Post-Draft, Pre-Signing Deadline Grades

by: Ben Embry

Ok, better late than never on this.  I meant to put this up over a week ago right after the draft was finished but I swear I hit a wall on covering the draft and I just couldn't take any more.  I set up a scoring system based on the 250 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 250th player was worth 1. Scores will be adjusted after the signing deadline because a lot of these guys don't sign.

Rank	Team	Total
1	HOU	2519
2	ARI	2034
3	CLE	2004
4	TOR	1973
5	CHC	1963
6	MIL	1924
7	MIA	1778
8	BOS	1775
9	CHW	1769
10	KC	1692
11	MIN	1549
12	PHI	1484
13	SD	1469
14	COL	1458
15	SF	1333
16	WAS	1270
17	NYM	1227
18	ATL	1197
19	PIT	1151
20	LAA	1148
21	CIN	1147
22	DET	1141
23	SEA	1086
24	LAD	1003
25	TEX	983
26	OAK	981
27	STL	966
28	TB	833
29	NYY	736
30	BAL	215

As you see, the Yankees finished second to last which is understandable considering they had the second lowest bonus pool.  Not picking until 55th meant they watched all of the best players go by.  I do like our crop of players considering we didn't start picking until midway through the 2nd.  Sounds like Lindgren could be an elite reliever and re-draft Jordan Foley also has a really good shot at pitching out of the bullpen sometime soon.  Austin DeCarr was probably our favorite pick; prototype size with 3 pitch mix.  I suspect when I start looking at re-ranking the system's prospects, he and Lindgren will be top 20-25.

Looking at the league in general, Houston had a slam dunk draft.  It's not hard to do that, in theory, when you have the first overall pick and you pick first in every round.  But some teams can screw it up and I think they ended up with a nice haul with 4 of my top 50 players, (Brady Aiken, Derek Fisher, A.J. Reed, and Mac Marshall).  Arizona's being second is tenuous; they scored really well taking Jacob Bukauskas but everyone knows he's not signing.  So once the deadline passes and J.B. goes unsigned, I suspect they won't be second any longer.  Still, I like Touki Toussaint for them and think they had a nice draft.  And not surprisingly, Boston scored really well considering they had only the 17th largest draft pool available.  They had 11 players in my top 250 and I'm thinking 3-4 of them won't sign.  Still, not bad.  They somehow always make out good in the draft.

Ok, I'll be back in a few weeks with adjusted scores once all of the signings shake out.  Until then, feel free to hit me up on twitter at @thebronxempire or email me at info@thebronxempire.com with any thoughts, criticisms, whatever.  Have a good one!