance, supplemental first, or second rounds since Daniel Robertson in 2012. In addition to that, the only real rumors between the A’s and high school players last year was a last minute connection between them and Kyren Paris on FanGraphs’ last minute mock. Instead, I think it’s more likely they would have spent that money on players in rounds 3 through 5 and maybe even a couple of players past round 10.
Overall, this was a fun exercise and fairly instructive for me. It would certainly be nice for the A’s to have another 45+ FV hitter in the system, especially considering the A’s might be in trouble in a couple of years (more on that later), but it was not fated. And heck, maybe if Kyler Murray had made it into the A’s system, then he would be even better. Wouldn’t that be something?
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