Compilation Board - July 2 International Free Agent Class

Saturday, June 29, 2013
by: Ben Embry

Hey, I've noticed a couple rankings, one from Ben Badler at Baseball America and one from Kiley McDaniel at Scout.com/Fox Sports, pop up this week regarding available free agents for next week's international signing day.  I thought it'd be fun to do a compilation board ala my amateur draft board from earlier this month.

For those unfamiliar, here's my crude and possibly somewhat inaccurate description: players 16 years of age or more from virtually every baseball playing country excluding Canada, Puerto Rico, and Japan (off the top of my head) are not subject to the Rule 4 Amateur Draft held every June but rather is a free agent eligible to sign with anyone.  Similar in some respects to the spending restrictions imposed on teams in the draft, there are restrictions to how much each team can spend during this signing period.  The spending allotment is based on last year's record, with the Houston Astros having the largest bonus pool with over $4.9 million and the Washington Nationals have the smallest with a little less than $1.85 million.  New York has about $1.88 million.  Spending allotment can be traded (subscription required) weirdly enough.  Even though they sign this month, they will not appear in professional games for another year, per MLB rules.  In the mean time, they practice at their teams' training complexes and attend fall instructional league.

Though players are eligible to sign with whoever they'd like, historically they often are steered in the direction of a specific team by their trainers, who are very influential parts of their lives and have pre-existing relationships with teams.  Thus you'll see predictions of "who ends up with who" pay off much more often than, say, amateur mock drafts. Spending limits, explained further in the next paragraph, will start to alter that practice with the top talents because there is a rather large disparity between what teams can spend.  After the board, I'll discuss who the Yankees are connected with.

As mentioned previously, the Yankees have very little to spend compared to the rest of the league.  Because they finished with the 3rd best record last year, they will have the third smallest allotment, just a shade under $1.9 million.  For the sake of comparison, they had $2.9 million to spend last year and spent $1.9 million alone on Luis Torrens.  Technically, they can spend as much as they want but exceeding the spending limit will result in penalties affecting next year.

Let me quickly get to the board and then I'll wrap it up:

1	Gleyber Torres	SS	Venezuela
2	Eloy Jimenez	OF	Dominican Republic
3	Rafael Devers	3B	Dominican Republic
4	Leonardo Molina	OF	Dominican Republic
5	Luis Encarnacion	3B	Dominican Republic
6	Micker Zapata	OF	Dominican Republic
7	Yeltsin Gudino	SS	Venezuela
8	Marcos Diplan	P	Dominican Republic
9	Jose Herrera	C	Venezuela
10	Jesus Lopez	2B	Nicaragua
11	Yeyson Yrizarri	SS	Dominican Republic
12	Marten Gasparini	SS	Italy
13	Carlos Hiciano	SS	Dominican Republic
14	Lewin Diaz	1B	Dominican Republic
15	Erick Julio	P	Colombia
16	Greifer Andrade	OF	Venezuela
17	Carlos Herrera	SS	Venezuela
18	Erling Moreno	P	Colombia
19	Christian Vasquez	OF	Venezuela
20	Mayky Perez	P	Dominican Republic
21	Freddy Rodriguez	OF	Dominican Republic
22	Anderson Franco	3B	Dominican Republic
23	Ricardo Sanchez	P	Venezuela
24	Luis Tirado	SS	Dominican Republic
25	Michael de Leon	SS	Dominican Republic
26	Edgar Arredondo	P	Mexico
27	Franley Mallen	SS	Dominican Republic
28	Nicolas Pierre	OF	Dominican Republic
29	Jose Almonte	OF	Dominican Republic
30	Jen-Ho Tseng	P	Taiwan
31	Wilson Amador	SS	Dominican Republic
32	Ali Sanchez	C	Venezuela
33	Yohan Aybar	OF	Dominican Republic
34	Luis Barrios	P	Colombia
35	Carlos Talavera	OF	Venezuela
36	Luis Carpio	SS	Venezuela
37	Yonauris Rodriguez	SS	Dominican Republic
38	Bryan Lizardo	3B	Dominican Republic

 

Badler has linked to Yankees to OF Leonardo Molina who, as you can see, is well regarded by both scouts.  He was ranked 5th on both boards.  I would suspect that he will be the only name on this last they get to sign, but its possible they add one more.  He's a 6'2" 165 lb right-handed CF who appeared on scouting radars relatively later than most.  As you can imagine, speed is his strength and power is his question mark.  And one other note about Molina: he's not actually eligible to sign until he turns 16 on August 1st.

There are 2 opposing schools of thought about how teams should spend their money.  You can either go after high profile, high demand athletes like Molina or you can snatch up several lower profile players hoping at least one of them exceeds expectations.  I could see going either way and am not opposed to how the Yankees approached it last year and seemingly how they're going to approach it this year, (signing two big bonus guys).

Now Is Not The Time To Panic

Friday, June 21, 2013

by: Ben Embry

"Just everyone relax!  If we panic, we die!  Ok?!  Ok, let's check the wind direction.  No, no, no..shut up!  Everyone shut up!  We have some very tough decisions to make in the next couple of hours, maybe even months..."

- Will Ferrell from Anchorman, deleted scene  

One month ago, it looked like the Yankees were in position to take off and have a special season.  They were 28-16 and ready for their injured superstars to start rolling off the DL.  Granderson was already back with Teixeira and Youkilis knocking on the door and Jeter and A-Rod off somewhere in the distance.  That was then, and now the picture is much bleaker.  The team went 11-17 in the month following and are just 6 games above .500.  They fell from 1st in the AL East to 3rd, just 1.5 games up on Tampa and 3.5 games on last place Toronto.  Grandy, Tex, and Youk are all back on the DL.  If we ever get to see a lineup featuring Jeter-Grandy-Tex-Cano-Rodriguez-Youkilis it will be with just two or three weeks left in the season.

The players that had buoyed the team are now struggling.  Vernon Wells is just 6-59 in June and appears lost at the plate.  Hafner is 5-42 (.119).  Overbay 7-32 (.219) with just 3 RBI.  Cano 14-64 (.219).  Ichiro still hasn't gotten going and has given us no reason to think he will.  How about the pitchers?  Sabathia: diminished.  Andy: old.  Hughes: overmatched.  Chamberlain: lost.  The offense is futile and the staff just isn't good enough to carry the team on their backs.  In another month, we could easily be in last place.

The Yankee Universe is clamoring for change.  "Trade, trade, trade!!!"  But who?  For what?  Most of the guys struggling are un-tradeable.  Wells, Hafner, and Ichiro have no trade value.  Overbay little-to-none.  The left side of our infield is as unspectacular as any in the league but Jeter is close to returning and we have almost $40 million worth of 3B that are due to come back at some point.  Catcher?  Chris Stewart has the second best batting average on the team.

We have some pitching depth.  Hughes has been terrible but consensus thinking says he should fair better in a new environment and still has some value.  We have Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova waiting in the wings who could take his place.  But I'm never a fan of trading pitching.  Not with aging starters who may need a DL stint.  No one would be surprised if David Phelps falls apart and needed to be replaced.  It's just not wise, in my opinion.

The best thing to do, which is seemingly what they're going to do, is nothing.  Or at least nothing right now.  Though Yankee fans don't want to hear this, it has to be said: this kind of season has been coming for a long time.  Decline was inevitable.  Giving mega contracts to aging stars results in the unavoidable situation of sharp decline.  You either keep spending or you accept the fate.  And despite the belief that Yankee pockets are bottomless, eventually the spending has to stop.  We're lucky this didn't happen sooner, frankly.  The only thing Cashman & co. can do is avoid totally bottoming out.

Now I don't want to give up on the season.  No one does...not fans, management, or ownership.  This year could still be salvaged, but mortgaging the future to further delay the inevitable would be foolish.  If this is the part of the roller coaster ride that features sharp descent, the best we can do is hang on and wait for the course correction.  Allow the ride to smoothen out, because it will.  With intelligent management and efficient use of capital, the franchise can come back stronger than ever.  We need to stockpile for the future instead of just living for today.  I just ask this: let's stick with the team through the bad times, whether they're years away or have already started.

The Athletics Deserve Better than O.co

June 19, 2013

by: Ben Embry

Has everyone head the story of the sewage system at O.co Stadium backing up into the Athletics' and visitors' locker rooms over the weekend?  Pretty shocking in today's age of sparking new ballparks in almost every market that we still have a franchise slumming it in a building notorious for shitters backing up to the point that millionaire ballplayers have to evacuate their locker room.  This 47 yr old stadium hasn't aged nearly as gracefully as Dodger Stadium or Wrigley Field and is way out of place in the today's MLB.  But the Athletics are banished there by commissioner Bud Selig in perpetuity, or at least until the old man retires.

There is actually an easy, obvious solution on the table.  The city of San Jose, just 35 miles from the Athletics' current home, has been actively courting professional baseball and the A's are a natural fit.  City planners already have plans for a ballpark.  According to the website Pro Baseball for San Jose, (www.probaseballforsanjose.com), a new baseball team would result in 1,000 new jobs and $130 million annually to the local economy.  But unless a major federal mandate is reversed, San Jose will never experience that economic impact.

San Jose wants the Athletics and the Athletics want (and need, quite frankly) San Jose.  So what's the impediment?  There are two: the San Francisco Giants and Bud Selig.  The Giants own market territory rights of San Jose and are thus given veto rights that prohibit any team from relocating there.  They were given this right in 1990 when they threatened to relocate because, among other things, they were in disadvantageous situation with their antiquated ballpark at the time, Candlestick Park, (sound familiar?)  As compensation for not moving, the Giants received a new ballpark and expansive market rights that included nearby San Jose.

As Major League commissioner, Bud Selig has the ability to arbitrate the situation and allow all parties to come to a satisfying agreement.  What does he do to help the situation?  Appoint a committee to research the situation and report back to him his findings.  That committee was appointed in 2009.  They have made no report, because Selig doesn't want one.  For one thing, the idea that the commissioner had to appoint a group of people to prepare a report addressing the problem is ridiculous.  Any thick headed rube can see the logical thing to do is allow the A's to move to San Jose and compensate the Giants for their loss of market share.  Hell, give them some money and the rights to Oakland since the A's won't need it anymore.  All they want is a ballpark that people will come to without the fear of passing out from breathing noxious sewage gas.

Bud Selig is too much of a limp noodle, do nothing commissioner to take on the task of arbitrating a solution.  He's concerned with pacifying Giants ownership and any owners afraid that such a decision would set a precedence that could harm their territorial rights, (Hal Steinbrenner to name one), more so than doing the right thing.

Further, MLB has a convenient little federal antitrust decision that makes it virtually impervious to legal actions like the one the city of San Jose announced this week that it would seek.  So the A's will continue to languish in O.co in front terrible crowds and the San Jose community will continue to NOT earn $130 million in annual revenues.  Thank you, Bud Selig, for continuing to show me why you are my most despised commissioner of any professional sport of all time.  You are spineless and incapable of making a sound judgement for fear of petty repercussions.  That is your legacy.

Michael Pineda: Yankees Top Prospect

June 11, 2013

by: Ben Embry

As spring gives way to summer and divisional races begin to take shape, teams start to look toward either the trade market or their farm system for difference makers to enhance their rosters.  New York has successfully promoted guys like Preston Claiborne and found several working pieces from other teams such as Reid Brignac...ok, I know that was a stretch.  But anyways, while the biggest boost of the season will come from the plethora of injured all-stars on the DL, there is one prospect playing in the minors right now that could be a huge help this year.  It's not Gary Sanchez or Mason Williams or Tyler Austin...those guys are still a couple years away.  No, the best prospect in the farm system and the one closest to the majors is Michael Pineda.

Anybody remember him?  The guy we traded for 17 months ago and was supposed to be our #2 starter yet still hasn't thrown a pitch wearing pinstripes yet?  Yeah, he's close to returning to the bigs and debuting for the Yankees.  But do we know what to expect?  And how will team management treat him: like a key member of the staff returning from injury or a prospect who's finally knocking on the big club's door?

According to River Ave. Blues, Pineda allowed two hits in 4.1 scoreless innings in his first rehab start. He struck out four and walked one. He was on a 65-70 pitch limit.  His fastball reached 95 MPH while sitting at 92-93 early, 90-91 late.  The 30-day rehab window is officially underway and will expire on Monday, June 8th.  It all sounds encouraging, but like any good prospect, there are no guarantees.  We simply won't know what to expect until he gets here if he gets here at all.

Personally, at the very least it sounds like he could make some spot starts as injuries inevitably take their toll.  But the question is, what if he makes it through this next month and flashes the stuff that made him an All-Star in Seattle?  Should room be made for him in the rotation?  Without injuries to make the decision for them, who should the Yankees remove?  The candidates are obvious: Hughes and Phelps.  David has had the better season statistically but Phil is the more gifted pitcher and he's just months from free agency.  I would move Phelps to the pen as I think Hughes gives us a better chance to win going forward.

Optimistic that Pineda will contribute to this team in 2013 and the future increases daily.  Note that's a fairly mild statement, because it was intended to be.  Expectations after the trade was that he would be an All-Star like he had been for the Mariners.  Then he struggles in Spring Training.  So maybe he'll just be a mid to back-end rotation guy...then we find out he has a significant shoulder injury that will keep him out at least a year.  Suddenly you think he may never pitch for the Yankees.  If he gives this team anything, that's a bonus in my opinion.  And if he even so much as becomes a regular starter, that's worth rejoicing.

2013 MLB Draft: Review

Well the 2013 draft has come and gone.  The lives of 1,216 young players were changes forever...or not.  Ok, so a lot of them won't sign.  Quite frankly there's a few drafted by Boston that I'd like to see go to college, (Jordan Sheffield, Ryan Boldt, Derrick Beauprez, Nick Longhi, and Jon Denney, though I imagine JD is likely ticketed for Beantown).

As I said in my 1st round recap on Friday, I set up a scoring system based on the 190 players in my compulation board.  So I've tallied up the final scores and posted below.  The top rated player was worth 1000 pts and the 190th player was worth 100.  Scores will be adjusted after the signing deadline.

Rank	Team	Total
1	COL	3984
2	BOS	3516
3	OAK	3463
4	CHC	3329
5	SD	3174
6	ARI	2976
7	PHI	2781
8	PIT	2685
9	MIA	2501
10	MIN	2454
11	NYM	2416
12	NYY	2397
13	HOU	2366
14	TB	2339
15	CLE	2266
16	CIN	2242
17	KC	2174
18	DET	2162
19	TOR	2081
20	STL	1993
21	CHW	1805
22	SEA	1774
23	BAL	1605
24	WAS	1484
25	TEX	1473
26	LAD	1468
27	ATL	1465
28	SF	1365
29	MIL	1185
30	LAA	743

You'll notice the Yanks are 12th, which is probably better than how they would have ranked had I done this list last year.  They were in 5th place after day 1, thanks to the two extra first round picks.  That undoubtedly buoyed them as they only added two more players fr the list, Mike O'Neill and Cal Quantrill, the rest of the draft.

Boston and Oakland went nuts on day 2, snatching up a ton of my top 190, but Colorado finished with a flourish and overtook the two AL teams thanks mostly to drafting Serrano.  I doubt he'll sign so they will be adjusted accordingly.

The fifth player that New York added from my list is likely headed to school.  Cal Quantrill is signed with Stanford and their players are typically tough to sign.  Taking him in the 26th round was an obvious shot in the dark that every team takes with talented tough-to-sign kids in that range.

Surprisingly there were 7 players from the top 190 that went undrafted:

35	Connor Jones
171	Zach Farmer
178	Kevin Davis
181	Keegan Thompson
185	Ben Wetzler
188	Chris Oakley
190	Josh Dezse

All of these were surprises honestly.  There were 1,216 kids drafted...no one wanted to take a shot at Connor Jones?  Even a kid who's said he won't sign is worth taking a shot on at the end.  Keegan Thompson was an important piece if the USA Baseball U18 championship team last summer...not worth a roll of the dice?  I don't really get that but oh well...

Though I hadn't heard of many of the players New York selected prior to the draft, there were some intriguing picks.  David Palladino is an absolute hoss at 6'9" and is committed to LSU, (currently a JUCO player).  He's got great velocity and I can see him being one of those guys who, if he goes to LSU, comes "out of nowhere" and jumps into the first round next year.  Brandon Thomas from Georgia Tech is also intriguing.  He's an on-base guy who has power as well and is a plus runner.  He was drafted by Pittsburgh in the 4th round last year and likely would have been drafted higher this year if his season hadn't been cut short by mono.

I can't do a Yankees draft recap without mentioning Andy...oops, sorry...Josh Pettitte, who NY took in the 37th round.  I'd kinda like to see the Yanks sign him if or no other reason than to honor Andy but I think it's probably in the kids best interest to go to Baylor and see what happens in 3 years time.  You know NY will take him again in the late rounds if he can't improve his stock.

Ok, that's all for 2013.  Next year I think I'll expand to 250.  It's been fun.  Hope y'all got something out of this.  I'll check back in with final 2013 scores next month and 2014 draft stuff probably in November.

2013 MLB Draft: Day 1 Reaction

Friday, June 7, 2013
By: Ben Embry

The first 2 rounds, comprising 73 picks, are in the books and despite the bemoaning of futile mock drafts on twitter, I'd say there weren't many shocking picks here.  Houston taking Mark Appel was a micro-shocker.  Though he was the consensus best player available and has been long rumored as one of the guys the Astros were looking at, it seemed as though Jon Gray and even Colin Moran were the more likely choices.  But Houston takes Appel and, as I tweeted last night, they end up with both Appel and Carlos Correa, (the two guys they seemed to favor with the number one pick last year), in their farm system.  You have to be pleased with that if you're a 'Stros fan.

Kris Bryant going to the Cubs at pick 2 was also a micro-shocker because it was long believed they would target a college P since their farm system is so devoid of P talent.  Colorado took Jon Gray and it will be interesting to see if he can develop into a top of the rotation guy for a franchise that's seldomly been able to do that.  Trey Ball going to Boston surprised me some because they supposedly loved Austin Meadows but even though he was available took Ball, whom I had never heard connected to Boston, instead.  The first true shocker was KC taking Hunter Dozier who was generally considered a 2nd round talent at pick 8.  It was an obvious money saver at the time and it appears to have paid off since they took Sean Manaea at 34 and should be able to use the savings to sign the Indiana State lefty.  So it was an unconventional way to do it, but they ended up with 2 good talents with those picks.

I scored the draft last night with a metric where each player from 1 - 190 on my comp board was assigned a value.  Number 1 ranked Appel was worth 1000 and number 190 ranked Josh Desze was worth 100.  The weighting variance diminished the further down the board you went.  Based on this metric, Miami scored the highest thanks to their 4 picks, all of which were on my board.  The Marlins were followed by Pittsburgh, Colorado, Tampa Bay and the Yankees.  The worst teams were Washington, followed by San Francisco, the Angels, the Braves and Milwaukee.  What's notable here is that San Fran had multiple picks and used the first, (number 25 overall), on Christian Arroyo who was number 85 on my list, and 2 players later on who were off my list all together.  I had a tweet already to go last night about this but had to dump it.  It goes like this: "Teams were told to phone in their picks, #Giants apparently took that figuratively instead of literally".

Before I get to the Yankees picks, I have to address a minor heartbreak that I suffered last night.  As a fan of both the Yankees and the Arkansas Razorbacks, I came into the draft with the faint hope of Ryne Stanek sliding to the Yanks.  He was a consensus top 5 pick and after getting picked apart during the season, he slid to the mid-first round range on boards.  He actually defied expectations and made it to 26 where NY could have taken him but they passed, taking Eric Jagielo instead.  Ryne didn't make it to NY's second pick at 32, instead going to Tampa Bay at 29.  I wish Ryne the best of luck in his career.

Ok, on to the Yankees picks...I was pretty pleased with them overall, save for them passing on Stanek at 26.  I'll get to them all individually, but in general I think the three first rounders all could be slotted in the 7-12 range of the Yankees top 25 prospect list.

Pick 26: Eric Jagielo (3B, Notre Dame)

Jagielo has been linked to the Yankees for weeks and the Yanks were rumored lately to prefer a college bat with their first pick.  I like Jagielo, as he is a power hitting 3B who has a chance to stick there and move quickly through the system.  He is perhaps the best combination of best player available and a pick of need for NY in that area of the draft.

Pick 32: Aaron Judge (OF, Fresno State)

Aaron has been linked to New York even longer than Jagielo.  He's an incredibly gifted OF that was athletic enough to play CF for Fresno despite being 6'7".  He's got power for days and is a classic boom or bust pick.  I'm on record as saying that's they type of player NY should be going after because they depend on their farm system less than any team in the league.  Though I would argue they do a better job of developing and using prospects than people give them credit for, their core competency is signing proven, big money free agents.  Anything they get from their system is a bonus.  Judge is one of those guys so talented he could force his way into the Bronx.

Pick 33: Ian Clarkin (SP, H.S.)

I would say I experienced 3 disappointments last night.  The first was NY passing on Stanek.  The second was hearing a kid we're about to give a 7-figure bonus say in a pre-recorded interview that he hated the Yankees and his favorite sports moment ever was when they lost the 2001 World Series and he cried tears of joy.  (The third I'll get to later). Ok, lots to dissect here; first and foremost, it's embarrassing for a kid you just picked to diss your team on national TV.  Sorry but it is.  Secondly, he had to have been 5 or 6 at the time so I'm not sure I'm even buying he story.  But, despite this moment, he deserves a pass.  He's a kid and its not as if he said it AFTER being taken by the Yanks.  As long as he signs, (and I'll have a little doubt about that until it happens), we should all let it slide.  Let this be a lesson to all draft prospects asked to pre-record a segment for the broadcast: if you hate a particular team, keep that to yourself in the event that team actually selects you.  As far as the actual talent, I like the kid.  He's been on draft boards forever and has exhibited projectibility and quality stuff.  Scouting reports I've read say he has a 3 pitch mix which includes a power curve and a good change.

Pick 66: Gosuke Katoh (2B, H.S.)

Third disappointment of the night was not knowing who in the heck our second round pick was.  My immediate reaction was: NNNOOOOOOOO!!!  Jon Denney was still on the board and NY had also been rumored to be on him for a while.  I would have loved that pick and we would have won the night based on my aforementioned scoring metric.  But instead they took a kid off the board.  I asked a friend of mine over at Big League Futures who calmed me down a bit: he said he's a good fielder with good speed and an Ichiro-like swing.  He said he thought he was a 3rd talent.  So that was reassuring.  Then I saw he was rated 189 on the BA 500, so that's not terrible.  Ultimately, you've got to expect picks like that the further you get into rounds.  And last night, as I was lying in bed still not totally comfortable with he pick, I had this thought: they may have worked out a pre-draft deal with Katoh where he would go under slot and perhaps they can string some money together and make a 7-figure offer to their next pick at 103, (Denney perhaps?).  It would take about a $500 thousand discount from Katoh, which would be almost 60% of his slot, but even $345,000 would not be too bad for GK.

Ok, I will have a quick final wrap up blog on Sunday after the draft has concluded with my final grades for all 30 teams as well as my thoughts on the rest of the Yankees picks.